Petrographical differentiation between Palaeozoic oolitic ironstones from France, Belgium and Germany and application to the provenance study of archaeological artefacts – preliminary results

Samples of Palaeozoic oolitic ironstone beds susceptible of having being used as raw materials for Neolithic red ochres, have been petrographically investigated. The preliminary results of this first comparative analysis are quite encouraging: microfacies differences have been observed between Ordovician oolitic ironstones from Normandy (France), late Upper Devonian oolitic ironstones from Belgium and uppermost Lower Devonian to lowermost Middle-Devonian (Emsian-Eifelian) oolitic ironstones from the Eifel area (Germany). Petrographical differentiation is based upon contrasting grain size, mine... Mehr ...