Blue pigments are absent in Palaeolithic art. This has been ascribed to a lack of naturally occurring blue pigments or low visual salience of these hues. Using a suite of archaeometric approaches, the authors identify traces of azurite on a concave stone artefact from the Final Palaeolithic site of Mühlheim-Dietesheim, Germany. This represents the earliest use of blue pigment in Europe. The scarcity of blue in Palaeolithic art, along with later prehistoric uses of azurite, may indicate that azurite was used for ar…

A few years ago, an article on Roman folding knives in Denmark would have been unfeasible, as this small and distinct group of artifacts had not yet been identified. However, the increasing use of metal detectors in Denmark has led to the discovery of numerous new artifact types, some readily identifiable and others less so. The identification process of this new type began with the discovery of a complete folding knife in Gl. Rye cast in copper alloy. While initially proposed to be of Roman origin, this attributi…

This preprint presents the core concepts of the CHIPS database, the project of a global repository of reference chemical data related to the archaeometallurgy of iron. Archaeometallurgists interested in iron do not currently have access to extensive chemical reference data repositories. Yet chemical data is of crucial importance both for reconstructing ancient technical systems and economic structures, by determining the operating conditions and the exchange networks. We are seeking to meet this need with the CHIP…

The paper examines three late nineteenth–early twentieth century Pacific Northwest coast objects—a Nuu-chah-nulth kuxmin (bird rattle), a Haida sGaaga (medicine man) figure, and a Kwakwaka’wakw or Wuikinuxv wooden model of a totem pole—from the collections of the Ehlers museum in Haderslev, Denmark. Drawing on multiple sources and epistemologies and structuring the study as a weaving of different narratives and perspectives, we investigate the identity of the objects, the materials and pigments used in their makin…

Illustrations of lithic artefacts are an abundant source of morphological and technological information for those interested in our human past, trusted as faithful reproductions of the selected artefacts in question. Despite the considerable epistemic work which lithic illustrations (and illustrators) are expected to do, usually little information is available regarding the illustrator’s technical skill; thus it remains unknown whether drawings produced by illustrators of differing technical skill are comparable, …