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The chemical and mineralogical composition of ceramic bodies, glazes and pigments, as well as the firing temperatures of main groups of Austrian period painted pottery excavated at the Belgrade Fortress on the territory of Serbia, two groups of Malhornware and one group of Anabaptist faience, were determined by a combination of powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and micro-Raman spectroscopy. Investigated pottery was uncovered in the same archaeological context and dated the end of 17 th /first decade of 18 th century. The obtained mineralogical and chemical composition shows the similarities between the Malhornware groups that indicate a similar production technology. Use of calcareous clay fired at temperatures in the range 850-900 o C indicates a different production technology for the Anabaptists faience. The compositional data treatment by multivariate statistical analysis reveals heterogeneity in the Anabaptist faience group of samples, suggesting potential interactions between the local potters and the Anabaptist communities.

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BackgroundPortable energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (pEDXRF) spectrometry analysis was applied for the characterisation of archaeological ceramic findings from three Neolithic sites in Serbia. Two dimension reduction techniques, principal component analysis (PCA) and scattering matrices-based dimension reduction were used to examine the possible classification of those findings, and to extract the most discriminant features.ResultsA decision-making procedure is proposed, whose goal is to classify unknown ceramic findings based on their elemental compositions derived by pEDXRF spectrometry. As a major part of decision-making procedure, the possibilities of two dimension reduction methods were tested. Scattering matrices-based dimension reduction was found to be the more efficient method for the purpose. Linear classifiers designed based on the desired output allowed for 7 of 8 unknown samples from the test set to be correctly classified.ConclusionsBased on the results, the conclusion is that despite the constraints typical of the applied analytical technique, the elemental composition can be considered as viable information in provenience studies. With a fully-developed procedure, ceramic artefacts can be classified based on their elemental composition and well-known provenance.

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