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The success of provenance analyses of basaltic rock artefacts relies on the availability of comprehensive geochemical–mineralogical data from samples of geological occurrences in order to facilitate a detailed comparison of artefacts and potential raw material sources. We present new results of a geochemical study of Neogene basaltic rocks in Lower and Upper Galilee, the Jordan Valley, the Hula Basin and the western Golan Heights. The results are intended to serve as a geological reference database for provenance analyses. We discuss the implications of these new geochemical data for the different approaches of previous provenance studies.

Abstract:The discovery of a basalt vessel workshop at Tel Hazor, one of the most important Iron Age sites in the Near East, marks a turning point in our understanding of stone artefact production and distribution during the 1 st millennium BCE. It offers a rare opportunity to characterize ancient raw material sources, production sites, and study production, trade and distribution systems. The basalt vessel workshop, the only one of its kind in the Levant, produced large quantities of bowl preforms and production waste. To better understand the production and distribution systems behind this specialized production centre, in 2011 we initiated a focused geochemical project that concentrated on the products of this unique workshop. We measured the major and trace element composition of 44 unfinished basalt vessels from the workshop and other contexts at Hazor, and can demonstrate that the majority of these objects were derived from one specific, geochemically well-constrained, basaltic rock source. Only a few bowls clearly deviate from this geochemical composition and were produced using raw material from other sources. Thus, we believe that one major quarry existed that supplied the Hazor workshop with the majority of the basaltic raw material. The products from this specific extraction site provide us with a "Hazor reference group" that can be used to test whether or not finished vessels from Hazor and contemporary sites were produced in the Hazor workshop.