Contemporary pottery from S. Vicente, Madeira (old captaincy of Machico): physical and chemical characterization

Abstract

Archaeological prospecting conducted in 2008 in Lameiros, São Vicente led to the identification of an unusual pottery production site with an oven, whose dating can go back to the 19th Century.

The pottery centre has supplied a considerable area in the northern part of Madeira Island through the local markets, merchants and coastal shipping. The typological universe includes containers for storage of liquids and solids, with printed and carved decoration, as well as tiles and bricks. A chemical characterization of samples of ceramic fragments obtained from the archaeological prospecting, as well as for local clays, was done by X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry for 13 different chemical elements. With the analytical results, chemical groups have been determined by a multivariate statistical analysis of the hierarchical clustering type. The results allowed us to form two groups, slightly different from each other, the first one with 47 samples, the second with 13 samples. Local clays are well included in the first group, even if relevant scattering has been observed in some minor elements, like calcium and manganese. The two groups differ especially in iron and titanium contents, with the other elements showing a quite similar chemical composition pattern. This work allowed us to obtain a full characterization of local pottery productions from São Vicente, in Madeira, helping in the determination of the origin of archaeological ceramic fragments found in that island and elsewhere.