Obsidian Artifacts from Tell Hódmezővásárhely-Gorzsa (SE Hungary): Results of a Provenance Study Using pXRF

In total, 175 obsidian artifacts from Late Neolithic (Tisza culture) contexts at the tell site of Gorzsa in southeast Hungary were analyzed using a portable XRF device and the results were compared with the corresponding measurements made on geological samples from known European obsidian sources. The data support the conclusion that most of the obsidian used at Gorzsa originated in the Carpathian 1 (C1 – Cejkov-Viničky) source area in southern Slovakia, with just one piece traceable to the C2E (Mád-Erdőbénye) source area in northeast Hungary. However, four artifacts from Gorzsa that visually resemble C2E obsidian could not be matched with any known Carpathian, or indeed European, obsidian source and may derive from a previously undocumented source of obsidian or a very fine-grained obsidian-like rock.