Major and trace element characterization of prehistoric ceramic from Rezende archaeological site

Forty one ceramic fragment samples from Rezende archaeological site, Centralina city, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, were analyzed using INAA to determine the concentration of 24 chemical elements: As, Ba, Ce, Co, Cr, Cs, Eu, Fe, Hf, K, La, Lu, Na, Nd, Rb, Sb, Sc, Sm, Ta, Tb, Th, U, Yb and Zn. Three multivariate statistical methods, cluster, discriminant and principal components analysis were performed on the data set. The results showed that the large majority of the samples (94%) can be considered to be manufactured using the same source of raw material.