Nile River clayey materials in Sudan: Chemical and isotope analysis as reference data for ancient pottery provenance studies

This research aims to define a chemical, mineralogical and strontium isotope database for clayey materials collected along the Nile River banks (White Nile, Blue Atbara Main Rivers) in Sudan, be use prehistoric historic pottery provenance studies. The approach here adopted consists using tout court, without any pre-treatment, such as depuration from sand- silt-sized fractions, order maintain unaltered geochemical features of natural resources possibly available also ancient times production, thus avoiding possible preparation bias. Results indicate that sediments different sections display characteristic isotopic signature, representing an important discrimination tool applied ceramics human mobility