Rock magnetic and petrographic characterization of prehistoric Amerindian ceramics from the dos Mosquises Island (los roques Venezuela)

Preliminary rock magnetic studies of 12 prehistoric Amerindian pottery shards (Dos Mosquises Island, Los Roques, Venezuela) have been carried out in order to characterize different clay sourcings and pottery manufaacturing techniques. Although these ceramics have been excavated in a single archeological site, stylistic features sort them out into three distinct groups: standardized, heterogeneous and unknown). Petrographic analyses appear-to be suitable to distinguishing clay sources. Scatter plots of initial magnetic susceptibility (MS) versus saturation isothermal remanent magnetization (SIRM) and natural remanent magnetization (NRM) reveal two data trends that categorize the three sets of samples into two main groups, namely heterogeneous and standarized/unknown. The SIRM versus NRM crossplot also relates the three styles of ceramics with pottery shards from other islands and prehistoric Amerindian cultures. Thermomagnetic curves provide valuable information about original firing conditions in variable redox atmospheres.