Clues to African archaeology found in lead isotopes

Microscopic specs of lead are offering clues about the enormous cultural changes that swept across northern Africa a thousand years ago.

At The University of Arizona in Tucson, a young archaeologist is analyzing lead traces in artifacts to shed light on the relatively little-understood archaeology of Africa, especially the period marked by the spread of the new religion of Islam.

Thomas R. Fenn, a doctoral student in the UA anthropology department, is unraveling evidence of centuries-old trade patterns across the Sahara Desert by identifying smelted metal artifacts, mainly copper, found in the continent's sub-Saharan regions.

Fenn will report the results of his work ("Getting to the source of the problem: Lead isotope analysis and provenance determination of ancient African copper artifacts") on Sunday, March 26, at 2 p.m., U.S. Eastern Time at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Atlanta. Fenn's presentation is in the Georgia World Congress Center, Room C-108.