Seminar Jean Milot

The emergence of metallurgy led to major technological improvements in past societies across multiple domains, such as agriculture, warfare, and trade. Investigating the production and circulation patterns of archaeological metals therefore provides a better understanding of the social, political, and economic organization of ancient civilizations. The development of mass spectrometry techniques, initially for the Earth sciences, has enabled the use of geochemical tracers for sourcing ancient metals, complementing traditional archaeological and historical approaches.
This presentation will draw on several case studies from my PhD and postdoctoral research, illustrating the application of trace element and isotopic analyses to determine the geological origin of ancient metals. These include Roman and Gallic iron production in southern France, Iberian silver sources used in Roman coinage, and Norse iron production and circulation in the North Atlantic region. Finally, I will present my current research on laser ablation–mass spectrometry for metal provenancing, with a particular focus on portable laser ablation (pLA) and its potential applications in both archaeometry and the Earth sciences.