First Ever Study Was Conducted On Imitation Amber Beads

Many studies in the recent pasts have strongly confirmed the symbolic and ornamental greatness of amber to peoples of European prehistoric era. This study recently conducted is the first to discuss he great potential of the prehistoric Iberian "imitation amber" beads which were made using the concept or say application of the repeated resinite coatings on the top of a bead core.

The authors of the study obtained the prehistoric beads from two historic sites located in Spain: two other beads from a cave tomb in La Molina site based at Sevilla, dating approximately from the 3rd millennium BC, and four prehistoric from a burial site located in Cova del Gegant which is not far from Barcelona, dating something around the 2nd millennium BC. Using the latest technique of infrared spectroscopy, along with an electron microscope probe combined with x-ray diffraction and also a spectroscopy, the authors were on the conclusion after the study which is based on the chemical composition and basic structure of all the discovered six bead coatings and cores. The beads which were discovered from the Cova del Gegant was having a mollusk shell core on them, also covered by a multilayered coating which was made up of the tree resins, which is most likely to be a pine. The beads of prehistoric time were covered by a coating of calcium-containing white deposit, which is likely to be precipitated post-burial extracted from the bone tissue of the buried individuals. The Pre-historic beads from the La Molina was also composed of a core which is covered by an amber-lookalike resin, as well as the two upper layers of the cinnabar and calcite which are probably coated on the beads post-burial. The authors of the study speculate these fine coating technologies on the beads which were used to imitate amber's translucence, color and shine, that since during this prehistoric period, amber, and important thing then was relatively rare and very high in the demand. Whereas, both the tomb sites are containing other exotic materials such as ivory, cinnabar and gold, so it's not exactly clarified that why the prehistoric individuals were able to obtain these rare goods which would use the amber alternatives. The authors speculate, mainly in the Cova del Gegant the place where "imitation amber" was found is directly along the true amber beads and the unscrupulous traders then may have replaced low-cost fake amber so as to cheat their users.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190501141115.htm