Middle Chalcolithic ochre in pottery production from the Jordan Valley: a case study from Tel Tsaf, Israel

The issue of ochre and its connections with pottery during the Chalcolithic has not been thoroughly investigated. This article presents a pilot study of six ochre samples extracted from pottery shards found at the well-stratified site of Tel Tsaf, Jordan Valley, Israel. The site plays a key role in discussions concerning the Middle Chalcolithic. The study demonstrates the potential of ochre analysis to determine the resource management strategies, social choices, and addition as temper in production of pottery vessels, which has not been previously applied to Chalcolithic samples. SEM-EDS, XRD and Mössbauer spectroscopy were used to characterize the chemical, mineralogical and structural features of each sample. In the second stage, analytical tools were used to assess the samples similarity and explore potential natural sources. The broad geochemical affinities among several samples suggests that similar ochre sources could have been used, although broader provenance studies remain limited due to scarce reference data and databases for Levantine ochres. Nevertheless, these results, representing the first systematic analysis of ochre from Chalcolithic pottery, provide a foundation for future research and highlight the need to expand pottery studies to a new level, enabling a better understanding of production organization through temper—in this case, ochre.