Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ATAM is a Division of the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program

SOME TERMINOLOGY

"Provenance" and "provenience" are terms that are used differently depending on the context and/or the training of the user. Some archaeologists use the two terms interchangeably; others distinguish between the place where an artifact was manufactured, the precise source of the raw material used to make it, and the exact position where the artifact was recovered in an archaeological excavation. In the context of museum studies or the art market, "provenance" has yet another meaning.

For example:

"Provenience: the place of origin of a specimen" (Jolly and White, Physical Anthropology and Archaeology 1995: 468)

"Provenience (provenance): the geographical or geological origin or source of an artifact" (Rice, Pottery Analysis 1987: 480)*

Provenience: archaeological context, or the "horizontal and vertical position" within the surrounding sediments in an excavation (Renfrew and Bahn, Archaeology: Theories Method and Practice 1996:46)

Provenance: the documented history of an object, from its site and country of origin to where it was recovered in modern times, plus its history of ownership (private collector, dealer, museum, etc.)

*n.b. Within these web pages, "provenance" and "provenience" are used interchangeably as defined by Rice (1987): the geographical or geological source of an artifact.

Copyright 1999. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.