Baseline Study of Rock Samples Collected From Paleolithic Archaeological Site of Attirampakkam, Tamil Nadu
Abstract In the present work, rock samples have been collected from Paleolithic archaeological site Attirampakkam, Tamil Nadu, India to assess the presence of mineralogical composition of samples using Fourier Transform infrared-spectroscopic (FT-IR) technique and these identified minerals are confirmed by using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) technique. From FT-IR spectra the presence of minerals such as quartz, orthoclase, microcline, kaolinite, montmorillonite, dolomite, aragonite, and palygroskite minerals are identified in rock samples. In this samples quartz is the majorly presented mineral and crystallinity index of quartz (SiO2) is estimated for all the samples by comparing the ratio of intensity of the characteristic peak at 778 and 695 cm− 1 with the corresponding ratio for a standard sample. In rock samples, calculated crystallinity index of quartz is greater than 1 and shows that the disordered in nature. Additionally some more minerals such as hematite and rutile are identified in rock samples by X-ray diffraction technique. This extensive study shows that the archeological rock samples are wide variation in mineral composition.