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Abstract
Dixcove is settled by the Ahanta ethnic group and is located about 42 kilometers west of Takoradi, the Western Regional Capital in Ghana. It was one of the earliest states on the Guinea Coast to have encountered and commercially interacted with Europeans during the early phase of the Atlantic contact era (circa, 1485 – 1620). The main objective of the study was to establish the principal mineral constituents of the over 55,000 potsherds recovered from archaeological excavations using Ion Beam Analysis (IBA), to enable identification of the source areas of the clays used to make them and possibly the potters who made them. The study revealed that the bulk of the potsherds (≥90%) contained minerals not unique to Dixcove and its immediate environs but from neighbourhoods approximately 6 - 11 kilometers north of it, suggesting they may have been procured via exchanges. The study also indicated that they were produced by different potter groups from those areas.
