Professor Pia Petrika's PADIE project (funded with €1.3M) finally confirmed Monte Viso as a major jadeite source at 2,400m altitude in the Italian Alps. Amazingly, August Damour had correctly identified this back in the 1880s-90s, but geologists ignored him for decades. The team combined 25 years of Papua New Guinea ethnographic research with spectra radiometry to crack this ancient mystery.
PADIE project discovers jadeite sources at 2,400m altitude in Italian Alps
Site mentioned
📍 Monte Viso
Key facts
- Professor Pia Petrika led the international interdisciplinary PADIE project, originally funded with one million euros plus 300,000 additional euros
- In 2003, Petrika and his team found the first evidence for high-altitude jadeite exploitation at over 2,400 meters altitude
- They used systematic field walking in the high Alps, building on 25 years of ethnographic research in Papua New Guinea
- The sourcing technique of spectra radiometry (operated by Michelle Era) was used as a non-destructive method to characterize the material
- August Damour in the 1880s-1890s had correctly identified Monte Viso as a source but was ignored by subsequent geologists
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