Obsidian, Rapa Nui, Mata'a (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rennie Horneman. Carl Lipo. Terry Hunt. Vincent Bonhomme.

Of the few resources available to prehistoric people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile), obsidian was plentiful. Yet out of the countless surviving shaped obsidian artifacts that are found on the island, virtually all of them are of the same general class, the mata’a. Mata’a are flaked obsidian stemmed tools formed from a hard-hammer primary flake. As relatively simple stemmed obsidian tools with wide blades, their form is similar to artifacts known as mata’a found on other Polynesian islands...