Lithic Analysis: Obsidian (Other Keyword)
1-25 (71 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years the rescues carried out in Guatemala City, specifically between zones 7 and 11, have uncovered several deposits containing huge amounts of obsidian artifacts. During the excavations of the Lake Miraflores project located on the San Juan causeway, zone 7, a huge deposit containing thousands of obsidian artifacts was uncovered. This deposit...
An Analysis of No Agua Obsidian (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Research in the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, Northern New Mexico" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The No Agua Peaks are a relative understudied obsidian source. An easily accessed and relatively large deposit area, one would expect No Agua obsidian to be frequently used and widely distributed. However, because of the source’s high silica content, desirability for and practicality of use of this...
An Analysis of Obsidian Consumption in the Postclassic Coatlan del Rio Valley (2018)
This poster presents a technological analysis of obsidian artifacts from two Aztec-period surface collections in the Coatlan del Rio Valley, located in what is now the modern state of Morelos, Mexico. The deposits are from residential terraces collected in 4 x 4 m units. Designs on ceramics collected with the lithics indicate primary occupation after 1400 CE. This study has two primary objectives: first, we technologically classify the artifacts in the collections; second, we evaluate whether...
Analysis of Obsidian Procurement from the Wurlitzer Site, Butte County, California (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation will show the results of XRF testing of obsidian artifacts from the Wurlitzer site in Butte County, California. The purpose of this testing is to create a better context from which to understand the site. Previous research has focused primarily on creating a chronology of the site using radiocarbon dating, point typologies, and comparison to...
An Analysis of the Polvorón Phase Lithic Assemblage from the Mesa Grande Platform Mound in the Phoenix Basin (2019)
This is an abstract from the "WHY PLATFORM MOUNDS? PART 1: MOUND DEVELOPMENT AND CASE STUDIES" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Polvorón phase (ca. A.D. 1350–1500), which occurred after the Hohokam Classic Period, was a time of cultural paradigm shifts. There are cultural continuities with the preceding Civano phase, like the use of Salado Polychromes, but people during the Polvorón practiced different cultural traditions, most notably the...
Aprovechamiento de la obsidiana por la población prehispánica del valle de Maltrata, Veracruz (2018)
El valle de Maltrata se ubica en un punto intermedio de una importante ruta de comunicación, comercio e intercambio entre la Costa del Golfo y el Altiplano Central. Esto permitió que los asentamientos prehispánicos asentados en el valle contaran con la posibilidad de disponer de algunos tipos de artefactos y materiales que no se encontraban en la región cercana. En cuanto a la obsidiana se refiere, la cercanía con los yacimientos del Pico de Orizaba permiten suponer que durante todo el...
Artisanal Diversification or “Multi-crafting” as Economic Strategy among Upper-Class Extra-household Groups at Cotzumalhuapa (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Urban Question: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Investigating the Ancient Mesoamerican City" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Various contexts in the sector of El Baúl, at the site of Cotzumalhuapa have been the subject of recent excavations to better understand the lithic industries of this urban center. These sectors were chosen for excavation due to the large surface scatters of lithic material indicating areas...
Building a selection-based model to explain the spatial and temporal distribution of obsidian artifacts in the northern Great Basin (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over 20 archaeologically-identified obsidian sources occur as inter-bedded surface exposures and stream-transported alluvial deposits within and along the margins of Idaho’s Snake River Plain. Previous research has documented the differential frequency of source use through time and variation in material transport distance for southern Idaho obsidians,...
Ceramics, Ground Stone and Miscellanea at the Zaragoza-Oyameles Obsidian Quarry in Puebla, Mexico (2018)
One result of the intensive, 5-m interval surface survey of the Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian source area in Puebla, Mexico was the recovery of several artifact classes suggestive of prolonged habitation. Ceramic and ground stone artifacts recovered indicate that domestic activities were an important component of the obsidian procurement and production economy. Ceramics tended to concentrate in areas that also contained higher quantities of ground stone, but did not correlate with any one stage of...
Changes in Obsidian Procurement and Use from the Preclassic to the Classic Periods at Holtun, Guatemala (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Holtun: Investigations at a Preclassic Maya Center" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Imported obsidian is often representative of regional trade patterns in Meosamerica. Such patterns for the Central Lowland Maya have been documented and allow for comparisons between sites and between periods within a single site. In this paper we compare the procurement and use patterns of obsidian between the Preclassic and Classic...
Comparative Stylistic Analysis of Calixtlahuaca Projectile Points (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses a comparative stylistic analysis of projectile points from the Postclassic (1130 – 1530 AD) Aztec city of Calixtlahuaca, located in the Toluca Valley of Central Mexico. Chemical sourcing of Calixtlahuacan obsidian has illustrated that the site was primarily supplied with obsidian from both West and Central Mexico. However, evidence...
A Comparison of Changing Reduction Sequences of Obsidian from the Grandad Site in the Central Sierra, California (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This is an investigation of obsidian chipping waste from the Grandad site, located in the Central Sierra near Mariposa, California based on point types found in deposits that have shown evidence of continuous occupation from 9000 BP to European contact. We searched for evidence of a changing reduction sequence from biface blank characteristics of large...
Cougar Creek Obsidian: Quarry Activity and Secondary Processing of a Minor Yellowstone Obsidian (2018)
The University of Montana conducted an archaeological survey of the Cougar Creek valley, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, in 2017. We mapped Cougar Creek obsidian outcrops, procurement areas, and secondary processing sites. XRF analysis of natural and cultural samples of the snowflake obsidian show a distinct chemical composition, even though its creation event is coeval with the famous Obsidian Cliff ca. 180,000 years ago (ca. 30 miles northeast). Due to its highly variable quality, Native...
Cultural Landscapes of Glass Buttes, Oregon (2018)
Located on the northern fringe of the Great Basin, in Lake County, Oregon, the Glass Buttes volcanic complex is the most important obsidian toolstone source in North America. Glass Buttes obsidian is world renowned because it is colorful, abundant, available in large pieces, and of extremely high quality for making flaked stone tools. Throughout the late Pleistocene and Holocene, Native Americans have continuously used Glass Buttes obsidian, and it was widely traded in the Pacific Northwest...
Documenting Domestic Economies in the Eastern Maya Lowlands through Obsidian Exchange (2023)
This is an abstract from the "An Exchange of Ideas: Recent Research on Maya Commodities" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Households composed the most basic unit of economic production and consumption in ancient Maya societies, and articulated directly with broader social and political processes. In addition to organizing daily tasks and agricultural production, households served as a point of engagement in the domestic economy for the acquisition...
The Flaked Stone Economy of Los Mogotes: Access and Exploitation during the Epiclassic Period (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study examines the flaked stone economy at the Epiclassic site of Los Mogotes, located north of the Basin of Mexico in central Mexico. We quantified obsidian and chert artifacts based on form and material in order to examine the nature of the regional lithic economy during this time. The findings suggest were dependent on long-distance exchange for...
Geological Knowledge, CRM, and the Lithic Cultural Landscape of Eastern Oregon (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From the impressive buttes and craters where it can be quarried to the shining black flakes speckled across vast sagebrush plains, obsidian and its procurement, use, and discard has defined the human experience of eastern Oregon’s landscape since time immemorial. Cultural resource management (CRM) practitioners must be proactive about documenting the...
Getting to the Point: Evidence for the Bow at Epiclassic Xochicalco, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Innovations and Transformations in Mesoamerican Research: Recent and Revised Insights of Ancestral Lifeways" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Conventional wisdom suggests that the bow was not present in Mesoamerica until the Postclassic period (AD 900–1519). This date is chronologically convenient because it is consistent with the notion that the bow diffused from North America after AD 700. New evidence from the...
Getting to the Point: Wari Obsidian Distribution in Southern Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent geochemical studies in the Andes have shown that obsidian was moved over long distances throughout prehistory. Yet as Burger et al. (2000) suggested, the mobilization of obsidian during the Middle Horizon was unparalleled in quantity and scope. In this poster, I consider the relationship between lithic source, reduction...
The Importance of Identifying Specific Obsidian Subsources on Sardinia to Interpreting Long-Distance Trade in the Neolithic Central Mediterranean (2019)
This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For the Central Mediterranean island of Sardinia, studies have shown that the usage of obsidian from specific subsources changed over time. Human selection may have been based on their accessibility, physical properties of the raw material, and the size and quantity available. In addition, socioeconomic factors, lithic...
Importation, Distribution, and Crafting of Obsidian at Formative Etlatongo (2018)
The nature of the utilization of obsidian throughout Mesoamerica has long been a focus of study and topic of debate for many anthropologists. The history of lithic analysis has produced many assumptions and interpretations regarding exchange, use and control of this extremely important material. Obsidian itself, as an imported resource, might have had otherworldly properties that held a special place in the cosmological construction of the world for villagers in the Valley of Oaxaca. The power...
An Interpretative Framework and Description of Ritualized Obsidian from Caracol, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ceremonial Lithics of Mesoamerica: New Understandings of Technology, Distribution, and Symbolism of Eccentrics and Ritual Caches in the Maya World and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceremonial life at Caracol, Belize can be assessed through a technological and contextual analysis of ritualized obsidian objects. These items are typically termed "obsidian eccentrics", although "ritualized obsidian" more...
Interwoven Networks: Obsidian Exchange and Overlapping Economies among the Ancient Maya of Western Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of ancient Maya commodities have focused on elite control of economic institutions, yet goods were mobilized at different levels of the social hierarchy to support the growth of broader economic institutions. Here we present the results of portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF) analyses of over 4000 obsidian artifacts from Preclassic to Terminal...
La Obsidiana del Sitio Guadalupe, Colón, Honduras (2018)
El movimiento de obsidiana para el periodo Posclásico (1500- 1530d.C) en el noreste de Honduras, ha sido prácticamente desconocido para nosotros, por las pocas publicaciones científicas y naturaleza de los suelos en esta área del país, el hallazgo de este material puede considerarse poco probable, sin embargo existe un cambio marcado de la presencia de obsidiana para el periodo Posclásico. Mediante el estudio de las secuencias de producción lítica, tomando en consideración atributos tales como...
Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Occupations on the Sierra Army Depot in Honey Lake Valley, California (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent archaeological testing at three sites on the Sierra Army Depot in Honey Lake Valley recovered several Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene artifacts. Obsidian hydration rim measurements on tools and debitage display remarkably thick hydration rinds (~9.0-11.0 microns) and confirm very early occupations. Results of X-ray fluorescence sourcing reveal a...