Lithic Analysis: Obsidian (Other Keyword)
26-50 (54 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists studying the Maya have traditionally considered obsidian to be a luxury good that was often tightly controlled by the elite during the Classic period. Archaeological evidence from the Classic Maya capital of Tamarindito in Guatemala challenges these long-held assumptions, however. At Tamarindito, multiple lines of evidence support the...
Obsidian Debitage Sequence in Three Sites in West Mexico during the Late Classic Period: A Proposal (2018)
During the years A.D. 550/600 to A.D. 900/1000 there was a significant emergence of sites with large populations who at one point were subjected to Teotihuacan’s control. This period is known in Mesoamerica as the Late Classic or Epiclassic period. At this time emerging groups sought to control specific resources that would give them power over other groups. One of the most sought after and exploited resources was obsidian. It is known that some deposits were not exploited as intensively and...
Obsidian Exploitation and Access in the Eastern Sierra de los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico (2018)
In this paper, we present the results of technological and visual sourcing analyses of over 1000 obsidian artifacts collected by the Proyecto Arqueológico Piedra Labrada (PiLab), directed by Dr. Lourdes Budar. The PiLab area of study, the eastern Sierra de los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico, includes the eastern flanks of the Sierra de Santa Marta and the adjacent coastal plain along the Gulf of Mexico, and has a long sequence of Prehispanic occupation. Despite this, and almost a decade of regional...
Obsidian Fracture Resulting from Forest Fire Exposure (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fire fractures in obsidian nodules and artifacts have been observed following several large forest fires at quarries, other archaeological sites, and geological deposits in the Jemez Mountains of north-central New Mexico. This presentation describes the characteristics of thermal fractures observed in this brittle material...
Obsidian Importation and Use at Teotepec, Veracruz, Mexico: Situating Site-Level Lithic Activities within a Regional Context (2018)
In this paper, I present new data on lithic production, consumption, and importation from the site of Teotepec, a large pre-Hispanic settlement located in the Sierra de los Tuxtlas region of Veracruz, Mexico. Like much of the Mexican Gulf Coast, the Prehispanic inhabitants of the Sierra de los Tuxtlas relied on non-local obsidian for most of their lithic needs. Using the results of recently completed technological and visual source analyses, I identify differences in production and consumption...
The Obsidian of Postclassic Rio Amarillo: A Shift in Population or Technology? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Pre-Columbian Cultures of Honduras after AD 900" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The rather diminutive site of Rio Amarillo, located to the north of the Copan city center, is well known as a subsidiary site that was somehow involved in the movement of goods between the Motagua and Copan Valleys. After the collapse of the Copan Dynasty, large civic-ceremonial structures were abandoned and the people that remained,...
Obsidian Processing and Distribution in Classic Period Lower Cotaxtla Basin, Veracruz, México (2018)
During the Classic period (1st mill. CE), South Central Veracruz was a mosaic of microstates in which obsidian was scarce but available to everyone. Semi-intensive systematic survey in 400 km2 of the lower Cotaxtla basin showed occasional concentrations that led to propose two alternatives: state-controlled workshops obtaining and redistributing artifacts to resident population, or independent workshops servicing clients across borders, implying the existence of a market-based economy. Chaîne...
Obsidian Procurement and Exchange in Peru: A Social Network Analysis (SNA) (2018)
Wider accessibility to analytical instruments has resulted in the rapid expansion of geochemical datasets useful to trace archaeological materials such as obsidian to their geologic source. While these findings are useful on a site-to-site basis, this paper utilizes Social Network Analysis (SNA) as an exploratory tool to investigate broad-scale patterns of obsidian procurement and exchange in prehistoric Peru. Alongside visualizations of this large dataset, centrality measurements allow us to...
Obsidian Production and Consumption Practices at Matacanela (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Olmec Manifestations and Ongoing Societal Transformations in the Tuxtlas Uplands: A View from Matacanela" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Matacanela’s chipped stone assemblage overwhelmingly is dominated by nonlocal obsidian, including both products and by-products of multiple reductive technologies. Overarching temporal trends and classification of Matacanela’s obsidian assemblage have previously been discussed within...
Obsidian Trade at the Edge of the Maya World (2018)
The position of Vista Alegre at the Northeastern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula, a gateway between the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, made it a strategic location for circumpeninsular maritime trade in Pre-Colombian times. A robust sample of obsidian artifacts from the Terminal-Postclassic transition increases our understanding of trade relations between the eastern and western sides of the Maya world. Technological and source analyses of obsidian artifacts from the site are presented to fill...
An Obsidian Workshop at Budsilhá Chiapas, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the persistent difficulties in understanding Classic Maya (AD 250–900) economies has been the challenge of identifying the loci of production (e.g., workshops) and exchange (e.g., marketplaces), and thus interpreting how the two figured into local and regional economies. During the 2013 fieldwork at the site of Budislha, Chiapas, Mexico–a subsidiary...
Obsidian: Status Marker or Household Item? The Use of Obsidian throughout Time in Manabi, Ecuador (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of obsidian in the Andes is widespread and constant starting during the Formative period. Through the morphological analysis of lithic artifacts recovered during excavations in northern Manabi, Ecuador, this poster reveals the importance of obsidian in the area and how it changed throughout time. The Matapalo site, the focus of this research, shows...
The Organization of Obsidian Exchange at Postclassic Sauce and its Hinterland in Veracruz, Mexico (2018)
I analyze residential inventories from the center of Sauce and its hinterland in combination with regional settlement data from Barbara Stark’s Proyecto Arqueológico La Mixtequilla (PALM I, II) to describe the structure of exchange, production, and consumption of obsidian chipped stone during the Middle Postclassic period (AD 1200-1350) in south-central Veracruz, Mexico. Previous research on obsidian production found a spatial association with Sauce, which could support political administration...
The Paleoindian Archaeology of Guano Valley, Oregon (2018)
During the 2016 field season, the Great Basin Paleoindian Research Unit (GBPRU [University of Nevada, Reno]) began investigating Guano Valley, Oregon for evidence of Paleoindian occupations. Our initial work revealed a rich record of Terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene (TP/EH) archaeology that appeared strongly associated with an extensive delta system that brought fresh water into Guano Lake from the south. This past field season, the GBPRU returned to Guano Valley and recorded numerous...
Pitchstone in Prehistory: New Insights into the Mesolithic and Neolithic use of Pitchstone in Scotland (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Obsidian Studies of the Old and New Worlds" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pitchstone is a glassy volcanic rock similar to obsidian but in Europe, its geological occurrence and its use as a raw material for prehistoric chipped-stone assemblages are much more restricted. In northern Britain where good quality flint is scarce, pitchstone circulated widely in the Neolithic with artifacts made from this...
Prehistoric Obsidian Use in Southern Italy: Primary Acquisition and Down-the-line Exchange in Calabria, Basilicata, and Campania (2018)
Obsidian was a significant component of daily life in southern Italy during the Neolithic period (ca. 6000-3000 BC). Intensive surveys by Ammerman and colleagues in the 1970s identified a widespread presence of Neolithic obsidian in Calabria, generally thought to have come from the island of Lipari, mostly on the basis of its being the closest, along with general visual characteristics. While it was also thought possible to have small amounts of obsidian from the further away tiny island of...
Reconsideración de Las Fuentes de Aprovisionamiento de Obsidiana en el Oriente y Suroriente de Honduras (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Pre-Columbian Cultures of Honduras after AD 900" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A la luz de los nuevos datos sobre el uso y distribución de fuentes de obsidiana en el territorio hondureño, particularmente la evidencia relacionada con la explotación de la cantera de Güinope, en el departamento de El Paraíso en la región oriental del país. Se analiza y expone un debate sobre el abordaje de los estudios líticos en...
Reflecting on the History and Use of Rectangular Obsidian "Mirrors" from Central Mexico: Reinterpreting Old Museum Collections (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper highlights the relevance and potential of collections-based research through a case study of rectangular obsidian "mirrors" from Central Mexico, typically associated with the Aztec, housed at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). To date these highly polished obsidian objects are found exclusively in museum...
The Search for the Primary Source of Kings Canyon/La Poudre Pass Obsidian in Colorado (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During field survey in 2011, archaeologists for the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest discovered obsidian nodules contained in ancient alluvial gravels of the Miocene North Park formation in Jackson County, Colorado. The Northwest Research Obsidian Studies Laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon, analyzed this obsidian using ED-XRF and determined that it was...
Setting the Agenda for the Next Phase in Obsidian Studies in Aotearoa (New Zealand) (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. Studies of obsidian artifacts from sites across Aotearoa (New Zealand) in the 1960s-80s, were critical to identifying a major decrease in mobility, just prior to the onset of endemic warfare, marked by the construction of thousands of fortifications by the ancestors of Māori. Unfortunately, initial enthusiasm was...
¿Siluetas o excéntricos? (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. A partir del estudio del proceso de elaboración de siluetas o excéntricos bifaciales y monofaciales teotihuacanos de las fases Tlamimilolpa y Xolalpan, elaborados en el yacimiento de obsidiana verde de La Sierra de Las Navajas,...
Social and Physical Landscape of Lithic Procurement in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The goal of this research project is to better understand the role that societal organization, namely the institution of Spanish colonialism, played in shaping Jemez lithic procurement and reduction strategies across the Jemez Mountains from 1300-1700 AD. Previous work (Liebmann 2017) using X-ray florescence to source lithic debitage from 31 ancestral Jemez...
Sourcing Preceramic obsidian from Las Estacas, Morelos, and Yuzanu 36, Oaxaca (2018)
Understanding of long-distance exchange during the Mesoamerican Preceramic suffers from a limited range of materials whose source locations can be determined relative to later periods. Obsidian is one of the few materials that can provide evidence for long-distance exchange through geochemical analysis, although relatively few sourcing studies have been carried out on Preceramic obsidian. In this paper, we report recent pXRF results from obsidian recovered at two Preceramic sites: Las Estacas,...
The Symbolism and Technology of Classic Maya Tomb Debitage from El Peru-Waka (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. Obsidian blades and related debitage from four elite tombs recently excavated at El Peru-Waka have the potential to answer the question of why and how the ancient Maya placed this material above, around, and sometimes within the...
A Tale of Two Peripheries: Recent Excavations at Fracción Mujular, Chiapas, Mexico (2018)
Fracción Mujular is a modest residential site located on the Pacific Coast of Chiapas, Mexico. Long known for the Central Mexican iconography found on its carved stelae, investigations conducted during the winter of 2017 represent the first excavations of the site. This paper presents the results of these excavations, as well as subsequent laboratory analysis. We now know that Fracción Mujular has a history that covers over one thousand years of occupation, from the Early Classic to the Late...