Case Studies in Toolstone Provenance: Reliable Ascription from the Ground Up

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Case Studies in Toolstone Provenance: Reliable Ascription from the Ground Up" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

As instruments suitable for the geochemical characterization of lithic raw materials have proliferated so too has the application of these methods to a larger number of types of stone. While the wider availability of these instruments holds promise for lithic characterization, this opportunity is not without hazards. As lithic sourcing studies move beyond the characterization of (relatively) geochemically homogenous materials such as obsidian, to include materials with more complex lithologies including coarse grained volcanic materials and silicious sedimentary rocks such as chert, a “one size fits all” approach will produce spurious results. This is not to suggest that the characterization of such materials is intractable, but rather that archaeologists must approach each material with methods and strategies appropriate to the geologic history of the material(s) being studied. This approach often requires close cooperation with geologists and geochemists. The presentations in the session highlight “geology first” approaches to lithic characterization through individual case studies demonstrating methods to successfully (or not) approach geologically complex raw materials.