Recent Advances in Material Sourcing and Provenience Studies in Africa

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Recent Advances in Material Sourcing and Provenience Studies in Africa" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Africa preserves the deepest history of raw material exploitation in the world and compositional sourcing techniques have been central to the practice of archaeological science on the continent for over half a century. The goal of this symposium is to bring together a wide range of research into the procurement, movement, and transport of raw materials across the African continent. The papers in this session range from new studies of material procurement in understudied regions, to recent advances in compositional sourcing techniques, to discussions of what provenience and sourcing studies can reveal about the diverse ways people and things have moved across natural and social landscapes through time.

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  • Documents (4)

Documents
  • Geochemical Insights on Earth Mineral Pigment Provisioning and Use in Stone Age Eswatini (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandi MacDonald. Elizabeth Velliky. Jorg Linstatder. Lisa Ehlers. Gregor Donatus Bader.

    This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Material Sourcing and Provenience Studies in Africa" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present results of a multi-method, regional-scale iron and manganese-oxide provenance study centered on five Middle and Late Stone Age sites and raw material sources in Eswatini. Earth mineral pigment artifacts are abundant at MSA and LSA sites and the variation observed in their typologies shows changes over time...

  • GIS-Based Approaches to Obsidian Studies in Eastern Africa (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sydney James. Husna Mashaka. Sarah Mollel. Julius Ogutu. Kathryn Ranhorn.

    This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Material Sourcing and Provenience Studies in Africa" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of obsidian transport during the Late Pleistocene of eastern Africa have been largely productive for reconstructing raw material procurement patterns and movement across landscapes. Due to a limited sample, however, these studies are often descriptive of particular sites and related explicitly to material...

  • Imports and Outcrops: Characterizing the Baantu Obsidian Source and Artifacts from Mochena Borago Rockshelter, Wolaita, Ethiopia, Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Smith. Lucas Johnson. Steven Brandt.

    This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Material Sourcing and Provenience Studies in Africa" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Forty-two obsidian samples from the Baantu obsidian source, including 25 outcrop samples and 17 surface artifacts, were characterized using portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. These source data were then compared to 116 obsidian artifacts from Mochena Borago Rockshelter, excavated from levels dated to >50 ka BP...

  • Strontium Isoscape Biogeochemistry, Human Developmental Biology, and Residential Biography (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Stanley Ambrose.

    This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Material Sourcing and Provenience Studies in Africa" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Interpretation of chemical and isotopic tracers of individual life history requires a realistic understanding of skeletal biology and physiology, particularly gender differences in mineral nutritional requirements for reproduction such as lactation, which may affect bone mineral elemental turnover and transfer of...