Current Methods and Applications to Chert Sourcing: Case Studies from Across the Americas

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Current Methods and Applications to Chert Sourcing: Case Studies from Across the Americas" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Chert artifacts remain one of the most common raw material types recovered from archaeological excavations and are a core line of evidence when reconstructing past interaction networks and economic systems. Due to the geochemical and petrographic heterogeneity of chert, raw material and artifacts have proven to be significantly more difficult to characterize than other material types. However, methodological and technological developments over the last two decades that focus on a multimethod approach have proven successful in characterizing chert from a number of different geographical areas. Techniques such as Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA), Laser-Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (XRF), Reflectance Spectrometry, and petrographic analysis have all been successfully applied to chert sourcing. This session explores these techniques, applications, and the methodological developments that have been applied to chert sourcing research in recent years through a number of case studies from across the Americas.

Other Keywords
Lithic Analysis • North America • Archaeometry & Materials Analysis • Mesoamerica: Maya Lowlands

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-7 of 7)

  • Documents (7)
Documents
  • Assessing Chert Source Representation at Early Paleoindian-Period Sites in the Northeast: A Multi-Pronged Approach (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Anne Parfitt.

    This is an abstract from the "Current Methods and Applications to Chert Sourcing: Case Studies from Across the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study utilized a systematic, multi-pronged approach to assess lithic raw material representation at six large, early Paleoindian-period sites in the Great Lakes and New England-Maritimes regions. A wide-ranging comparative database of lithic sources from within and outside of the region was...

  • Characterization of Coastal Plain Cherts from Florida and Georgia using Petrography and ICP-MS: A Multimethod Approach for Ascribing Provenance to Stone Tools from Florida’s Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Burke.

    This is an abstract from the "Current Methods and Applications to Chert Sourcing: Case Studies from Across the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological research on the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States has yielded a rich assemblage of stone tools produced by late Pleistocene and early Holocene hunter-gatherers, but little research has been undertaken to quantitatively define and describe the variable stone resources...

  • Characterizing Red Chert from the Munsungun Lake and Normanskill Formations: Tool Stone Acquisition and Transport during the Fluted-Point-Period in Northeastern North America (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathaniel Kitchel.

    This is an abstract from the "Current Methods and Applications to Chert Sourcing: Case Studies from Across the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In northeastern North America (New England, southern Quebec, and the Canadian Maritime Provinces) red and mottled red and green chert from the Munsungun Lake formation northern Maine is associated with fluted-point-period occupations in the region. Various characterization methods including visual...

  • Establishing a New Database for Chert Raw Material Sources in Northern Belize (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alana Pengilley.

    This is an abstract from the "Current Methods and Applications to Chert Sourcing: Case Studies from Across the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> Lithic raw material quality and abundance played a direct role in the decisions of past tool makers, the type of production, and the organization of exchange networks. The results of raw material procurement influenced the tool making process, whether this be the quality of material...

  • Geochemical analysis of lithic raw material in the São Francisco River Basin (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Haruan Straioto.

    This is an abstract from the "Current Methods and Applications to Chert Sourcing: Case Studies from Across the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the São Francisco River Basin there is evidence of human occupation since 14.0 ky cal BP. Models of dispersal suggest an intensification of occupied areas around 11.0 ky cal BP, followed by regionalization after two millennia. The study of lithic technology, as the major evidence available, is...

  • Refining Chert Provenance Methods: Evaluating Laser Ablation Spot Size and Reproducibility (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Speer.

    This is an abstract from the "Current Methods and Applications to Chert Sourcing: Case Studies from Across the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study evaluated the effectiveness of minimum spot sizes for laser ablation on chert artifacts to determine the trace element information required for accurate geologic source provenance. Using an NSF-funded excimer 193 nm laser and an inductively coupled plasma triple quadrupole mass...

  • Sourcing Benton bifaces in a sea of Fort Payne chert (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Parish.

    This is an abstract from the "Current Methods and Applications to Chert Sourcing: Case Studies from Across the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chert provenance has traditionally been understood as the identification of the "type" or geologic formation source of the raw material exploited by past peoples. However, what happens when that chert type occurs over an expansive geographic region? With wide ranging social networks, the Benton...