Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Spenard.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Rio Frio Regional Archaeological Project recently recorded an extensive network of granitic rock quarry sites associated with an ancient Maya ground stone tool production industry in the Mountain Pine Ridge (MPR), Belize. At the extraction sites, raw material was workshopped into ground stone implements and then distributed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra Bazarsky.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Obsidian was used by the ancient Maya to create tools, weapons, and symbols of status. Archaeologists have analyzed these objects to better understand ancient trade and production systems, as well as socioeconomic and ideological spheres. While obsidian and obsidian sources have been thoroughly examined in many parts of the Maya...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Reid.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Spring Lake Site (41HY160) is a significant multicomponent archaeological site in Central Texas. Located at one of the State’s largest freshwater springs, the site contains material from Paleoindian to Protohistoric times. A combination of aggregate and typological analyses was used to examine over 18,000 pieces of debitage from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tawny Tibbits.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient Maya exploited three geochemically distinct granite sources from the Maya Mountains for a variety of ground stone tool and construction purposes. Previously, we sampled these sources and provided signature ranges of important elements that differentiate them. Here, we discuss recent field work that targeted the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lynn Fisher.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Quarries and mines used to obtain silicites are known from Neolithic cultural landscapes across Europe, representing a common pattern of localized, repeated use of selected sources. Though common, Neolithic quarry sites are challenging to interpret in broader sociocultural context due in part to the chronological and regional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremy Beller.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological research in the southern Cape of South Africa continues to emphasize the region’s crucial role in understanding the emergence of cultural modernity among early modern humans. However, certain aspects of subsistence behavior, particularly the strategies for procuring raw materials and the associated patterns of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Ahlrichs.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological resources of Path Valley in Pennsylvania contain a limited number of toolstone types. The primary toolstone is chert, native in the valley bedrock and readily accessible from both primary and secondary geologic contexts throughout the valley. Crystal quartz was used less often but is also locally available in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Wolff.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Maritime Archaic people of Newfoundland were a coastal culture whose primary economic activity was focused on sea mammals, fish, and seabirds in nearshore environments and offshore islands. It is assumed that they had seaworthy watercraft that allowed them to travel efficiently along the coast and to smaller islands in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Takashi Sakaguchi.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The goal of this paper is to better understand variability in raw materials of stone ornaments recovered from burials at the Kashiwagi-B site, which cosists of shuteibo (a type of communal cemetery characterized by a circular embankment constructed in the latter half of the Late Jomon of central Hokkaido) and non-shuteibo burials....

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Rafael McCormick Alcorta.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Obsidian sourcing studies have a long history in Mesoamerica, but few have concentrated on the Pacific Slope of Guatemala. Here, I present the results of sourcing analyses of obsidian artifacts excavated from Late to Terminal Classic (650-950 CE) manufacturing contexts at Cotzumalhuapa and its hinterland in Guatemala. Chemical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Roberto Rosado-Ramirez.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation will focus on limestone quarrying activities in the Classic Maya (600-1000 CE) city of Ake, in present-day Yucatan, Mexico. Although often characterized as an unskilled activity, limestone quarrying required training, skill, and a specialized tool kit. The skills and specialized knowledge of ancient Maya quarry...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stance Hurst.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geoheritage is an emerging field that examines geodiversity's scientific, cultural, and educational values. Ogallala Formation quartzarenite clasts, known as Potter member quartzite in archaeological literature, are well-indurated quartzose sandstones found abundantly in the basal gravels of the Ogallala Formation, with gravel...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Sterner.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Galena has been recovered from pre-contact archaeological sites throughout the Eastern Woodlands, principally in mortuary contexts. The presence of galena in these contexts, the general lack of cultural modification to galena specimens recovered from archaeological sites, and the often-long distances between galena deposits and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anne S. Dowd.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> Archaeologists excavated the Dudley House Pit Site (nos. 06070100100, 671NA222) on the Ochoco National Forest and Crooked River National Grassland in 1989 and 1990. At least 40 surface depressions were documented. Researchers identified organic materials yielding a radiocarbon date from a hearth in Depression #1...