Using the Lithic Technological Organization at Procurement Sites to Parse the Multiple Occurrences of Browns Bench Obsidian in Southern Idaho

Summary

Volcanic rocks such as obsidian were commonly used for the formation of chipped stone tools by people during prehistoric times. Archaeologists have been able to learn a great deal about the movements of prehistoric people by charting the procurement sites and use locations of these stones through x-ray fluorescence (XRF). Typically XRF can determine the procurement location of volcanic tool stone within a few square kilometers. Occasionally sources are characterized that are widely scattered and XRF alone does not provide precise locational information; Browns Bench obsidian, which is found at scattered outcrops within a 37,500 square kilometer area, is one such source. The Browns Bench outcrops are highly variable due to the environmental factors that have acted on the nodules at each location. The physical properties and reduction strategies identified at each Browns Bench procurement site help generate expectations about which sources were used to produce tools transported over long distances, and those that were only suitable for locally used informal tools. The analysis shows that many of the occurrences of the Browns Bench source are not suitable for large formal tools that could be transported and curated.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage