Decisions in the Desert

Summary

This is a study of stone tool raw material procurement utilizing archaeological sites located in and around the Sheeprock Mountains in north-central Utah. In an effort to apply Metcalfe’s and Barlow’s "Field Processing Model" (1992), to prehistoric lithic raw material procurement, the researcher collected culturally deposited obsidian from archaeological sites in and around the Sheeprock Mountains. Over the course of 3 field sessions from 2011-2013, 250 samples of obsidian lithic debitage were collected to ascertain the samples’ geological sources. It is anticipated that the volume of lithic debitage found on the sites will be consistent with expectations set forth in the Field Processing Model. The model will be supported if the geological obsidian sources nearest to the archaeological sites are represented by a higher volume of lithic pieces of non-utility, or low utility vs. geological sources that are significantly further away from the archaeological sites that have been sampled.

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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