Estimating Orthoquartzite Quarry Production on The Llano Estacado

Summary

Morrison Formation red orthoquartzite was procured, reduced, and exported as large percussion flake blanks from a late pre-contact quarry and workshop (LA21699) near Tucumcari, New Mexico. Experimental flintknapping replication of the orthoquartzite reduction technology represented at the aboriginal quarry/workshop site produced data on the average frequency of various technologically diagnostic flake types per reduction event. Comparing these experimental flake type frequencies with archaeological frequencies of the same diagnostic flake types allowed identification of large percussion flake blanks as the modal goal of workshop reduction and estimation of the number of percussion flake blanks produced at the site and the number exported. Approximately 1,700 of the 3,000 red orthoquartzite large percussion flake blanks produced were exported from LA21699 for further reduction and use elsewhere on the Llano Estacado. This replication approach to technological analysis of a quarry assemblage illustrates a method for identifying quarry production strategies and estimating the quantities of stone implements produced and exported.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 19894