Obsidian Characterization in East Africa

Summary

This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Steve Shackley’s wide-reaching research includes X-ray fluorescence analyses of obsidian from East Africa. He and co-authors explored sources of obsidian from sites in Ethiopia, providing data that informed many later studies in a relatively unknown region for obsidian studies. Our work on obsidian from mid-Holocene sites in the vicinity of Koobi Fora in northern Kenya has yielded evidence of regional interactions that at least partially relied on watercraft, raising questions about use of lacustrine resources more broadly for hunting-fishing-gathering peoples. These data broadly inform our understanding of the transition from hunting-gathering-fishing to pastoral economies throughout the mid-Holocene in East Africa.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22821