Nondestructive Provenance of the Watson Brake (16OU175) Lithics

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The lithic assemblage at the middle archaic (7000–4000 BP) site called Watson Brake (16OU175) has been identified visually as coming from exclusively local raw materials that are generally small, beige-to-tan gravels. These local gravel sources are found nearby the site in underlying terrace deposits and resemble those materials used by the inhabitants of Poverty Point, nearly 2,000 years later. Besides quartz crystal, sandstone and petrified wood are the only other materials found in the Watson Brake assemblage. Because of the dominance of local materials in a context that predates Poverty Point (3700–3100 BP), one might hypothesize that raw material acquisition networks emerged with the construction of earthworks at Poverty Point. This research study explores and tests previous hypotheses regarding the diversity and origin of tool-stone by analytical means, in addition to identifying and examining the potential patterns of lithic network continuity during a dynamic and complex cultural period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37684.0