Fire Effects on Obsidian Landscapes: A Case Study

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Work by Chronicle Heritage" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

We know fire can affect obsidian hydration, but how do forest fires, and our management practices impact these sites and their potential for data contribution under Criterion D? Is there a different way of going about evaluating data contribution or management practices to work with management in our age of large, intense climate-change influenced fires? In this poster, a combination of X-Ray Fluorescence and Obsidian Hydration are used to evaluate the effects of wildfire, and specifically intense wildfires, on the chemical signatures used in sourcing studies, and relative dating using obsidian hydration. The damages caused by intense heat on these oft-used analyses, and how we may rethink our interpretation of their results. We also explore how this can help us reframe traditional management techniques in our forests, alternatives, and new directions of inquiry and research when these more traditional data sources are deemed no longer reliable for our usual questions of age and transport.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Recent Archaeological Work by Chronicle Heritage   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41688.0