Embracing the Research Potential: Geochemical Sourcing of Rhyolite Artifacts from Antelope Valley Orphaned Collections

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Expanding Our Understanding of the Mojave Desert: Emerging Research and New Perspectives on Old Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For over 40 years, the orphaned archaeological collections excavated by Antelope Valley College (AVC) have remained underutilized and underreported—an untapped resource and oversight to archaeological investigations in the western Mojave Desert. Orphaned collections can be revisited repeatedly with new paradigms and varied analytical methods. This research serves as a geochemical provenance study of rhyolite artifacts from three village sites excavated by AVC. Cottonwood Creek (CA-KER-303), Skelton Ranch (CA-LAN-488), and Totem Pole Ranch, located in different areas of the Antelope Valley, were seasonally occupied prior to or during the Late Prehistoric period. Sourcing rhyolite—a local lithic material from the area—can directly relate to the discussion of cultural boundaries and spheres of interaction that took place among semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers who occupied these villages. A previous geochemical study of rhyolite from the Antelope Valley suggested cultural affiliations and patterns of interaction between different ethnic groups dictated access and procurement of rhyolite from two known formations— Rosamond Hills, located in Rosamond, CA, and Fairmont Butte in Lancaster, CA. By employing LA-ICP-MS, micro-samples of rhyolite groundmass will be analyzed to expand on previous research and identify conveyance strategies that reflect the technically useful features of rhyolite and patterns of local-regional intergroup exchange.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Expanding Our Understanding of the Mojave Desert: Emerging Research and New Perspectives on Old Data

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41538.0