Abstract
Obsidian, originating from the Rocky Mountains and the West, was an exotic exchange commodity in Eastern North America that was often deposited in elaborate caches and burials associated with Middle Woodland era Hopewell and later complexes. In earlier times, obsidian is found only rarely. In this paper we report two obsidian flakes recovered from a now submerged paleolandscape beneath Lake Huron that are conclusively attributed to the Wagontire obsidian source in central Oregon; a distance of more than 4,000 km. These specimens, dating to ~ 9,000 BP, represent the earliest and most distant reported occurrence of obsidian in eastern North America.
Highlights
Obsidian, or volcanic glass, is a prized raw material for knappers, both ancient and modern, with its lustrous appearance, predictable flaking, and resulting razor-sharp edges
Barium is somewhat difficult to measure by XRF, especially in smaller artifacts, neutron activation analysis (NAA) analysis was used to differentiate between the central Oregon sources
The extreme distance between source and find location raises renewed questions concerning the scale of mobility and social connectedness during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition
Summary
Volcanic glass, is a prized raw material for knappers, both ancient and modern, with its lustrous appearance, predictable flaking, and resulting razor-sharp edges. As such, it was used and traded widely throughout much of human history. While the use of obsidian is ubiquitous in the West, the pattern of archaeological occurrences East of the Rocky Mountains follows a distinct chronological pattern with obsidian appearing late as an important exotic good in the Middle Woodland Hopewell complex but only very sporadically before this [10,11]. Earlier occurrences are scattered across the Plains and further East but tend to be represented by very small numbers of flakes found within Late Archaic and Early Woodland contexts [12,13,14,15,16]
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