Characterization of the Obsidian Used in the Chipped Stone Industry in Kendale Hecala

Üftade Muşkara,Ayşin Konak

doi:10.3390/quat5010003

Abstract

Kendale Hecala is located on the Ambar River in the Upper Tigris Basin, province of Diyarbakır in Southeast Anatolia. Various raw materials, including obsidian, radiolarite, chert, jasper, chalcedony, and quartzite, were used in the lithic industry. Obsidian artefacts constitute an average of 64% of the chipped stone assemblage. Technological analysis reveals that obsidian was brought to the settlement as nodules and chipped into various tools at the settlement. Understanding the operational sequence of the lithic industry, chaîne opératoire, including the distribution of raw material from source to site, is important to demonstrate the socio-cultural organization of the settlement in Southeastern Anatolia during the Ubaid period. In order to identify source varieties, the obsidian artefacts uncovered from Ubaid layers of Kendale Hecala were analyzed by macro-observations, and the characterization of archaeological samples was performed using a handheld XRF. Multivariate analysis of the data indicates the use of obsidian from different resources at the settlement, including Nemrut Dağ, Bingöl B, and Group 3d.

Highlights

Ubaid, which originally referred to a pottery style, characterizes the material culture that shared similar tools, architectural forms, and practices for a specific period
The distribution of the Ubaid pottery and the extension of culture depending on the mutual relation between different societies approximately reached an area from the Strait of Hormuz to Northern Mesopotamia and Upper Tigris, and the Mediterranean shores [1]
The Ubaid culture spread from southern Mesopotamia to the north across Mesopotamia in the later Ubaid 3 and 4 phases, which correspond to the Northern Ubaid period, dating from about 5300 to 4500 BC [2]

Summary

Introduction

Ubaid, which originally referred to a pottery style, characterizes the material culture that shared similar tools, architectural forms, and practices for a specific period. The distribution of the Ubaid pottery and the extension of culture depending on the mutual relation between different societies approximately reached an area from the Strait of Hormuz to Northern Mesopotamia and Upper Tigris, and the Mediterranean shores [1]. The characterization studies elucidate the variety of obsidian sources reached to a specific site and obsidian procurement strategies. Determination of compositional groups will reveal the preference for specific raw material properties for particular obsidian artefact production. Identifying the source could explain the extraction phase comprising the selection of raw material and the transportation system of obsidian [5]. The inadequate sampling strategy in provenance studies could not provide relating information

Objectives

Methods

Results