Abstract
Archaeological evidence of people's choices regarding how they supply themselves with obsidian through direct access and different types of exchanges gives us insight in to mobility, social networks, and property rights in the distant past. Here we use collections of obsidian artefacts that date to a period of endemic warfare among Maori during New Zealand's Late Period (1500–1769 A.D.) to determine what strategies people engaged in to obtain obsidian, namely (1) collecting raw material directly from a natural source, (2) informal trade and exchange, and (3) formal trade and exchange. These deposits represent a good cross-section of Late Period archaeology, including primary working of raw material at a natural source (Helena Bay), undefended sites where people discarded rubbish and worked obsidian (Bream Head), and a heavily fortified site (Mt. Wellington). We find that most of the obsidian described here was likely obtained directly from natural sources, especially those located on off-shore islands within about 60–70 km of sites. A smaller amount comes from blocks of material transported from an off-shore island a greater distance away, called Mayor Island, in a formal trade and exchange network. This study demonstrates the value of conducting tandem lithic technology and geochemical sourcing studies to understand how people create and maintain social networks during periods of warfare.
Highlights
The geographic distribution of stone artefacts made of obsidian, a natural volcanic glass, gives us a window in to major shifts in human mobility and trade in the past
Obsidian from the small off-shore island of Tuhua (Mayor Island) is today found in great frequency across the country at sites dated to the first centuries of settlement (1250–1500 A.D), indicating that the ancestors of Maori accessed it directly
We present an analysis of strategies people used to supply themselves with obsidian in an effort to determine what was more common among Late Period Maori communities: direct access, informal trade-and-exchange, or formal trade-and-exchange? First individual artefacts are matched to their geological source based on geochemistry
Summary
The geographic distribution of stone artefacts made of obsidian, a natural volcanic glass, gives us a window in to major shifts in human mobility and trade in the past. In the more recent past, remarkable social networks that stretched across thousands of kilometers of ocean between Pacific Island communities have been reconstructed based on obsidian evidence [2]. These long-distance connections, generally speaking, broke down over time when natural demographic growth on newly settled islands reached a point when communities were self-sufficient and not as willing to maintain the cost of extreme sea voyaging. The movement of North Island obsidian is replaced by interisland trade in objects made from South Island greenstone (jade, Maori: pounamu) This coincided with the construction of the first of thousands of earthwork fortification [5], called pa, as well as the permanent occupation of Mayor Island [6]
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