Abstract
Armenia has one of the most obsidian-rich natural and cultural landscapes in the world, and the lithic assemblages of numerous Palaeolithic sites are predominantly, if not entirely, composed of obsidian. Recent excavations at the Middle Palaeolithic cave of Lusakert 1 recovered, on average, 470 obsidian artifacts daily. After sourcing more than 1700 artifacts using portable XRF (pXRF) in our field house, our team sought to shift pXRF-based obsidian sourcing into the field itself, believing that the geological origins of artifacts would be useful information to have on-site during an excavation or survey. Despite increasing use of portable instruments, previous studies have principally focused on collections in museums and other archives, and as a result, obsidian sourcing has remained embedded in post-excavation studies. One critical factor in the uptake of obsidian sourcing in the field is the time needed to measure each artifact, frequently 2-6min in previous studies. Here we report our two methods of obsidian sourcing, including source matching done automatically by the pXRF instrument's onboard software, in only 10s. Our tests with Armenian geological specimens and Palaeolithic artifacts demonstrate the high efficacy of our two methods, which are sufficiently fast to become syncopated with our excavation and survey activities. By reducing measurement times from a mode of 300s in recent studies to just 10s, here we show how (and why) to shift pXRF-based obsidian sourcing from the context of "white lab coats" to that of "muddy boots.".
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 333-348 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Journal of Archaeological Science |
| Volume | 41 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2014 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors thank Pavel Avetisyan, Director of the Institute for Archaeology and Ethnography, Armenia, for his support of this project. We recognize the generous financial support for the Hrazdan Gorge Palaeolithic Project provided by the Norian Armenian Programs Committee (University of Connecticut, 2008–2013), a Large Faculty Grant (University of Connecticut, 2012), and the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation (2010 and 2011). Niton UK and Thermo Scientific are thanked for their insights and suggestions regarding spectral fingerprints and pseudo-elements. Additional Armenian obsidian specimens came from the Smithsonian Institution, specifically the collections of M. James Blackman and the late James F. Luhr. Obsidian specimens from Turkey were collected by George “Rip” Rapp, University of Minnesota and the late Tuncay Ercan, Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration of Turkey. Georgian obsidian specimens came from Nino Sadradze and Givi Maisuradze, Institute of Geology, Georgian Academy of Sciences. Roger Doonan is thanked for his thoughts and insights on the topic at hand. Two anonymous reviewers made comments that led to clarifications of the final manuscript. This research was also supported by the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield and the Marie Curie Network FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN : New Archaeological Research Network for Integrating Approaches to Ancient Material Studies (NARNIA).
Keywords
- Armenia
- Field methods
- Obsidian
- PXRF
- Palaeolithic archaeology
- South Caucasus
