Obsidian Studies in the Great Basin AYAVAVAYVVV VAAAAAAAAAAAAAA VVV ~~~ Edited by ~ I ' ......... .... . . Richard E. Hughes VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV OCA"~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~C, L~~~~~~~~~ NUMBER 45 CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH FACILITY, BERKELEY CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH FACILITY OBSIDIAN STUDIES IN THE GREAT BASIN Edited by Richard E. Hughes ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH FACILITY Department of Anthropology University of California Berkeley Number 45 June 1984 TABLE OF TS Editor ' s Preface Richard E. Hughes iii OBSIDIAN SOURCE ANALYSIS Obsidian Sourcing Studies in the Great Basin: Problems and Prospects Richard E. Hughes 1 Technical Considerations in X-ray Fluorescence Analysis of Obsidian Joachim H. Hampel 21 X-ray Fluorescence Analysis of Some Western North American Obsidians Fred W. Nelson, Jr. 27 Visual Sourcing of Central Eastern California Obsidians Robert L. Bettinger, Michael G. Delacorte and Robert J. Jackson 63 OBSIDIAN HYDRATION ANALYSIS Obsidian Hydration Dating and Field Site Temperature Fred Treour and Irving Friedman 79 Tephra Hydration Rinds as Indicators of Age and Effective Hydration Temperature Jonathan 0. Davis 91 Current Problems in Obsidian Hydration Analysis Robert J. Jackson 103 INTERPELETIVE STWDIES A Reassessm&nt of Obsidian Production Analyses for the Bodie Hills and Casa Diablo Quarry Areas Thomas L. Jackson 117 i Trans-Sierran Exchange in Prehistoric California: The Concept of Economic Articulation Paul D. Bouey and Mark E. sgall 135 Obsidian Hydration: Applications in the Western Great Basin Robert J. Jackson 173 Implications of Obsidian Hydration Readings and Source Determinations for 28,Presumed "Early Man" Points from Nevada Donald R. Tuohy 193 SUMMARY COMENTS Obsidian Studies in 1984 Fred Stross 223 Overview of Great Basin Obsidian Studies Clnemnt W. Mfeighan 225 Affiliations 231 ii Preface to Second Printing Ten years ago I would have been skeptical if someone had told me that there would be an interest in reprinting Obsidian Studies in the Great Basin. Regardless, the volume, originally published in a run of 400 copies in June 1984, has been out-of-print for more than five years, and the Archaeological Research Facility has received a steady stream of requests for it. On reflection, the call to make Contribution 45 again available is, I think, a tribute to the burgeoning interest in obsidian studies worldwide. In 1982, when I organized the symposium at the 18th Great Basin Anthropological Conference in Reno, Nevada at which most of the papers in this volume were first presented, obsidian studies in western North America were scarcely a decade old. Although pioneering work in obsidian characterization began during the middle 1960s, little of that work reached a wider audience until several years later. Because so much obsidian work has been completed in the Great Basin over the past decade, it is easy to forget that until the early 1980s, only three studies had been published specifically focusing on Great Basin obsidian characterization (Jack and Carmichael 1969; Condie and Blaxland 1970; Nelson and Holmes 1979), although somewhat greater attention had been devoted to obsidian hydration (e.g. Michels 1969; Layton 1972a, b; 1973). Over the last ten years archaeological research employing chemical characterization and hydration rim measurement has increased by an order of magnitude; a citation list of such studies would run several pages. However, since many of the themes of contemporary obsidian studies have changed little during this time, the research strategies applied, and general concerns voiced, by the authors of papers in Contribution 45 are as appropriate today as they were when they were first published. Richard E. Hughes Geochemical Research Laboratory December 1, 1994 References Condie, Kent C., and Alan B. Blaxland 1970 Sources of Obsidian in Hogup and Danger Caves. In C. Melvin Aikens, Hogup Cave. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 93:275-8 1. Jack, R. N., and I. S. E. Carmichael 1969 The Chemical 'Fingerprinting' of Acid Volcanic Rocks. California Division of Mines and Geology, Special Paper 100:17-32. Layton, Thomas N. 1972a Lithic Chronology in the Fort Rock Valley, Oregon: An Obsidian Hydration Study from Cougar Mountain Cave. Tebiwa 15:1-21. 1972b A 12,000 Year Obsidian Hydration Record of Occupation, Abandonment and Lithic Change from the Northwestern Great Basin. Tebiwa 15:22-28. 1973 Temporal Ordering of Surface Collected Obsidian Artifacts by Hydration Measurement. Archaeometry 15:129-32. Michels, Joseph W. 1969 Testing Stratigraphy and Artifact Reuse through Obsidian Hydration Dating. American Antiquity 34:15-22. Nelson, Fred W., and Richard D. Holmes 1979 Trace Element Analysis of Obsidian Sources and Artifacts from Westem Utah. Antiquities Section Selected Papers 6 (15). Utah State Historical Society. EDIIOR'S PREFACE Most of the papers in this volume were presented in preliminary form at a symposium I organized and chaired at the 18th Great Bain Anthropological Conference, held in Reno, Nevada, September 30, 1982. Two lmanuscripts (by Bettinger, Delacorte and Jackson and by Stross) were solicited for publication following the conference. I thank John Graham (Coordinator, University of California Archaeological Research Facility) for making a place for this volume in the Contributions series, and Suzanne Sundholm (Archaeological Research Facility) for assistance in seeing the manuscripts through to publication. R.E. Hughes July 26, 1984 OBSIDIAN SOURCE ANALYSIS