Pilot study experiments sourcing quartzite, Gunnison Basin, Colorado

Bonnie L. Pitblado · Carol M. Dehler · Héctor Neff · Stephen T. Nelson

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Cultural Heritage Materials Analysis Geological and Geochemical Analysis Mineralogy and Gemology Studies

Abstract

Abstract This paper reports the results of pilot‐study efforts to develop methods to profile quartzite, a rock type to which geochemical and other sourcing techniques have only rarely been applied. The long‐term goal of the research is to fingerprint sources of quartzite in the Gunnison Basin, southwest Colorado, used by Paleoindian people ca. 11,500–8,000 years ago to make stone tools. Success would facilitate reconstruction of Paleoindian mobility in the Southern Rocky Mountains and potentially anywhere prehistoric people used quartzite. The goals of this paper are more modest: to demonstrate that a small‐scale exploration of sourcing techniques suggests reason for optimism that quartzites may be amenable to source discrimination. For the same twenty Gunnison Basin quartzite samples, this study evaluated petrography, ultraviolet fluorescence (UVF), wavelength dispersive X‐ray fluorescence (WD‐XRF), instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry—both acid‐digestion (AD‐ICP‐MS) and laser ablation (LA‐ICP‐MS)—as means to differentiate among the specimens and the sources they represent. Although more testing is needed to verify and refine our results, the study suggests there is potential for petrography, INAA, and both versions of ICP‐MS to discriminate among quartzites from different source localities in the Gunnison Basin. The greatest potential for discriminating among different sources of quartzite in the Gunnison Basin may lie in a methodology combining petrographic analysis and LA‐ICPMS. Future testing is required to evaluate this two‐fold approach. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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References

1996Archaeological Chemistry 2003Lithic Source Use and Paleoarchaic Foraging Territories in the Great Basin 1994An Archaeologist's Guide to Chert and Flint 1979The Identification of Sources of Chert Artifacts 2004Lithic Analysis 1995Sources of Archaeological Obsidian in the Greater American Southwest: An Update and Quantitative Analysis 2000Stone Tool Research at the End of the Millennium: Procurement and Technology 1978Chert Sources and Trace-Element Analysis

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