Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:14:33.184Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Testing Stratigraphy and Artifact Reuse through Obsidian Hydration Dating

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Joseph W. Michels*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania

Abstract

Dating a moderately large sample of obsidian artifacts from a site can contribute highly accurate knowledge about three basic unknowns for site deposits: (1) the presence or absence of a statistically significant tendency towards superposition in the deposit; (2) the nature and degree of disturbance inhibiting the full expression of the superpositional tendency; and (3) the directional bias associated with the disturbance.

Deposits of the following three sites are analyzed: Mammoth Junction site, California; La Victoria site, Guatemala; and the Chorrera R-B-1 site, Ecuador. A test for artifact reuse is described and is applied to the three sites.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Clark, Donavan L. 1964 Archaeological Chronology in California and the Obsidian Hydration Method. Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey, pp. 139228. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael D. 1961 La Victoria, An Early Site on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Vol. 53. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Evans, C. and Meggers, B. J. 1960 A New Dating Method Using Obsidian: Part II, An Archaeological Evaluation of the Method. American Antiquity, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 52337. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Rowe, John H. 1961 Stratigraphy and Seriarion. American Antiquity, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 32430. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Scheffe, Henry 1959 The Analysis of Variance. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York.Google Scholar