Assessing raw material diversity at Poverty Point (16WC5) using non‐destructive reflectance spectroscopy

Sherman, Simon P.; Parish, Ryan; Greenlee, Diana M.; Miller, D. E.

doi:10.1002/gea.21940

Cited by 9 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 13 publications

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“…This focus has led to a material bias which has been highlighted by Prieto et al (2019: 15). Recent decades, however, have seen an increase in interest for non-flint lithics and raw material studies (Blomme et al, 2012;Columbu et al, 2023;Dalpra and Pitblado, 2016;Prieto et al, 2019Prieto et al, , 2020Prieto et al, , 2021Ramacciotti et al, 2019Ramacciotti et al, , 2022Ramacciotti et al, , 2023Sherman et al, 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quartzite Complexities: Non-Destructive Analysis of Bifacial Points from Västerbotten, Sweden

Sjölander

Linderholm

Geladi³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quartzite Complexities: Non-Destructive Analysis of Bifacial Points from Västerbotten, Sweden

Sjölander

Linderholm

Geladi³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Non‐destructively characterizing sandstones, orthoquartzites, agates, and petrified wood for provenance research: Perspectives from the Southeastern Coastal Plain, United States

Sherman,

Parish,

Kwon

et al. 2024

Geoarchaeology

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Siliceous sandstone (including quartzites), petrified wood, and agates located in Alabama and Mississippi were utilized as a toolstone resource during every recognized cultural period in the Lower Mississippi Valley region of the Southeastern United States. Regrettably, these materials have not been the focus of many provenance‐related investigations. Recent analyses of quartzite and sandstone from other regions in North America and from the Pyrenees were successful in discriminating sources using petrographic techniques. The current study examines the application of visible/near‐infrared reflectance and Fourier transform infrared reflectance (FTIR) spectroscopy on sourcing siliceous materials besides chert, particularly sandstones, orthoquartzites (quartz sandstone), petrified woods, and agates. This source characterization investigation focuses on a case study involving materials gathered from eight distinct collection sites, encompassing nine different siliceous resources collected in Alabama and Mississippi. These materials were sourced from two distinct geological formations: the Hattiesburg and Tallahatta. Results demonstrate the ability of non‐destructive reflectance spectroscopy and introduces a new outlier modeling method that detects, clusters, and separately models outliers with their own set of basis vectors. Principal component analyses, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression, linear discriminant function analysis (LDA), and random forest classification are used in this paper to better identify outlier elements as well as discriminate for stone materials accurately (between 67% and 100%). Although this is the first reflectance spectroscopy investigation used to characterize these materials for provenance applications, the preliminary results compare favorably with other provenance techniques whose aim is to quantify between‐formation (inter) and within‐formation (intra) outcrop variation. The quantified and differentiated sources, based on the hyperspectral signatures of the material, will provide a better understanding of prehistoric reliance on these lithic resources and produces a proxy to determine mobility, social interaction, and other past behavior.

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Examining the distribution of Middle Paleolithic Nubian cores relative to chert quality in southern (Nejd, Dhofar) and south‐central (Duqm, Al Wusta) Oman

Eren,

Bebber,

Singer

et al. 2024

Geoarchaeology

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Lithic raw material properties are often invoked to explain the presence, absence, form, or ontogeny of Paleolithic stone tools. Here, we explore whether the frequency of the Middle Paleolithic Nubian core form and core‐reduction systems co‐varies with toolstone quality in two neighboring regions in Oman: the southern region of Nejd, Dhofar, and the south‐central region of Duqm, Al Wusta. Specifically, we predicted that if raw material differences were influencing the distribution of Nubian cores, the chert would be of higher quality in the southern region, where Nubian cores were frequent, and of lower quality in the south‐central region, where they were scarce. We tested this prediction by collecting 124 chert samples from 22 outcrops and then quantitatively assessed two geochemical variables that are widely thought to influence knapping: impurity amount and silica content. We also examined the mineralogical composition, and the crystallite size and lattice strain for quartz (crystalline α‐SiO2) of representative chert samples. Our results suggest that the cherts in the two regions are similar, which is not consistent with the hypothesis that lithic raw material quality contributed to Nubian core spatial distribution in Oman. We discuss potential alternative hypotheses to explain Nubian core geographic patterning, and provisionally suggest that the scarcity of Nubian cores in south‐central Oman may be due to a concomitant scarcity of toolmakers, given a lack of water availability.

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Assessing raw material diversity at Poverty Point (16WC5) using non‐destructive reflectance spectroscopy

Cited by 9 publications

References 13 publications

Quartzite Complexities: Non-Destructive Analysis of Bifacial Points from Västerbotten, Sweden

Quartzite Complexities: Non-Destructive Analysis of Bifacial Points from Västerbotten, Sweden

Non‐destructively characterizing sandstones, orthoquartzites, agates, and petrified wood for provenance research: Perspectives from the Southeastern Coastal Plain, United States

Examining the distribution of Middle Paleolithic Nubian cores relative to chert quality in southern (Nejd, Dhofar) and south‐central (Duqm, Al Wusta) Oman

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