Instrumental Analysis of Lithics

Abstract

The instrumental analysis of lithic materials is a useful method for identifying source locations for stones that were employed by people around the world, and source data have been employed to address a wide range of important archaeological research issues. The analytical methods and instruments that archaeologists employ to identify sources for tool raw materials are similar to those used in geological research. These include such approaches as stable isotope analysis, ultraviolet florescence, instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS), particle‐induced X‐ray emission (PIXE), thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS), and X‐ray fluorescence (XRF).

Anarchic Social Movements as an Explanation for Rapid Change: A Case Study from the Hohokam World, A.D. 1200 – 1450

“…The Salado social movement-emerging from relational politics (i.e., horizontalism) between locals, migrants, and eventually the descendants of both-worked to limit and undermine hierarchical religious and political developments within the Classic period (A.D. 1100/1200 ̶ 1450) Hohokam world in southern Arizona. We suggest that the ultimate trajectory of this movement in places like the Phoenix and Tucson Basins may have been the social reorganization into the dispersed and decentralized communities and reversion to houses in pits near the end of the Classic period (e.g., Polvoron) that was maintained by O'Odham communities through much of the European Colonial period (Bahr 1971, Bahr 1983, Bahr et al 1994Jelinek 2012;Loendorf and Lewis 2017;Loendorf et al 2013;Seymour 2007).…”