LA-ICP-MS analysis of Clovis period projectile points from the Gault Site

Neutron activation analysis of 12,900-year-old stone artifacts confirms 450–510+ km Clovis tool-stone acquisition at Paleo Crossing (33ME274), northeast Ohio, U.S.A.

“…A significant obstacle to demonstrating Clovis long-distance acquisition of stone, however, is being able to empirically and objectively link the stone found at an archaeological site to a particular outcrop (Burke, 2006;Burke et al, 2014;Haynes, 2002;Nash et al, 2013;Speer, 2014). Virtually all raw-material identifications of Clovis tools continue to be based on qualitative descriptions of megascopic and macroscopic properties.…”

“…Virtually all raw-material identifications of Clovis tools continue to be based on qualitative descriptions of megascopic and macroscopic properties. The problem with this approach is that such properties alone are insufficient for discriminating among similar materials or for assigning specific provenance to materials if they occur in geographically widespread outcrops (Hoard et al, 1992;Huckell et al, 2011;Luedtke, 1979Luedtke, , 1992Speer, 2014). Further, the identification of a stone raw material based solely on the appearance of a specimen in hand is subjective and oftentimes difficult to verify.…”

Going the distance: Mapping mobility in the Kalahari Desert during the Middle Stone Age through multi-site geochemical provenancing of silcrete artefacts

“…The most accurate means of determining source locations is through geochemical provenancing of lithic raw materials. A range of stone types have been used successfully in provenancing studies, including obsidian (e.g., Shackley, 1995;Roth, 2000;Negash and Shackley, 2006;Vogel et al, 2006;Eerkens et al, 2007;Negash et al, 2007;Morgan et al, 2009;Phillips and Speakman, 2009;Smith, 2010;Smith and Kielhofer, 2011;Ambrose, 2012;Freund, 2013), chert (e.g., Thacker and Ellwood, 2002;Evans et al, 2007;Milne et al, 2009;Parish, 2011;Gauthier et al, 2012;Speer, 2014;Boulanger et al, 2015), flint (e.g., Moroni and Petrelli, 2005;Navazo et al, 2008;Olofsson and Rodushkin, 2011;Ekshtain et al, 2014), dolerite (e.g., Gallello et al, 2016), quartzite (e.g., Pitblado et al, 2013), and, recently, silcrete (Nash et al, 2013a,b).…”

Geologic provenience analysis of agate and carnelian beads using laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS): A case study from Iron Age Cambodia and Thailand

“…However, Canonical Discriminant Analysis (CDA) was used as an additional technique as a 357 means of maximizing the difference between sources and assigning possible provenience to 358 artifacts. This method has been used successfully in other studies assigning provenience to 359 agate/carnelian artifacts (Law et al, 2013) and chert artifacts (Speer, 2014a(Speer, , 2014b. In CDA, 360 linear combinations of variables called discriminant functions are generated that produce a 361 maximum degree of separation (discrimination) between various defined groups of cases, which 362 in this instance are the individual sets of samples collected from different geologic sources (see 363 Baxter 1994).…”