Mineralogical approaches to sourcing pipes and figurines from the eastern woodlands, U.S.A.

Abstract

Provenance studies of stone artifacts often rely heavily upon chemical techniques such as neutron activation analysis. However, stone specimens with very similar chemical composition can have different mineralogies (distinctive crystalline structures as well as variations within the same mineral) that are not revealed by multielemental techniques. Because mineralogical techniques are often cheap and usually nondestructive, beginning with mineralogy allows the researcher to gain valuable information and then to be selective about how many samples are submitted for expensive and somewhat destructive chemical analysis, thus conserving both valuable samples and funds. Our University of Illinois team of archaeologists and geologists employs Portable Infrared Mineral Analyzer (PIMA) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Sequential acid dissolution/XRD/Inductively coupled plasma (SAD-XRD-ICP) analyses. Two case studies of Hopewellian pipes and Mississippian figurines illustrate this mineralogical approach. The results for both studies identify sources relatively close to the sites where the artifacts were recovered: Sterling, Illinois (rather than Ohio) for the (Hopewell) pipes and Missouri (rather than Arkansas or Oklahoma) for the Cahokia figurines.

Refining the identification of native American pipestone quarries in the midcontinental United States

“…This work helped establish a solid reference database for Midwestern pipestones that can be used for future artifact sourcing. Many of our results have been published previously (e.g., Hughes et al, 1998;Hughes, 2000, 2001;Emerson et al, 2002Emerson et al, , 2003Emerson et al, , 2004Emerson et al, , 2005aWisseman et al, 2002Wisseman et al, , 2004Wisseman et al, , 2011. In this paper, we present how NIS (PIMA) works for sourcing pipestones, the dominant mineral composition of the major pipestone sources, and the current state of our knowledge on pipestone geology.…”

“…Our XRD and ICP analyses (Emerson and Hughes, 2000;Emerson et al, 2003;Wisseman et al, 2002) show that they were produced from a flint clay source in nearby Missouri (Keller et al, 1954) Fig. 11.…”

“…Selected chemical methods (sequential acid dissolution and inductively-coupled plasma: SADeICP) also were used to obtain the chemical content of some individual minerals (Hughes et al, 1998;Emerson and Hughes, 2000;Wisseman et al, 2002).…”

The application of visible/near‐infrared reflectance (VNIR) spectroscopy to chert: A case study from the Dover Quarry sites, Tennessee

“…Archaeologists have been slow to realize the potential application of reflectance spectroscopy, although a few studies make note of the technique (Luedtke, 1992;Church, 1994;Carr & Turner, 1996;Long, Silveria, & Julig, 2001;Hubbard, Waugh, & Ortiz, 2005;Hubbard, 2006). The results of previous research indicate that various spectroscopy techniques are well suited to archaeological and geological applications (Carr & Turner, 1996;McCutcheon, 1997;McCutcheon & Kuehner, 1997;Emerson & Hughes, 2000;Long, Silveira, & Julig, 2001;Wisseman et al, 2002;DeSouza et al, 2003;Lyons, Glascock, & Mehringer, 2003;Hubbard, Waugh, & Ortiz, 2005;Hubbard, 2006;Bowitz & Ehling, 2008;Hawkins et al, 2008;Ostrooumov, 2009;Parish, 2009;Wisseman et al, 2010).…”

Identifying animate stones and sacred landscapes: Twenty-five years of native pipestone-quarries research in the American midcontinent

“…Its focus was to identify the unique mineralogical signature of each of the known or suspected sources to further our understanding of chronological and cultural patterns of native pipestone use, to trace exchange patterns, and to identify the geologic and cultural context of these quarry landscapes. This chapter reviews our earlier published research (Emerson et al., 2002, 2003, 2005, 2013; Emerson and Hughes, 2000, 2001; Farnsworth et al., 2004; Hughes et al., 1998; Wisseman et al., 2002, 2010, 2011, 2012) and explores the cultural aspects of quarry use in more detail in the best-known example of native uses from an ethnographic context.…”