Visual and geochemical analyses of obsidian source use at San Felipe Aztatán, Mexico

Pierce, Daniel E.

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2015.09.002

Cited by 14 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…This cultural tradition was part of a prestige economy because elites traded obsidian blades, copper, ceramics, and marine shell. Pachuca blades reached West Mexico, particularly at the regional center of San Felipe Aztatán in Nayarit (Pierce 2015, 2021), but the interaction between West Mexico and Central Mexico was minimal. While copper bells, cacao, and marine shell from West Mexico and the Gulf of California moved north into the SW/NW during the Mesoamerican Postclassic, no obsidian from West Mexico has been found in the SW/NW even though there are several high-quality sources (Glascock et al 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most obsidian is black, but other colors—such as gray, mahogany, rainbow, and green—exist throughout the world. In some cases, researchers can tell one source from another based on the color and the presence or degree of banding, translucency, and opaqueness, as well as through petrographic studies of the crystals and microcrystals (Braswell et al 2000; Pierce 2015). Pachuca obsidian is often verified visually because of its distinctive translucent green color, but other obsidians in Mesoamerica are green.…”

Section: Edxrf Spectrometrymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pachuca Obsidian Blades from the U.S. Southwest: Implications for Mesoamerican Connections and Coronado's Mexican Indian Allies

Dolan¹,

Shackley

2021

Am. Antiq.

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The connection between people in the prehispanic U.S. Southwest / Northwest Mexico (SW/NW) and Mesoamerica is one of the most debated research topics in American archaeology. SW/NW groups used objects from Mesoamerica, but did they also trade for obsidian? Archaeologists have yet to find Mesoamerican obsidian from confirmed prehispanic SW/NW contexts, but here we discuss four green obsidian prismatic blades from New Mexico and Arizona. Using EDXRF spectrometry, we demonstrate that the blades are from the Pachuca source in Mesoamerica. The blades were found at four sites that the Spanish and their Mexican Indian allies used or potentially visited beginning in AD 1540. Using lithic technological organization and historical narratives, we assess the credibility of the different hypothesized models of prehispanic SW/NW-Mesoamerican interaction and obsidian use by the Mexican Indian allies. We suggest that green Pachuca blades would have been traded into the SW/NW if interaction with Mesoamerica had occurred more frequently. We also offer reasons why archaeologists have found so few Mesoamerican obsidian blades at post-1540 sites. This research is relevant because it expands our knowledge about SW/NW-Mesoamerican connections and the Mexican Indian allies of the Spanish, who are an underrepresented group in the archaeological and historical records.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Edxrf Spectrometrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Pachuca Obsidian Blades from the U.S. Southwest: Implications for Mesoamerican Connections and Coronado's Mexican Indian Allies

Dolan¹,

Shackley

2021

Am. Antiq.

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“…To establish usage of the source archaeologically, I have used data from previous geochemical and macroscopic analyses of obsidian artifacts by Pierce (2012Pierce ( , 2015aPierce ( , 2015bPierce ( , 2015c and Ohnersorgen et al (2012) as well as unpublished results as part of an ongoing regional obsidian analysis by Pierce from various sites.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Volcán las Navajas: The chemical characterization and usage of a West Mexican obsidian source in the Aztatlán tradition

Pierce

2016

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports

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“…Furthermore, this can easily be conducted in-situ, thus permitting the sourcing of artefacts that cannot be transported to the laboratory (see e.g. Pierce, 2015).…”

Section: Visual Characterisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

On sourcing obsidian assemblages from the Mediterranean area: analytical strategies for their exhaustive geochemical characterisation

Orange

Bourdonnec

Bellot‐Gurlet

et al. 2017

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports

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This paper presents an overview of the work conducted by our research group in the Mediterranean area. Initiated in the 1990s by the late Gérard Poupeau, our research relies on international and multidisciplinary collaborations to endeavour archaeological and anthropological issues linked to the diffusion and consumption of the obsidian raw material during the Neolithic period. Our line of action is to develop flexibly unique analytical strategies, tailored to each obsidian assemblage considered for a sourcing study. Drawing its strength from the complementarity of the methods available within our group, i.e. visual characterisation, SEM-EDS, ED-XRF, pXRF, PIXE, and LA-ICP-MS, this approach allows for the exhaustive and non-destructive analysis of those assemblages, thus optimising the potential of sourcing studies. Working hand in hand with archaeologists, the results are closely integrated to the information brought by the typological and technological characteristics of the artefacts, in the aim to reconstruct an overview of the obsidian economy at site level, but also to replace it in a broader — regional and supra-regional — context

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Visual and geochemical analyses of obsidian source use at San Felipe Aztatán, Mexico

Cited by 14 publications

References 10 publications

Pachuca Obsidian Blades from the U.S. Southwest: Implications for Mesoamerican Connections and Coronado's Mexican Indian Allies

Pachuca Obsidian Blades from the U.S. Southwest: Implications for Mesoamerican Connections and Coronado's Mexican Indian Allies

Volcán las Navajas: The chemical characterization and usage of a West Mexican obsidian source in the Aztatlán tradition

On sourcing obsidian assemblages from the Mediterranean area: analytical strategies for their exhaustive geochemical characterisation

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