Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Obsidian Provenance Studies Of Sites In Northern Utah, Jeffrey Ferguson, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

Previous studies of obsidian from archaeological sites in Utah Valley and the Salt Lake Valley have used relatively small samples to document temporal shifts in obsidian procurement, with southern sources (especially Black Rock) dominating Fremont assemblages, while most post-Fremont obsidian comes from the Malad source to the north. Our greatly expanded XRF analysis of almost 4,000 obsidian artifacts from sites in Utah and Salt Lake Valleys confirms the temporal change noted by earlier researchers, but also shows site- and source-specific patterns of obsidian use, as well as variation in the frequency of different obsidian sources in tools, debitage, and micro-debitage.