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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Archaeological Anthropology

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All Master's Theses

XRF

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Raw Material Usage And Stone Tool Manufacture In The Elwha River Valley, Zachary C. Allen Jan 2021

Raw Material Usage And Stone Tool Manufacture In The Elwha River Valley, Zachary C. Allen

All Master's Theses

Archaeological investigations stemming from the removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams of the Elwha River Valley in 2014 resulted in the identification of nine archaeological sites and collection of 6,870 pre-contact lithic artifacts, primarily composed of fine-grained volcanic stone. Regional models of this raw material usage and site location within a glacially-carved riverine environment place these sites within the Old Cordilleran/Olcott cultural tradition that has been widely observed in the Salish Sea. This study is focused on the variation in raw materials used in the production of stone tools in the Elwha River Valley to understand if similar …


Measuring Trace Element Concentrations In Artiodactyl Cannonbones Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence, Joshua L. Henderson Jan 2019

Measuring Trace Element Concentrations In Artiodactyl Cannonbones Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence, Joshua L. Henderson

All Master's Theses

Artiodactyl bones are the most common faunal remains found in Washington prehistoric archaeology sites, but they are often too fragmented to accurately identify a family, genus, or species. Traditional faunal analysis can only organize unidentifiable bone fragments into size class, and chemical methods often require the destruction of bone samples. In this thesis research, I tested a new, nondestructive faunal analysis technique using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) to measure trace element concentrations in comparative collection and archaeological bone samples. Using cannonbones from five different artiodactyl species, I collected trace element data from 50 comparative collection specimens and 18 archaeological specimens …