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Petrographic Analysis Of Sherd Samples From The Hot Spring Lake And Airport Sites, Salt Lake City, Utah, Sergio F. Castro-Reino, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

Prehistoric sherds from two sites near the Salt Lake City airport were analyzed petrographically and compared to a small reference set of sands from the Salt Lake Valley. No Fremont wares are tempered with sand from the Salt Lake area. Some Late Prehistoric wares are tempered with coarse, angular, alluvial sand temper of mineralic composition from metagranite sources 10-12 kilometers away. Volcanic-tempered Late Prehistoric sherds may originate in the Traverse Mountains--provenance cannot be established without further sampling, but the closest sources are at least 30 kilometers away. In all cases sources appear to be non-local to the studied sites.