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Provenience Analysis of Obsidians from the Central Peten Lakes Region, Guatemala

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Prudence M. Rice ,
Helen V. Michel ,
Frank Asaro  and
Fred Stross
Prudence M. Rice
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611
Helen V. Michel
Affiliation:
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, under DOEcontract #DE-ACO 3-76SF 00098
Frank Asaro
Affiliation:
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, under DOEcontract #DE-ACO 3-76SF 00098
Fred Stross
Affiliation:
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, under DOEcontract #DE-ACO 3-76SF 00098
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Abstract

A set of 296 obsidian artifacts from the lakes area of the Department of Peten, Guatemala, has been provenienced by X-ray fluorescence and neutron activation analysis. The obsidians come from socioeconomic contexts (primarily rural/domestic) and time periods—from the Middle Preclassic period, ca. 800 B.C., up to the time of Spanish contact, A.D. 1525—that have been poorly represented in previous Lowland provenience studies. Thus they provide new data on the acquisition and distribution of this important non-local commodity in the Maya Lowlands.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , July 1985 , pp. 591 - 604
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1985

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References

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