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New Data on Sources of Obsidian Artifacts from Tikal, Guatemala

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Hattula Moholy-Nagy  and
Fred W. Nelson
Hattula Moholy-Nagy
Affiliation:
Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Fred W. Nelson
Affiliation:
Museum of Peoples and Cultures, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
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Abstract

In 1984, 29 obsidian artifacts and an unworked nodule from Tikal were attributed to source by visual means and then analyzed by X-ray fluorescence (XRF). We conclude that the considerable within-source optical variability of gray Mesoamerican obsidians makes visual sourcing unreliable at present, although a corpus of descriptions of the optical characteristics of obsidian may eventually provide a way to exclude possible sources. The XRF analysis identified two additional central Mexican sources, bringing to six the number of Mexican obsidian sources represented at Tikal; failed to provide a secure identification for the nodule; supported the succession of Guatemalan obsidian sources utilized by the Southern Lowland Maya previously proposed by Nelson; and suggested other correlations between source, artifact type, and archaeological context.

Type
Articles
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , Spring 1990 , pp. 71 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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