Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Top 5 Obsidian Sources: Colorado

1. Polvadera Peak (NM)
2. Cerro del Medio (NM)
3. Malad (ID)
4. Obsidian Ridge (NM)
5. Cochetopa Dome

Like Washington, Colorado suffers from a severe shortage of good quality prehistoric obsidian sources and four of the five top sources are located in other states - New Mexico (Jemez Mountains) and Idaho. Polvadera Peak is the clear winner on the list and over 50 precent of the analyzed artifacts from the entire state are from that source. Over three-fourths of all characterized Colorado artifacts originated from sources in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico.

We only have a little over 400 Colorado obsidian artifacts in the lab database but it appears that the choice of source is strongly influenced by the geographic location of the site or artifact. For more on this, see the article below by Ferguson and Skinner (2003).

Ferguson, Jeffrey R. and Craig E. Skinner (2003) Colorado Obsidian? Preliminary Results of a Statewide Database of Trace Element Analysis. Kiva 69(4):35-50.

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