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Testing Stratigraphy and Artifact Reuse through Obsidian Hydration Dating

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Joseph W. Michels*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania

Abstract

Dating a moderately large sample of obsidian artifacts from a site can contribute highly accurate knowledge about three basic unknowns for site deposits: (1) the presence or absence of a statistically significant tendency towards superposition in the deposit; (2) the nature and degree of disturbance inhibiting the full expression of the superpositional tendency; and (3) the directional bias associated with the disturbance.

Deposits of the following three sites are analyzed: Mammoth Junction site, California; La Victoria site, Guatemala; and the Chorrera R-B-1 site, Ecuador. A test for artifact reuse is described and is applied to the three sites.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1969

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References

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