Obsidian hydration dating on the South Coast of Peru

Obsidian hydration at high elevation: Archaic quarrying at the Chivay source, southern Peru

“…600 masl) would predict a thickness of over 8 microns for artifacts dating to 2000 BC. We lack detailed climatic data for the Maymeja region, but we estimate an effective hydration temperature of about 5C for the Maymeja region (using data presented in Eerkens et al, 2008;Lynch and Stevenson, 1992). Chemical reactions within obsidian slow considerably with colder temperatures, thus, the slow hydration rate is largely expected (Friedman and Trembour, 1983;Stevens, 2005).…”

“…While obsidian hydration analysis is familiar in many parts of western North America, it is still relatively uncommon in Andean archaeology (for exceptions see Bell, 1977;Bonifaz, 1985;Eerkens et al, 2008;Lynch and Stevenson, 1992;Mayer-Oakes, 1986). The reasons for this are many, but a principal cause is that many sites can be dated by a simpler method, namely, the presence of temporally-diagnostic ceramics.…”

Archaeological Approaches to Obsidian Quarries: Investigations at the Quispisisa Source

“…Over the past 50 years, research interest in obsidian has increased around the world, largely as a consequence of the discovery that chemical composition of obsidian artifacts and source areas could be used to link artifacts to geological sources (Burger and Asaro 1977 ;Cann and Renfrew 1964 ;Glascock et al 2007 ;Shackley 2011 ) . Obsidian also provides a means of direct chronological control through estimates derived from the rate of absorption of water on culturally modi fi ed materials (Eerkens et al 2008 ;Liritzis and Laskarisa 2011 ;Tripcevich et al 2012 ) . While there are limitations to the obsidian hydration dating method in some circumstances, it has proven to be of broad utility for improving chronological sequences.…”

The significance of obsidian hydration dating in assessing the integrity of Holocene midden, Hokkaido, northern Japan

“…Since the implication of the presence of hydration in obsidian (Ross and Smith, 1955) and the new dating method in using observed hydration rinds introduced into archaeology in 1960 (Friedman and Smith, 1960), over the last five decades, OHD has been popularized to furnish the dates for prehistoric sites and assemblages. Obsidian artifacts both in buried and surface contexts have been used in regions where obsidian artifacts are ubiquitously found, notably in southern Pacific coast of North America (e.g., Bettinger, 1980;Hull, 2001;Meighan, 1983;Origer, 1989;Rogers and Yohe, 2011), Great Basin (Jones and Beck, 1990;Jones et al, 2003), American Southwest (Findlow et al, 1975;Ridings, 1996), East Africa (Ambrose, 2012;Michels et al, 1983), Mesoamerica (Braswell, 1992;Freter, 1993;Riciputi et al, 2002;Webster and Freter, 1990), coastal Peru (Eerkens et al, 2008), central Andes (Tripcevich et al, 2012), Oceania (Ambrose, 1994;Clark et al, 1997), interior Alaska (Clark, 1984), and Japan Kondo, 1965, 1976;Suzuki, 1971). The major reasons why OHD is accepted by archaeologists are: (1) relative easiness in the procedure of observations, measures, and calculations of dates, (2) specimens can be coupled with temporally sensitive techno-typological units such as projectile points (e.g., Jones and Beck, 1990), (3) while analysts can accommodate a large number of specimens for dates, the cost to obtain dates is not expensive (lower than the radiometric dates such as radiocarbon dating), and (4) depending on the effective hydration temperature, the applicable range of dating is deep enough to cover from the Middle Pleistocene (780,000 BP) to historic period (Friedman and Smith, 1960;Michels and Tsong, 1980;Origer, 1989).…”