Pre-Hispanic Quarrying in the Ucareo-Zinapecuaro Obsidian Source Area

Abstract

Obsidian artifact sourcing studies performed over the last 25 years have identified obsidian from outcrops around the communities of Zinapecuaro and Ucareo, Michoacan, at sites widely distributed in time and space. Recent data indicate that Zinapecuaro and Ucareo constitute distinct obsidian sources, although their proximity to each other and their similar chemical compositions merit their consideration as collectively comprising part of an obsidian source area. Sourcing studies that used Ucareo as well as Zinapecuaro source reference samples provide strong evidence of considerably greater pre-Hispanic utilization of the Ucareo source, and raise the possibility that at least some artifacts attributed to Zinapecuaro in studies that did not use Ucareo reference samples may be from the Ucareo source. These findings are supported by recent archaeological evidence of considerably greater exploitation of the Ucareo source, including what is probably one of the largest known pre-Hispanic quarries. Preliminary data provide a tentative chronology for settlement and exploitation of the source area.

The Archaeology of Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico

“…7, H) partially exposed a workshop that contained distinct living, working, and refuse dumping areas (Healan 1986;Healan et al 1983) and produced prismatic cores and blades from imported polyhedral (percussion) cores (Healan 2002(Healan , 2003. Obsidian residue indicate that the actual core/blade reduction loci were located outdoors (Healan 1997), although core platform grinding appears to have taken place inside the residential compound (Healan 2009b). Both the residential compound and the outdoor work area were relatively free of production waste, most of which was encountered in a peripheral refuse dump underlying the highest surface obsidian densities in the locality.…”

“…1, C) on the southeastern flank of the Bajío (Healan 1997, table 1). Recent excavation of habitation sites around the source (Healan 1997;Hernandez and Healan 2000) has documented a long-lived red-on-buff ceramic tradition (Hernandez 2000) whose origins go back to the Early/Classic period, as determined by recent chronometric dating (Hernandez and Healan n.d.).…”

Procurement at the Chivay obsidian source, Arequipa, Peru

“…We estimate that 12.8m 3 of material was removed from the pit by subtracting a surface model generated from 50cm interval total station postings from a hypothetical surface in ArcGIS Spatial Analyst (McCoy and Johnston 2001) and calculating the volumetric difference (Fig.4B). This pit can be compared with ellipsoidal quarry pits ringed by semi-circular piles of quarry debris and debitage that were described at obsidian sources in central Mexico (Darras 1999: 80-84;Healan 1997), although this quarry pit at Chivay is modest by Mexican standards and debitage is relatively scarce. The Quispisisa source in southern Peru has dozens of quarry pits in various sizes and this sole pit at Chivay is comparatively small (Tripcevich and Contreras 2011).…”

Archaeological Approaches to Obsidian Quarries: Investigations at the Quispisisa Source

“…2.4 ). They give the pits the appearance of the "Doughnut quarries" described at the UcareoZinapécuaro obsidian source in West Mexico (Healan 1997 ) .…”