Obsidian Procurement and Social Interaction at the Harris Site, Mimbres River Valley, New Mexico

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-12-2019

Publication Title

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports

Volume

27

First page number:

1

Last page number:

9

Abstract

In this paper, we use obsidian sourcing and lithic analysis data to explore obsidian use and its relationship to social interaction at the Harris site, a large pithouse village located in the Mimbres Valley of southwestern New Mexico. We also use the data to examine whether differences in obsidian procurement strategies and access to obsidian were present between households at the Harris site. The sourced assemblage is one of the largest from a single site in the American Southwest and many of the artifacts are from dated contexts that allow the examination of patterns of obsidian procurement through time as well as within and between households.

Keywords

Obsidian: U.S. Southwest; Mimbres; Energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence; Social interaction

Disciplines

Archaeological Anthropology

Language

English

UNLV article access

Search your library

Share

COinS