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Temporal Variation in Obsidian Procurement in the Northern Rio Grande and Its Implications for Obsidian Movement into the San Juan Area

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2019

James L. Moore*
Affiliation:
Office of Archaeological Studies, Museum of New Mexico, 7 Old Cochiti Road, Santa Fe, NM87504, USA
Eric Blinman
Affiliation:
Office of Archaeological Studies, Museum of New Mexico, 7 Old Cochiti Road, Santa Fe, NM87504, USA
M. Steven Shackley
Affiliation:
Geoarchaeological XRF Laboratory, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, 8100 Wyoming Boulevard NE, Suite M4-158, Albuquerque, NM87113, USA
*
(james.moore@state.nm.us, corresponding author)

Abstract

Arakawa and colleagues (2011) use temporal changes in obsidian source patterns to link the late thirteenth-century abandonment of the Mesa Verde region to Ortman's (2010, 2012) model of Tewa migration to the northern Rio Grande. They employ Anthony's (1990) concept of reverse migration, inferring that an increase in Mesa Verde–region obsidian from a specific Jemez Mountain source reflects the scouting of an eventual migration path. Weaknesses of this inference are that only obsidian data from the Mesa Verde region were used in its development and that the model does not consider the complexities of previously documented patterns of settlement and stone raw material use in the northern Rio Grande. By examining source data from parts of northwestern and north-central New Mexico, we find that the patterning seen in the Mesa Verde obsidian data is widespread both geographically and temporally. The patterns are more indicative of a change in acquisition within a down-the-line exchange system than a reverse migration stream. Population trends on the southern Pajarito Plateau, the probable source of the acquisition change, suggest ancestral Keres rather than Tewa involvement in thirteenth-century obsidian distribution.

Arakawa y otros (2011) usa los cambios temporales en el patrón de las fuentes de obsidiana para ligar el tardío abandono de la región de Mesa Verde al modelo de la migración Tewa al norte del Río Grande propuesto por Ortman (2010, 2012). Ellos emplean el concepto de Anthony (1990) de migración inversa, infiriendo eso por un incremento en la región de Mesa Verde de obsidiana proveniente de fuentes específicas localizadas en las Montañas Jemez, lo que refleja la exploración de una eventual ruta de migración. La debilidad de esta inferencia está en que solamente se usan datos de la obsidiana de Mesa Verde y el modelo no considera la complejidad de patrones de asentamiento y materias primas líticas usadas en el norte del Río Grande y que han sido previamente documentados. Examinando datos de partes del noroeste y el norte-centro de Nuevo México, nosotros encontramos que el patrón observado en los datos de la obsidiana de Mesa Verde están muy difundidos tanto geográficamente como temporalmente. Los patrones son indicativos más de un cambio en la obtención dentro de (a down-the-line) de un sistema de intercambio que de un flujo de migración inversa. La tendencia poblacional en el sur de la Pajarito Plateau y el probable cambio en la fuente de obtención, sugiere el involucramiento de los Keres ancestrales en lugar de los Tewas en la distribución de la obsidiana en el siglo trece.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by the Society for American Archaeology

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