The typological, technological, and use-wear analyses of obsidian artifacts from Terminal Classic Pook's Hill (AD 830–950+) provide opportunities to better reconstruct socioeconomic activities in this plazuela group, including long-distance trade, tool production, subsistence practices, domestic tasks, and the organization of craft production. Based on visual sourcing, most of the obsidian originated from highland Guatemala, specifically El Chayal. The majority of obsidian artifacts were prismatic blades, although both casual and bipolar reduction of blade cores and the recycling of blades from earlier occupations occurred at the site. Use-wear analysis reveals that obsidian tools were mainly used for subsistence and domestic household activities; however, the concentrations of tools with specific wear patterns (bone, ceramic, plants, and shell) at some locations in the plazuela provide evidence for local craft production among the population. Further support for craft production is provided by comparable use-wear on chert/chalcedony tools from these same locations. The products of low-level craft production were used within Pook's Hill itself and may have been distributed to neighboring communities within the Roaring Creek and Upper Belize River Valleys. Despite the sociopolitical and socioeconomic disruptions to lifeways that accompanied the Terminal Classic period, the Pook's Hill Maya seem to have experienced minimal upheaval in their daily lives and continued local low-level craft production. However, one important change in the Terminal Classic appears to be the increased difficulty in obtaining obsidian at Pook's Hill and the growing need for tool recycling and raw material conservation.

During the Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000), obsidian was transported in greater quantities and distances than ever before identified in the Andes, in part by the expansionary Wari state. Two of the three major obsidian sources used in the south-central Andes are located in the modern department of Arequipa, Peru. Arequipa was a region of intense Wari influence and intrusive presence; however, little is known about regional obsidian use. Portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) and laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) were used to analyze 383 obsidian artifacts recovered from 10 archaeological sites in Arequipa. Results highlight diachronic and spatial patterning related to obsidian procurement strategies, state versus bottom-up exchange networks, and local participation within the Wari realm. A wide variety of geological obsidian sources, including nonlocal obsidians originating from Wari's Ayacucho heartland, were used. By the late Middle Horizon, the Wari had consolidated regional resources with the sole use of Alca-1 and Alca-4 bedrock obsidians, the largest-sized and highest-quality sources in the area. We assess related models of obsidian procurement and exchange related to state political economy, long-distance caravan activity, and the role of local ceremonial/waystation centers that facilitated the flow of ideas, goods, and people across Arequipa.

We present the first geochemical data of archaeological obsidian for Isla Victoria, Nahuel Huapi National Park in Patagonia. XRF analyses were performed on 15 samples of obsidian-like rocks from the Puerto Tranquilo 1 site. Only five of the artifacts—all of which come from upper levels of the site—correspond to obsidian as a raw material. The provenance analysis indicates the use of obsidian sources located in the Andean Forest area of southern Neuquen Province. Based on these preliminary results, we propose a north–south circulation axis for this raw material. These geographic results are discussed in relation to the information available regionally.

Este trabajo busca conocer las estrategias tecnológicas, los rangos de acción y la conectividad en las estrategias humanas de ambientes marginales. Se discute, para el caso del sur de Mendoza, el modelo clásico de trashumancia cazadora recolectora entre tierras bajas y altas. El estudio se centra específicamente en El Payén y en el uso de la obsidiana andina Laguna del Maule. En El Payén, esta obsidiana ocupa el primer lugar entre las variedades conocidas y su uso se vinculó a circuitos de movilidad estacional que involucraban tierras bajas y altas. La obsidiana Laguna del Maule posee dos subtipos geoquímicos, el Subtipo 1 registrado en cordillera, y el Subtipo 2 localizado en depósitos fluviales distales. En este trabajo modelamos las estrategias de interacción de tierras altas con tierras bajas, enfocándonos en modelos propuestos para La Payunia, que ponen énfasis en la tecnología lítica y se articulan con análisis geoquímicos y geoarqueológicos. Los resultados sostienen que las poblaciones de El Payén obtenían este recurso mediante distintas estrategias tecnológicas: un aprovisionamiento serial del Subtipo 2, con circuitos de movilidad centrados en tierras bajas; diferente al Subtipo 1 de aprovisionamiento cíclico, que habría involucrado la interacción entre tierras altas y tierras bajas.

Although much research has been conducted on the Late Postclassic period Maya, there has been relatively less study of the role of economic activities in political management during this period. Many such studies focused on obsidian analysis and technology as proxies for trade and exchange. This article builds on that research, using a legacy collection of obsidian implements collected during archaeological surveys in the 1970s to examine Late Postclassic period (AD 1200–1524) economic networks in the K'iche’ region. Obsidian collections from the site of Q'umarkaj and the surrounding region were examined through technological and geochemical analyses. I find that during the Late Postclassic period, K'iche’ elites had more access to nonlocal obsidian sources than did non-elites, but that access to locally available sources was managed through independent and diverse acquisition networks. Thus, the K'iche’ elite were not dependent on local economies as a main source of political power.

Excavations conducted by Beloit College in 1958 and 1960 identified the site of La Magdalena in the Bajío of Mexico. Investigators have since highlighted three primary phases of occupation at La Magdalena, two of which were proposed to have been culturally influenced by Teotihuacan or Tula. Modern research in the Bajío mostly diverges from those postulations of distant connections, supplanting them with local patterns that hold much more explanatory power. Archaeometric studies are pivotal in this regard but have thus far been infrequently used. This research analyzes the obsidian assemblage from La Magdalena and finds a nearly ubiquitous utilization of a local obsidian source known as Ojo Zarco. These findings merit a reevaluation of obsidian in the eastern Bajío and argue for more archaeometric studies that elucidate local procurement patterns.

Economic directness is a new model of socioeconomic organization for the Paracas culture (800–200 BC) in southern Peru, with wider implications for economic theory of the prehispanic Andean past. Using an archaeoeconomic approach to analyze settlement patterns, obsidian artifacts, malacological material, and camelid skeletal remains, this study reconstructs the Paracas economy by using primary archaeological data from the northern Nasca Drainage. Its results force reconsideration of existing socioeconomic models for the ancient Andes such as verticality, circuit mobility, llama caravan mobility, transhumance, and market concepts. Whereas components typical of these models are often absent in the case of the Paracas economy, our new proposal of economic directness integrates their relevant aspects. Economic directness is defined essentially by direct access to important resources from diverse ecological tiers, direct and down-the-line exchanges, reduced transaction costs, llama caravan transport, unbalanced commodity flows across the western Andes, and forces of supply and demand with major consumption on the coast. These features formed under conditions of population growth, generating a continuous and dense settlement pattern from the Pacific coast to the highland puna zone.

Se caracterizó mediante análisis de fluorescencia de rayos X portable (pXRF) un conjunto de obsidianas (n = 142) del sitio San Gregorio Atlapulco, en Xochimilco, Ciudad de México, procedentes de los niveles precerámicos, a través del análisis de 10 elementos químicos (Mn, Fe, Zn, Ga, Th, Rb, Sr, Y, Zr, Nb); esto nos permitió conocer la composición elemental de cada uno de los artefactos para posteriormente efectuar comparaciones con obsidianas de yacimientos sistemáticamente muestreados. Los resultados indican una amplia dominancia de la subfuente de Soltepec en Otumba (94%), además de otras dos fuentes menores que incluyen a Pachuca. Lo anterior tiene implicaciones importantes sobre los procesos de interacción de los grupos precerámicos del Holoceno medio en la Cuenca de México, y permite vislumbrar la importancia de la obsidiana de Otumba para el período denominado Arcaico, y la formación de redes de intercambio tempranas que continuarían durante el período Formativo.

The connection between people in the prehispanic U.S. Southwest / Northwest Mexico (SW/NW) and Mesoamerica is one of the most debated research topics in American archaeology. SW/NW groups used objects from Mesoamerica, but did they also trade for obsidian? Archaeologists have yet to find Mesoamerican obsidian from confirmed prehispanic SW/NW contexts, but here we discuss four green obsidian prismatic blades from New Mexico and Arizona. Using EDXRF spectrometry, we demonstrate that the blades are from the Pachuca source in Mesoamerica. The blades were found at four sites that the Spanish and their Mexican Indian allies used or potentially visited beginning in AD 1540. Using lithic technological organization and historical narratives, we assess the credibility of the different hypothesized models of prehispanic SW/NW-Mesoamerican interaction and obsidian use by the Mexican Indian allies. We suggest that green Pachuca blades would have been traded into the SW/NW if interaction with Mesoamerica had occurred more frequently. We also offer reasons why archaeologists have found so few Mesoamerican obsidian blades at post-1540 sites. This research is relevant because it expands our knowledge about SW/NW-Mesoamerican connections and the Mexican Indian allies of the Spanish, who are an underrepresented group in the archaeological and historical records.

This study investigates the impact of the Aztec Triple Alliance on trade and economic activity in the region of Puebla-Tlaxcala during the Late Postclassic period (AD 1200–1519). Ethnohistorical sources describe the Aztec Triple Alliance as constantly at war with settlements in the Tlaxcala region. To weaken their Tlaxcalteca rivals, the Aztecs imposed a trade blockade to reduce the flow of resources into Puebla-Tlaxcala. This article uses archaeological evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of this blockade. It compares the types of obsidian used to manufacture lithic tools from Aztec-controlled sources with those used within Puebla-Tlaxcala. Information from the large center of Tepeticpac and the small obsidian workshop site of Cinco Santos II, both in the Tlaxcala domain, are compared to other sites in Central Mexico prior to and during the height of Aztec influence. The results show little difference in regional trade patterns: obsidian from Sierra de las Navajas and Otumba was used in proportions in the Tlaxcala region in the Late Postclassic similar to those used during earlier periods. If an embargo was attempted, it was largely unsuccessful in isolating Tlaxcala from broader regional distribution networks.

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.

Since at least 1742, the mineralogical collection of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN) in Paris has hosted, under the reference number 22.U, a biconvex lens-shaped obsidian artifact, also described as a mirror, measuring 250 mm in diameter and finely polished on both faces. It has usually been ascribed to the shipment sent by Hernán Cortez in 1522 to the Emperor Charles V, which was captured by a French privateer. We investigated the object using modern techniques. The elemental composition of the obsidian determined by the particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) method showed that the raw material originates from the Mullumica deposit (Ecuador). Documentary investigations revealed that the lens (renumbered No. 176.101) was sent in 1737 from Quito, Ecuador (at that time part of the viceroyalty of Peru), to France by members of the Godin–La Condamine geodesic expedition (1735–1743). The mirror is thus among the rare Ecuadorian archeological or colonial artifacts to have reached the Old World during the eighteenth century.