Premium
Geochemical sourcing of obsidians from the P ūrākaunui s ite, S outh I sland, N ew Z ealand
Author(s) -
Lawrence Megan,
McCoy Mark D.,
Barber Ian,
Walter Richard
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
archaeology in oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1834-4453
pISSN - 0728-4896
DOI - 10.1002/arco.5032
Subject(s) - peninsula , volcano , archaeology , geology , geography , paleontology
We report the first well‐documented case of a S outh I sland site where M ayor I sland obsidian is not the dominant source represented. At the P ūrākaunui site (I44/21), located in coastal O tago, we find that most obsidians come from the T aupo V olcanic Z one, including sources near L ake T aupo (52%) and R otorua (27.7 %). A small proportion of the collection comes from M ayor I sland (10.8%) and the C oromandel P eninsula (9.5%) obsidian. The results point to early effects of regionalisation in source exploitation on the S outh I sland.