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AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CURRENT APPLICATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS OF OBSIDIAN SOURCING STUDIES IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH*
Author(s) -
FREUND K. P.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
archaeometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.716
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1475-4754
pISSN - 0003-813X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4754.2012.00708.x
Subject(s) - provenance , flourishing , archaeology , archaeological science , field (mathematics) , history , geology , paleontology , psychology , mathematics , pure mathematics , psychotherapist
This paper thematically characterizes a large body of recent obsidian sourcing discourse as a means of highlighting the current place of obsidian provenance studies in larger archaeological discourse. It is shown that the field of obsidian sourcing is flourishing, with a clear upward trend in the number of published studies in the past decade. This paper further argues that sourcing is a means to an end, a way to determine where artefacts originate, and thus a means of addressing broader archaeological problems. Through this contextual framework, obsidian sourcing studies—and indeed all provenance studies—are seen as relevant because they transcend the increasingly specialized world of archaeological discourse.