Discriminating Quartzite Sources Petrographically in the Upper Gunnison Basin, Colorado: Implications for Paleoamerican Lithic-Procurement Studies
Abstract
Archaeologists lack a protocol for systematically attributing quartzite artifacts to particular geologic sources of the material. This paper, in an effort to begin to remedy that situation, reports the preliminary results of a petrographic study of quartzite samples from the Upper Gunnison Basin (UGB), Colorado. In that region, the overwhelming predominance of quartzite (often > 90 per cent) at most archaeological sites has hampered efforts to ascertain with any certainty the mobility strategies of Paleoamerican (and later) residents. In this study, qualitative and quantitative characterization of texture and grain composition of 50 UGB quartzite specimens led to the identification of six statistically distinct groups of samples. The groups are not arbitrary divisions of the data set; rather, they are meaningful from geologic, geospatial, chronological, and human-behavioral perspectives.
Local Knowledge Graph (4 entities)
Related Works
Items connected by shared entities, co-authorship, citations, or semantic similarity.
Pilot study experiments sourcing quartzite, Gunnison Basin, Colorado
LA-ICP-MS analysis of quartzite from the Upper Gunnison Basin, Colorado
Paleoindian archaeology of the Upper Gunnison Basin, Colorado Rocky Mountains
Zircon U-Pb data for Paleoproterozoic metasedimentary rocks of the Gunnison block, central Colorado, USA
Cosmogenic Nuclide Burial Isochron Data for the Central City Gravel, Malta Gravel, and Lava Creek B Ash Locations: Classic Locations of Early to Middle Pleistocene Deposits, South Platte and Arkansas Rivers, Central Colorado, USA
Cosmogenic Nuclide Burial Isochron Data for the Central City Gravel, Malta Gravel, and Lava Creek B Ash Locations: Classic Locations of Early to Middle Pleistocene Deposits, South Platte and Arkansas Rivers, Central Colorado, USA
From Mesas and Mountains to Rocks and Rivers: A Quick Overview of the Geologic History of the Gunnison Basin
Colorado Geologic Highway Map
Fossil Ridge: Gunnison's Backyard Wilderness
Cited 16 times
References (19)
2 in Knowledge Hub, 17 external