1. The Obsidian Hydration Dating Project at Copan: A Regional Approach and Why It Works
- Author
-
David Webster, AnnCorinne Freter, and David Rue
- Subjects
010506 paleontology ,Archeology ,History ,060102 archaeology ,Mesoamerica ,Obsidian hydration dating ,Future application ,06 humanities and the arts ,01 natural sciences ,Archaeology ,Geography ,Mining engineering ,0601 history and archaeology ,Settlement (litigation) ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences - Abstract
Settlement research at Copán, Honduras, since 1984 has produced the largest set of obsidian-hydration dates from excavated contexts available for Mesoamerica (Webster and Freter 1990). Geoffrey Braswell (1992) has criticized the methodology underlying our research, specific associations of our published data, and particularly our reconstruction of a demographic and political decline at Copán that extended well beyond A.D. 900. Braswell has incorrectly characterized the Copan Obsidian Hydration Dating Project’s methodology, and makes many factual errors in assessing the Copán data. In this paper the authors correct these errors, discuss basic issues of obsidian-hydration-dating methodology, and offer new data from Copán to evaluate the efficacy of hydration dating as a method and its potential future application for Mesoamerica as a whole.
- Published
- 1993
- Full Text
- View/download PDF