1. Determination of the source for prehistoric obsidian artifacts from the lower reaches of Kolyma River, Northeastern Siberia, Russia, and its wider implications
- Author
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Anatoly N. Alekseyev, Andrei V. Grebennikov, Michael D. Glascock, Yaroslav V. Kuzmin, and V.M. Dyakonov
- Subjects
обсидиан ,010506 paleontology ,Provenance ,geography ,Россия ,geography.geographical_feature_category ,060102 archaeology ,Drainage basin ,06 humanities and the arts ,01 natural sciences ,Archaeology ,The arctic ,Stone Age ,неолит ,Prehistory ,Sea coast ,Колыма, река ,Чукотка ,0601 history and archaeology ,археологические памятники ,Северо-Восточная Сибирь ,Geology ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences ,Earth-Surface Processes - Abstract
Geochemical analysis of 102 obsidian artifacts from the lower reaches of the Kolyma River was performed to understand the provenance of the raw material; previously, there were no such studies in this region. Sites under investigation belong to the Arctic Neolithic, generally dated to ca. 6000–1500 BP. Based on the data for potential obsidian sources in Northeastern Siberia and neighboring territories, available to us, it was found that all obsidian artifacts originated from the Lake Krasnoe source in Chukotka, with a straight-line distance of ca. 800–1100 km from archaeological sites of the Kolyma River. This is a remarkable example of long-distance exchange/transport of obsidian in Northeastern Siberia during the Stone Age. The Lake Krasnoe locale was the primary obsidian source for prehistoric populations in this vast region, including Chukotka, the Kolyma River basin, and Okhotsk Sea coast; this obsidian was also identified at some Alaskan sites near the Bering Strait.
- Published
- 2018
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