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CC BY V4.0, Open Access
Thesis
Isotopic Sourcing of Turquoise in the Northern Southwest
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
01/2021
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000003100
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/124975
Abstract
The blue/green color of turquoise has been connected to vitality, water, and the sky throughout time (Hedquist et al. 2017; Munson and Hays-Gilpin 2020). In the pre-Hispanic U.S. Southwest, turquoise artifacts recovered from across the region indicate widespread trade and the development of far-reaching social networks (Janetski 2002; Jardine 2007). Known pre-Hispanic turquoise mines are in Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado (Thibodeau et al. 2015 and references therein). Turquoise sourcing in the Southwest has been attempted since the early 1970s using various methods (e.g., Kim et al. 2003; Mathien 1981b; Sigleo 1975), but since the early 2000s, isotopic methods have shown great promise for identifying the geologic sources of cultural items made of turquoise. Thibodeau and colleagues have developed a method for sourcing turquoise which uses the different stable isotopes of strontium (Sr) and lead (Pb) to ‘fingerprint’ turquoise mines and have successfully differentiated geological source areas and identified the sources of turquoise from Hohokam and Ancestral Puebloan sites in Arizona (Hedquist et al. 2017; Thibodeau et al. 2012; Thibodeau et al. 2015). In an exploration of a new region for turquoise sourcing, this study examines procurement, value, and trade of turquoise by using Pb and Sr isotopes to source 14 turquoise artifacts in the northern reaches of the US Southwest. While the sources of some artifacts can be identified or constrained based on Pb and Sr isotopes, others have isotope ratios that do not match those of any known source. This study examines the utility of multivariate analysis to define source groups and assign artifact sources. Current constraints of the dataset and quantitative methods restrict the anthropological interpretation through multivariate analysis. The 14 artifacts in this study demonstrate the wide variety of sources used by the Fremont and Ancestral Puebloan peoples. This variety of sources allow us to further consider the control of turquoise mines and distribution of turquoise across the pre-Hispanic Southwest.
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Details
- Title
- Isotopic Sourcing of Turquoise in the Northern Southwest
- Creators
- Megan Colleen Plummer
- Contributors
- Andrew I Duff (Advisor)Alyson M Thibodeau (Committee Member)Erin K Thornton (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Anthropology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 74
- Identifiers
- 99900651792401842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis