Lithics

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Ellery E. Frahm conducted a brief survey of all the obsidian flakes stored in our storage, with a view towards a fuller study on sourcing some representative samples. He se-lected 40 samples, for which we will ask an export permit to conduct specialized analysis in the laboratory of the University of Minnesota, St. Paul.

Sourcing (or provenancing) of obsidian requires an analytical laboratory that has large, immobile equipment and a reference collection of obsidian from possible sources. Portable analytical equipment is not yet reliable for obsidian sourcing. The laboratory overseen by Ellery Frahm at the University of Minnesota has the equipment and the reference collection needed for sourcing obsidian from Mozan.

The entire Mozan lithic collection was examined by him, including approximately 600 obsidian pieces, so that he was familiar with flaked-stone tools found on the tell. After the first examination of all the samples, he devised a set of strict selection criteria for choosing samples to request for export:

1. Selected samples cannot:
   • be recognizable as a tool (includes projectile points, blades, bladelets, borers, scrapers, knives, celts, notches, deticulates, trapezes, burins, and choppers).
   • have a cross section that is typical of the above tools, especially blades.
   • be a core or pieces that refit to form a core (possible cores were examined for features such as striking platforms and negatives of bulbs of percussion).
   • be ground- or polished-stone (for example, no beads or drilled objects).
   • have any apparent retouch (includes both the ventral and dorsal sides).
2. Selected samples must:
   • be either debris from tool making or some other unrecognizable fragment.
   • be less than 2cm in diameter, fitting the definition for chip debris (debris larger than 2cm is classified as a chunk, and it is commonly assumed that most tool types require flakes larger than 2cm in diameter).