Where do our obsidian artifacts come from?

To date, we have submitted 15 obsidian artifacts to the Northwest Obsidian lab for sourcing (Table x). As part of another project, Lepofsky submitted additional artifacts from Lasqueti. Although our sample is still relatively small, a picture of regional social interactions is starting to emerge.

The obsidian in Tla’amin territory is coming from five sources. There is a clear preference for obsidian coming from the upper end of Kingcomb Inlet. This source was only recently recognized by archaeologists, thanks to Chief Adam Dick’s knowledge of this spot. The source is at the base of the glacier in Kingcomb. The material is moderately good, but not excellent because it has larger inclusions that would have made it fracture less predictably during tool manufacture. The Mt. Garibaldi obsidian from Squamish is similar to the Kingcomb obsidian in that it also has inclusions and thus, all things being equal shouldn’t be a preferred source. However, in both cases, if this is where you have social or economic connections, then this is what you had available to you. The Garibaldi source was used extensively by Central Coast Salish people in the last 2 - 3000 years, indicating, I think the solidification of social connections among those people in the last few millennia. The Kingcomb obsidian was, up till our work, was rarely found in archaeological sites, and when it was, it was in sites in the Central Coast of B.C.

The remaining three sources of obsidian recovered in our samples are one this is still unidentified and another two from Oregon. Of the Whitewater Ridge source, Craig Skinner in the obsidian lab says: "This is an archaeologically-significant and very extensive but not particularly well-known obsidian source located in north-central Oregon. I've often run into it at Washington archaeological sites and rarely in BC." Of the Gregory Creek source, he says: "This is the first time I've run into Gregory Creek obsidian up in BC but it's a quite reasonable discovery - the source is located not far east from Whitewater Ridge in NE Oregon and could easily fall into the same regional procurement system (see http://www.obsidianlab.com/image_maps/index.html).