Archaeological Research Facility

This volume results from the 2021 International Obsidian Conference (IOC), a virtual symposium held in the spring of 2021. Originally scheduled as an in-person event at the University of California, Berkeley, the conference transitioned to a virtual venue due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. More than 70 participants from a wide range of time zones stayed up into the wee hours of the night to hear the presentations and engage with others who share a passion for obsidian. Obsidian studies are a robust facet of archaeology, and this volume highlights a diverse range of research themes. Seven chapters in this volume feature studies from across the globe, organized broadly by region, including Europe, Africa, Central America, and South America. A separate section with an additional two chapters presents methodological developments in the field.The digital version is linked to 28 data files that are distributed as Supplementary Materials.

Contains contributions by M. Steven Shackley, Lucas Johnson et al., Kata Furholt, Clive Bonsall et al., Dagmara Werra et al., Ben Smith et al., Emiliano Melgar Tísoc, et al., Donna Nash, Franco Foresta Martin et al., and Nico Tripcevich et al. 

Metini Village: An Archaeological Study of Sustained Colonialism in Northern California synthesizes the results of over two decades of collaborative archaeological research carried out by UC Berkeley, the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians, and California State Parks at Fort Ross, California. This volume makes the case for an archaeology of colonialism that bridges studies of early colonial encounters with analysis of settler colonial relations. Featuring analysis of archaeological data, tribal histories, and ethnographic and historic sources related to Metini Village and related sites across the Kashia homelands, the volume documents the strategies the Kashia people used to negotiate two colonial programs over five decades. This study highlights how despite the onslaught of settler colonists into their territories and in the face of colonial violence, the Kashia maintained their relations within a broader indigenous landscape. The volume outlines a methodology for undertaking the study of sustained colonialism employing an innovative low-impact approach designed specifically to produce the least amount of disturbance to ancestral archaeological remains while obtaining substantial knowledge about Metini Village and other settlements under investigation.  The volume includes 158 pages of text, 76 figures, 16 tables, and 13 appendices. 

This monograph collates results of the first few years of archaeological research at Khonkho Wankane, a major Formative site in the southern Lake Titicaca basin of Bolivia.  The volume includes chapters summarizing a history of archaeological research at Khonkho, shifting settlement patterns around the site, results of geophysical survey, excavations in monumental, residential, and mortuary contexts, and an analysis of the site’s storied monoliths.  The volume collectively demonstrates that Khonkho Wankanke was one of the most important Late Formative ritual and political centers in the Lake Titicaca basin during the Late Formative generations of the region’s history.

Khonkho Wankane: Archaeological Investigations in Jesus de Machaca, Bolivia, features contributions by many excellent Bolivian and North American archaeologists: Carlos Lémuz Aguirre, Deborah Blom, Christopher Dayton, Jake  Fox, Arik Ohnstad, José Luís Paz Soria, Adolfo Pérez Arias, Maribel Pérez Arias, Dennise Rodas Sanjinéz, Andrew Roddick, Scott Smith, Benjamin Vining, and Patrick Ryan Williams.

This monograph represents the first attempt in Polynesian archaeology to systematically examine rock art in the Marquesas Islands in relation to settlement patterns and excavation data. Sidsel N. Millerstrom’s groundbreaking archaeological research is based on more than 15 years of field work in the islands. Surveying the dramatic landscapes of the deep valleys and thick forests of the Marquesas, Millerstrom and her team found a significant quantity of rock art. They learned that every image was not randomly placed but rather purposefully positioned according to prehistoric Marquesan cultural norms. The images were found on public and private prehistoric architecture, on outcrops, rock shelters, walls of underground pits, narrow ridges and springs. Based on our present understanding of science, Millerstrom also explains what the prehistoric petroglyphs, pictographs and anthropomorphic sculptures probably signified to the past inhabitants.

Located in Northern California near the former Tule Lake, 4-Mod-22 is a complex Klamath Basin petroglyph site that exhibits three distinctive classes of rock art: iconic motifs, residual markings, and geometric figures. As a Klamath-Modoc descendent, I was contracted by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to provide an interpretive report for this particular site. Information provided by a combination of Klamath-Modoc ethnography and myth suggests that the distinctive rock art categories denote two patterns of ritual use that include shamans’ consultations with their spirit familiars, and shamanic power quests. Through the use of these sources it was also possible to identify a pattern of ritual use on the wider landscape that included the nearby lava fields and possibly a small cave identified as the lodge of the mythical beings, Kumush and Aisis. Through the application of myth, it was also possible to answer calls by previous researchers to bring the voice of the Klamath-Modoc people into the study of this unique aspect of their cultural heritage, where it has for so long been absent.

Archival maps and other field records from nineteenth century surveys of the Pacific Coast of North America are examined for archaeological information using site records, historical documents and landscape characteristics as context. Over fifty archaeological and historical site locations are depicted in sketches, mapped coordinates, topographic maps and narrative text. Representing the early phase of archaeological use of the US Coast Survey materials at the National Archives, this volume demonstrates the wealth of material yet to be incorporated into West Coast research. 

2003 Excavations of the Taraco Archaeological Project