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Floating obsidian and its implications for the interpretation of Pacific prehistory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Dirk H. R. Spennemann and
Wal R. Ambrose
Dirk H. R. Spennemann
Affiliation:
Johnstone Centre of Parks, Recreation and Heritage, Charles Sturt University, PO Box 789, Albury NSW 2640, Australia
Wal R. Ambrose
Affiliation:
Division of Archaeology and Natural History, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia
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Extract

A piece of pumice among drift material on Nadikdik Atoll, Marshall Islands, in far Micronesia had a large chunk of flakeable obsidian attached. As the atoll had been devastated by a typhoon and associated storm surge in 1905, the piece must have arrived by sea within the last 90 years. This and similar incidences of raw materials distributed by ocean drift show how sea-borne dispersal cannot be excluded offhand in the occurrence of obsidian in far-flung places, commonly attributed to human transport.

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Notes
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Antiquity , Volume 71 , Issue 271 , March 1997, pp. 188 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1997

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