ARCHAEOLOGICAL OBSIDIAN HYDRATION DATING WITH SECONDARY ION MASS SPECTROMETRY: CURRENT STATUS
Keywords:
The dating of obsidian stone tools from the last time were in use by prehistoric man has been approached in 1960, by Friedman and Smith who observed that a freshly exposed surface of obsidian takes on ambient water at a knowable rate that can be used to calculate the time elapsed since exposure and, therefore, the date of an obsidian artifact’s production. Subsequently the hydration procedure has been studied further and distinct versions of the so-called obsidian hydration dating (OHD) method has been developed proposing both empirical rate and intrinsic rate approaches. In the last 20 years, secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) has been employed to accurately define the hydration profile (water concentration versus depth) in a phenomenological manner. By modelling the hydration profile, the age determination is reached via models describing the diffusion process.Abstract
The dating of obsidian stone tools from the last time were in use by prehistoric man has been approached in 1960, by Friedman and Smith who observed that a freshly exposed surface of obsidian takes on ambient water at a knowable rate that can be used to calculate the time elapsed since exposure and, therefore, the date of an obsidian artifact’s production. Subsequently the hydration procedure has been studied further and distinct versions of the so-called obsidian hydration dating (OHD) method has been developed proposing both empirical rate and intrinsic rate approaches. In the last 20 years, secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) has been employed to accurately define the hydration profile (water concentration versus depth) in a phenomenological manner. By modelling the hydration profile, the age determination is reached via models describing the diffusion process.
