Exchange and interaction in western Aleutian prehistory: the efficacy of geochemical analysis of lithic raw material procurement on Amchitka Island

Abstract

There are two main objectives of this thesis; the first is to evaluate the efficacy of geochemical techniques for the identification of lithic raw materials used to make stone tools in the Aleutian Islands. The second objective is to use the data set acquired from the analytical methods to generate hypotheses pertaining to exchange and interaction on Amchitka Island. Looking at Amchitka's geology using x-ray fluorescence will provide the basis for examining the elemental characterization for identification of basalt materials. From this analysis, I compared the elemental concentration of basalt artifacts between six archaeological sites found on Amchitka. Through the use of principal components analysis, the basalt artifacts were chemically matched with those specimens containing similar elemental properties to determine if they derived from the same geologic sources on Amchitka. The generation of hypotheses was directed towards identifying potential basalt sources locations on Amchitka Island and archaeological sites which may be appropriate candidates for further investigations of exchange and interaction.