Imagine you are out on a survey and you find a piece of obsidian....

Question

Imagine you are out on a survey and you find a piece of obsidian. You would like to know if this piece of stone was modified into an artifact by humans, or whether it is just a naturally-occurring piece of obsidian? What attributes of the rock should you look for make this determination? If you decide it is a human-made artifact, what is the next step in your survey?

Answer 1

First, you need to deduce where you found the piece of obsidian. Is it near a site or near a volcano? This can dictate whether or not there was trade present int he area. Also, try to fins flecks or smaller pieces obsidian. This can tell whether or not it was human-made. The small flecks would communicate that it was intentionally sharpened to be used for some form of cutting. You could survey the area to see if there are anymore artifacts that could connect to this one; depending on how far the artifact was found by the site.