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Glacier Pass Concretions : a pre-contact toolstone from an alpine quarry complex in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains

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This article summarizes geochemical and mineralogical analyses of the material called Glacier Pass Concretions including portable X-ray fluorescence, thin sections, and hyperspectral imaging.... More ≫

Description

This article summarizes geochemical and mineralogical analyses of the material called Glacier Pass Concretions including portable X-ray fluorescence, thin sections, and hyperspectral imaging. Results indicate that pre-contact toolmakers were aware of internal inconsistencies in concretions and targeted specific high silica bands that produced a better quality, predictable substrate for tools. The article presents photographic libraries to aid identification and summarize an archaeometry-based reconstruction of pre-contact cognitive approaches to a raw material seasonally exploited in an alpine area for several thousand years.

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