A provenance study of archaeological obsidian from the Andahuaylas region of southern Peru Lucas C. Kellett a, * , Mark Golitko b , Brian S. Bauer c a Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Maine at Farmington, 186 High St., Farmington, ME 04938, USA b Department of Anthropology, Field Museum of Natural History, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605, USA c Department of Anthropology (M/C 027), University of Illinois at Chicago College of Liberal Arts and Sciences,1007 W. Harrison St., Chicago, IL 60607-7139, USA article info Article history: Received 2 September 2012 Received in revised form 21 November 2012 Accepted 24 November 2012 Keywords: Obsidian PXRF LA-ICP-MS Chanka Andahuaylas Peru abstract To date, most obsidian sourcing studies in the Andes have concentrated on the highlands and Titicaca Basin of far southern Peru and northern Bolivia. Toward achieving a more complete understanding of the region, this paper offers new data on the long-term prehistoric obsidian procurement and consumption patterns in the Andahuaylas region of the south-central Peruvian highlands. Obsidian sourcing data from Andahuaylas are particularly interesting since the area is centrally located among several important regional obsidian sources. A total of 94 obsidian samples from a range of sites of different temporal periods were chemically analyzed using portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF), as well as laser ablation- inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The results demonstrate a number of interesting trends, the first of which is the long-term importance of the Potreropampa obsidian source to populations of the Andahuaylas region from at least the early Formative period (w2500 BCE). Secondly, the results indicate that procurement strategies by local populations in Andahuaylas were primarily reliant on nearby (<150 km) obsidian sources. Finally, the paucity of more distant, yet widely exchanged, high quality obsidian (i.e., Chivay, Alca) confirm that as a region, Andahuaylas was more heavily con- nected economically (and likely culturally) with local areas to the south (Apurímac) and to the west (Ayacucho). Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In the last two decades, obsidian sourcing studies in the central Andes have progressed rapidly, and archaeologists are now using them to reconstruct the long-term economic and political interac- tions of prehistoric polities across the region (e.g., Burger and Asaro, 1977, 1979; Burger et al., 2000; Glascock et al., 2007; Tripcevich, 2007, 2010). A large number of primary obsidian sources have been identified on the ground, from which specific macroscopic descriptions and geochemistries are now known (Burger and Asaro, 1977, 1979; Glascock et al., 2007). With archaeologists encountering and chemically analyzing increasing numbers of regional obsidian sources, we now have an excellent source database to compare archaeological specimens from a multitude of sites across varying time periods. Andean scholars have focused on a range of analytical techniques, which include laboratory-based X-ray fluorescence (XRF), field-based portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF), instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), and laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) (e.g., Burger and Asaro, 1977, 1979; Burger et al., 2000; Craig et al., 2007; Glascock et al., 2007; Ogburn et al., 2009; Williams et al., 2012). Of course each of these analytical techniques has specific advantages and constraints in terms of cost, precision, portability and required time for analysis and data processing. In this study we used both PXRF and LA-ICP-MS to analyze a sample of obsidian artifacts since these are widely used and also provide comparable results to studies carried out in other regions of the Andes. To date, archaeologists have identified nine principal sources of obsidian in the south-central Andes (central and southern Peru and the Titicaca Basin) which were utilized prehistorically (Fig. 1 , Tables 1 and 2). These sources include the major sources of Quis- pisisa (Burger and Glascock, 2000; Tripcevich and Contreras, 2011), Alca (Burger et al., 1998b; Jennings and Glascock, 2002), Chivay (Brooks et al., 1997; Burger et al., 1998a; Tripcevich and Mackay, 2011; Tripcevich et al., 2012) and Jampatilla (Burger et al., 1998c); the minor sources of Puzolana (Burger and Glascock, 2001), Potreropampa (Burger et al., 2006), Lisahuacho (Burger et al., 2006), Aconcagua (Aldenderfer, 1999: 383) and Macusani (Craig et al., * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 207 778 7096; fax: þ1 207 778 7936. E-mail addresses: luke.kellett@maine.edu (L.C. Kellett), mgolitko@ fieldmuseum.org (M. Golitko), bsb@uic.edu (B.S. Bauer). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas 0305-4403/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2012.11.014 Journal of Archaeological Science 40 (2013) 1890e1902