Canada's Indigenous Communities Operated Vast Obsidian Trade Network

Archaeology Magazine ^ | April 4, 2025 | editors / unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

According to a CBC report, an extensive new project has highlighted just how vast the trade network in obsidian was for Indigenous communities living during the precontact period in current-day Alberta. Obsidian, a type of volcanic glass, was indispensable for many ancient cultures around the world because it can be easily shaped into arrowheads and cutting tools. No volcanoes have ever erupted in Alberta, however, so every sherd of obsidian was transported there from elsewhere. Researchers from the Alberta Obsidian Project analyzed 383 obsidian fragments from 96 sites across the area dating to between 13,000 and 300 years ago. They determined that the artifacts traveled from sources as far away as 750 miles, with the majority coming from Bear Gulch, Idaho, and Obsidian Cliff, Wyoming. The researchers suggest that in southern Alberta the presence of communal bison jumps facilitated trade networks among various communities that lived and harvested together near the American Southwest. "The sheer scale of obsidian trade tells us that likely millions of people were in contact with one another," said archaeologist Timothy Allan. "The scope of the trade network was way more massive than we thought." Read the original scholarly article about this research in Archaeological Survey of Alberta.

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TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: alberta; beargulch; canada; godsgravesglyphs; idaho; obsidian; obsidiancliff; wyoming

[SunkenCiv]

Alberta Obsidian Project

[SunkenCiv]

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• Sacrificial Burial Deepens Mystery At Teotihuacan, But Confirms The City's Militarism (More) [12/03/2004]
• Myth of the Hunter-Gatherer [08/13/2004]

[SunkenCiv]

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Bookmark

[waterhill]

Banded Clovis~ Tyler Childers

https://youtu.be/9WOn5iD0gXg?si=Q0NDXNwHpLTDATRm

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Beautiful.

Have several flint bird points from our old farm.

[SunkenCiv]

I’m sure there must be some around here, but in my decades of walking around here in The Boonies, I’ve never seen any. :^(

[ComputerGuy]

I have some nice chunks of obsidian that I picked up out west. In 75 years of headhunting I’ve never come across so much as a single flake of obsidian here on the East Coast. I know that stuff flakes extremely well. I can easily chip a surgical blade from my biggest chunk (from Mexico). It will slice through a sheet of newspaper as well as any razor blade you can buy.

[chajin]

For some reason I have this picture in my mind of a guy in a trenchcoat with obsidian pieces hanging in the inner lining

[alexander_busek]

No volcanoes have ever erupted in Alberta, however, so every sherd shard of obsidian was transported there from elsewhere.

sherd [ʃəːd] noun a broken piece of ceramic material, especially one found on an archaeological site.

Obsidian is not a ceramic material.

Regards,

[jerod]

Their ‘new’ trade network consist of cigarettes, marijuana, booze and illegal aliens. Not necessarily in that order.

[Adder]

Black glass Mafia...”Get the point, see?”

[Freedom4US]

It used to be obsidian was used to make a specific brain surgery implement, nothing else on earth can be made as sharp, so that’s what they used.

[minnesota_bound]

Amazon has now make it easier...

[ComputerGuy]

I heard that when I was stationed at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Way. Back. When.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Like....selling marijuana in the 80’s. How could they do it? All the way from south america into canada. Crazy. Must have been organized.

[SunkenCiv]

Every time ya just get out of your canoe and pull it up on the bank, he slips out from behind a tree and asks, “ya got everything ya need?”

[xp38]

Obsessed over Obsidian

[null and void]

Nice!

[null and void]

On FR we have a high alliterative-cy rate...