Archaeological Research Facility

The analysis here of 52 obsidian artifacts from two archaeological sites within the China Lake Naval Weapons Station, as in many of the previous studies, indicated the presence of mainly Coso Volcanic Field obsidian sources (Hughes 1988; Ericson and Glascock 2004; Shackley 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2016, 2017, 2019a, 2019b).  As typical for sites on the weapons station, the assemblage is dominated by artifacts produced from the West Sugarloaf dome, followed by Sugarloaf and West Cactus Peak (Table 1 and Figure 1).  While there has been some argument that differential procurement of the Coso sources is not necessarily socially important, the work of Eerkens and Rosenthal at Coso suggests that there is some selection that may be socially significant (2004).  Unlike previous studies, however, two artifacts from CA-KER-8146 were produced from two of the localities at Casa Diablo in east-central California (Hughes 1994; Table 1 and Figure 1 herein)