Dynamics of Hohokam obsidian circulation in the North American Southwest

Abstract

Geochemical analyses of obsidian offer unexpected insights on the size and organization of the Hohokam regional system in the North American Southwest. Networks of obsidian circulation enlarged greatly during the Classic period as community centres with monumental architecture acquired non-local obsidian from a vast territory. This pattern confirms that prior models drastically underestimated the geographic scale of the Classic period regional system.