00:00.64 David Howe Welcome back to episode one fifty five life earnns podcast I'm here with Connor John you guys know that sorry sorry to put him on you guys and also we're here with our friend Jacob Artson he is ah obsidian expert man um, can you start with what is obsidia. But what's obsidian. 00:20.62 Jacob Arnzen I'll. 00:25.54 Jacob Arnzen Ah, ah, you're really putting me on the spot there David calling me obsidian expert. There's there's way better experts of about obsidian out there than me Dan Steber for 1 thing and Craig Craig Skinner ah okay Ah 00:36.55 David Howe You just defended a master's thesis about it So pull up your pants and tell me about was sitting in I'm kidding ran sorry that was reg really arch. Yes. 00:43.83 alifeinruins I Ah ah we can riff on him because he's our good friend. Okay, just just before we get emails about say how we were being mean to Jacob He is our friend. We do like him. 00:44.80 Jacob Arnzen Um, but ah, yeah, right? yeah. 00:57.87 Jacob Arnzen They're being mean to me save me. Um, So yeah, Obsidian what it is is ah it's a basically it volcanic class. Um, so when the igneous Rock. Excuse from the volcano as lava it cools very quickly informs ah informs this and when it's high in Synneica forms this volcanic glass and it it doesn't come out as clear like glass sometimes it does but um, but most of the time it's it's this distinctive fairy glassy. Ah. 01:13.81 David Howe Yeah, yeah. 01:33.11 Jacob Arnzen Black color. Ah, but except it actually does come in a variety of different colors sometimes um like you have a mixture of black with Mahogany or which is kind of like this orangey red color. They can come in shades of blue. There's a rainbow obsidian which is like this multicolored. Ah, Sheen to it like if you hold it down through the light and let the light bend off of it. You get this rainbow sheen. Um, but it's incredibly sharp and that's one of the most important parts about this type of stone is that it's it's like glass. So. It's kind of easy to break. Um, and so that made it very sought out for for flinappers or for. Stone toolmakers is because it is easy to make tools out of it and it's also incredibly sharp like I don't know if anybody's ever dropped a glass bottle on the ground and then tried to pick up the sharp pieces. You probably always had little tiny cuts on your hand or a really big nasty cut. You know this that is. 02:24.33 David Howe Yeah. 02:28.19 Jacob Arnzen Basically the same concept. What's upsidian. 02:30.67 alifeinruins Yeah I know that they used it or it was they used it in like surgeon blades at some point um during during our lives because it gets down to like ah just a super sharp edge um and another kind of cool aspect to it that is important archeologically is that it's. 02:36.23 Jacob Arnzen Um. 02:48.65 alifeinruins Sourceable like its chemical composition is unique depending on what like what flow and and all that is and that's kind of the impetus for your project right? Your idea of looking at this in the past and. 02:50.19 David Howe Oh right? yeah. 03:01.83 Jacob Arnzen Yeah, exactly and and can be easily sourced to through a process called x-ray fluorescence or x or x or f for short, um, which basically just means that it just shoots a laser x x-ray laser at at the obsidian and then it just. Measures the different reflections of bounce back from that and looks at the chemical compositions of them because you're right because every every flow of cit and flow has a different trace element compound to it and it makes it very handy to know these trace element compounds in these flows because then when we find. Citian rifacts and an archaeological site we can use x orf to source it back to it. Um, and was yeah kind of the premises of my thesis which looked at the distribution of a particular type of of flow of ah of this distribution of a type of Obsidian from. 03:43.61 David Howe Ah. 03:54.32 Jacob Arnzen The flow glass buttes which is located in Central Oregon 03:58.95 alifeinruins Well and it's it's sweet that because in like Shirtrs and stuff like that. We don't really have and it's there's there's stuff working towards that but other like forms of glass or rock that's used in the past we don't really have that beautiful stuff. Um. 04:13.75 David Howe Technology. 04:16.80 Jacob Arnzen Um, yeah. 04:17.23 alifeinruins Yeah, that's the one ah can you explain where Glass buttes is and kind of some of the variations and possibly the importance of it in the past. 04:25.53 Jacob Arnzen Yeah, so glass buttes is located in Central Oregon so you go east of the cascades down past Bend. You just keep going down highway twenty to you hit mile marker 75 and there's a road called a city and road and the mountain ranges off to the south from that malpost this. Two buttes there. There's big glass buttes and then there's little glass buttes but those both of those mountains there are just covered with obsidian is one of the largest Obsidian sources in Oregon and it's one of hundreds of other obsidian sources oring but what makes this place pretty special is that it's a 796 Square kilometer area of upsidian there's also yeah, it's a big source. Um, what's really interesting is that all of Eastern Oregon used to be very volcanic. You look on the maps well like. 05:08.70 David Howe That's wild is there a big volcano under it then or near it. 05:24.39 Jacob Arnzen If you get on Google maps and stuff and turn on the tertrainin setting and you kind of just or or just even the satellite imagery and you just kind of scroll around you'll start seeing different coldeas just scattered around on the landscape of the of um of Eastern Oregon which includes the great basin like the northern great basin is part of that the Columbia plateau. But this place used to be heavily volcanic and um I don't know if there's a cold dea right? at glassbutes I don't think there is I think this is was just like a formation that formed there and then as it wrote it away it it it ah exposed all these sources out there and. What's also really interesting about glass views is that it's not made up of just one source. It's not 1 flow, but it's made up of 9 different variances. So there's 9 different flows that happen there and um and we know chemically the trace elements for each one of those flows and so we can. Test different obsidian from different sites of like which flow they came from um and so ah, some of them are more sought out for than others might mostly because it was probably due to access like they had better access to this particular flow than say like flow 9 a variant 9 which is pre I don't think I've ever seen. Um glassby obid in 9 variant 9 founded an archeological site yet. But but it could be because it's we recently figured out there was 9 different flows at glassbu I think I think in Twenty 2003 is when 06:56.70 Jacob Arnzen That study concluded that there was 9 flows. Um, so yeah, but there could be. It's just that a lot of the older stuff that was sourced probably that might have glass view obidian nine just they just didn't know it was 9 probably just lumped it in with the rest of. 06:58.64 David Howe 2 is not a lot of that one of number 9 yeah 07:15.60 Jacob Arnzen Glass beats of sitting which there used to be I think 4 flows prior to that so it was just like glass beats 1 2 3 4 07:20.91 alifeinruins Nice, um, and because we can source things and we can. We have this like unique opportunity in the past to see how things moved and you kind of approached it theoretically through this like um Network analysis or this. Trade Network kind of analysis right. 07:42.51 Jacob Arnzen Yeah, so um, so what I want to do is yeah by using the distribution of glass speed abstaining is use it as a proxy for changes in the intensity of social networks between Hunter Gatherer societies um and this this kind of. 07:57.85 David Howe Can you hear him? Ah, um, you everything you just said? are there cut out. You're You're pretty choppy. Can you take it back real quick. You're good now. 08:00.38 Jacob Arnzen Came around during. Oh yeah. 08:09.93 Jacob Arnzen Are. 08:15.94 David Howe Like yeah we can see. Ah, yeah. 08:16.17 Jacob Arnzen Okay, okay, great. Um, so one one of the things I wanted to do for my thesis for by using this distribution of glass speeds obsidian was to use that as a proxy for changes in the intensity of social networks in between Hunter Gatherer societies and ah like how does this change over time and so ah, what I did was I compile a bunch of sites with glass beats obsidian in it. Um, you know this was done through sourcing analysis such as like xrf and compile the data set of all these sites in there and. And then it plotted it out on Gis and then separated an them out by their date. The sites date ranges and into temporal groups using like ah pretty pretty large temporal groups though like the terminal plaing early holocene which is like from 14000 to 7500 calbp and then the middle holocene which is. Ah, to three Thousand Cal Bp and then postho ah late holocenes everything post 3000 but like so I find find these up and then plotted it out via their temporal ranges and what we see is that during earlier times like during the terminal pla early. Holocene. 09:31.66 Jacob Arnzen The distribution was quite restricted. It didn't really go beyond Oregon um, and then during the mid holocene it start to expand further out and then especially during the late holocene it just explodes and a lot of it. It was ending up in British Columbia which I thought would would like the the solash sea area which is that the. The area where Vancouver islands at where Frasier Valley Frasier Valley's at the San Juan islands in that area. There was a lot of glass views up city ending up there. Um, and so what this means was that as like incorporating this distribution as a proxy for social networks means that social. So and I guess I should explain what social networks are which are the the interactions between between groups and so and I kind of was kind of more talking and thinking of like the actions of sharing or trading exchanging of goods mostly food items and then also. 10:23.15 David Howe Ah. 10:27.93 Jacob Arnzen Even creating agreements between each other such as accesses to each other's lands for resources. Um, and this comes around to like ah why this happens is because group you know foraging is never really like a sustainable way to ah to always be Consistent. It's never it's never consistent or reliable. So. Might be times when you have shortfalls and your resource gathering and so you want to have a connection with your neighbor to when you can go up to and be like hey man can I borrow some of that that delicious fish that you have that you have a lot of you have enough to share and they they would ah they would give it to you but they would expect. To be reciprocated later in the future when maybe say they have a a bad time cut collecting a fish and so they might ask you is like hey can I get some of that extra huckleberries or Elk meat and during these processes of exchanging these food items ah items such as like obsidian. 11:14.34 David Howe Ah. 11:26.64 Jacob Arnzen Ah, would be traded along with that and it's not going to be the main object that's going to be traded but it's just kind of like this part of like thank you for doing this for me and and so that trade and that kind of goes along across these cultural borders and um and so as social networks intensifies. That obsidian that got traded to that first group might be trading it to another group later on as they're getting other resources from them and so as social networks intensifies. So does this distribution of Glassbus Obs cityi and that's what kind of what my thesis is showing is that that yeah, it's pretty restricted when there is less people on the landscape. And during the terminal turn terminal plane early holocene. But as populations start to grow and there's more people on the landscape. There's kind of a more need to to have create these social networks because there's less access to food and so then you you also get to see this just this explosion of. Glassby Subian being distributed only to the northwest though which is also kind of fascinated about by data was that there was no glassby obidian found in South of the oregon border in neva especially in Nevada it was. It was just empty of it and it's kind of fascinating because glass boots is not that far from. The organ and Nevada border. 12:48.40 alifeinruins I yeah and it was it was really interesting being. Um David watched the the thesis defense but you know Adhd is is a hell of a drug and he might have missed this but 1 of our professors. Um. 12:57.63 David Howe Yep. 13:00.91 alifeinruins And I was at the defense in person and 1 of our professors in front of us kind of had this really shocked reaction because like Nevada is really not that far from Oregon and it's not There's no real barrier that blocks it from that from the obsidian going down into Nevada and entering those. trade networks and social networks and expanding from there. There's like no reason why are like reason why we can think of now that that that that wouldn't go to that place but you you kind of had a hypothesis about that right. 13:32.99 Jacob Arnzen Yeah, um, yeah, and that professor actually asked me that question as soon as as soon as I was done um because I also saw his reaction I knew that question was going to come. It was good. He was good to ask me that question and ah, what the question was is like why why is. What is my thoughts on why glass buts is not ending up in Nevada and it's probably because Nevada is also part of the great basin and and glass buttes is also located on the northern edge of the great basin and so the people who were living along glass buttes who had access to glass buttes. Also had access to the same resources of of the great basin and so did the people who lived in Nevada in the great basin in Nevada and so if both groups are sharing the same kind of resources if 1 group is having a shortfall and resource gathering. Because the climate is changing and maybe like certain resources are not as as abundant and predictable as they were before that means the other group group b is also having a shortfall because the the climate and the resources are about the same and so it's gonna they're going to still probably not have enough resources to be able to share. And so since there was no ability to share resources between each other there probably was that there was no establishment of these social networks between each other at least through the processes that I was looking at which is the sharing exchanging of resources or accessing each other There's lands. 15:06.71 Jacob Arnzen Or it could also be that the territory of that particular group was much larger and they encompassed that and maybe they weren't just bringing that upsidi with them. So. 15:17.53 alifeinruins That's really interesting I mean if you and your neighbor have the same crops and they both fail at the same time you're kind of just both shit out a luck. So there's no much you can. 15:23.53 David Howe Yeah, yeah. 15:25.59 Jacob Arnzen Yeah, exactly yeah, you're not going to want to go to them and be like hey I I need a can eat. Do you have extra food and they're gonna be like no man we we you share the same crops like yeah we we're all out of sheep. Ah. 15:34.94 David Howe It's like in settlers to Catan you're like hey I need some sheep like fresh out row. Yeah. 15:40.23 alifeinruins It's like it's like I know you got that sheep man. Don't don't lie to me. 15:42.38 Jacob Arnzen Yeah, yeah I saw you drawing that extra card. 15:43.74 David Howe Um. 15:48.45 David Howe Um, well I guess I had this question earlier like your talking with these social networks. Um, and I guess they're more in Caleras than Silicon Valleys but there is a lot of Silica in Obsidian Anyway, these were terrible jokes really fast. The um. 16:02.87 alifeinruins So Siliica Valley is that where you're talking about. 16:04.79 David Howe Like ah ah yeah, we can call yeah glass beauty Silicon Valley ah the um like I imagine those are also for like genetic diversity too like we kind of often, especially archeologists. We just think of things in technology. But of course back then when youre hunter gatherer bands. 16:06.82 Jacob Arnzen Ah, but isn't it sicon. 16:23.31 David Howe Kind of traveling around. You got to you know trade genetic flow and all those kind of things I Wonder if somebody could use your thesis to look at that as well. But you know it's a ton of a tiny precise area with little information to go with but I know I just kind of thinking that while we were talking. 16:26.83 Jacob Arnzen Right? no. 16:41.10 Jacob Arnzen Yeah I mean that was definitely something that myself and and my advisor Dr Robert Kelly or Bob that we talked about quite a bit about was like ah you know the same thing about like marriage partners acquiring marriage partners and. 16:56.58 David Howe Ah. 16:56.71 Jacob Arnzen That is definitely part of social Networks Definitely so because if you have a small group of population. You definitely want to seek out other groups of people to to seek out ah marriage partners because you don't want to start mixing in that Gene pool. Um, exactly. 17:09.88 David Howe You know. 17:09.92 alifeinruins Yeah, you don't want the hapsburgs you. 17:15.62 Jacob Arnzen And so you you don't want to accidentally marry your your sister so you know so ah, you know you got to go out and find marriage partners and so that definitely incorporates a lot about what is part of Social networks. Unfortunately I couldn't really incorporate that into my thesis. Otherwise. I would be mind as Well. Just do a Ph D it was It was getting too much so we we just kind of focused more on this aspect of sharing and exchanging of resources. 17:33.20 David Howe Right. 17:44.86 David Howe Well cool. Um, no connor. 17:46.24 alifeinruins Well thank you for sharing and exchanging your resources about. 17:56.41 David Howe What oh it There hit the wrong soundboard. Yeah, all right after that. Let's ah, let's pick it up with the next segment. 17:58.79 Jacob Arnzen I. 17:59.18 alifeinruins That was the drop that was the drama. Ah.