Material · lithic
Obsidian
North America — Great Basin & Plateau, North America — Southwest, Mesoamerica, Europe — Mediterranean
Obsidian is volcanic glass, the sharpest natural material and a favourite toolstone wherever it occurs, from the Great Basin and Southwest through Mesoamerica to the Aegean, Anatolia and East Africa. It was traded far from its sources and is chemically sourceable. Points, prismatic blades, eccentrics and mirrors are made of it.
| Kind | lithic |
|---|---|
| Regions | North America — Great Basin & Plateau, North America — Southwest, Mesoamerica, Europe — Mediterranean |
Sources
Major sources include Glass Buttes and Obsidian Cliff in the United States, Pachuca and Otumba in Mexico, El Chayal and Ixtepeque in Guatemala, Melos in the Aegean, Lipari off Sicily, Göllü Dağ in Anatolia and the Armenian highlands. Each flow has a distinct trace-element signature, so a sourced artifact can be tied to a specific quarry hundreds of miles from where it was found.
Identification
Obsidian is glassy, conchoidal and usually black, but grey, green, brown, red and banded varieties exist, and each source has a chemical fingerprint identifiable by XRF. Ancient surfaces develop a hydration rim visible in thin section. Fresh surfaces are mirror-bright.
Substitutes and fakes
Obsidian is the easiest material to knap and reproductions are everywhere. Obsidian hydration dating can separate ancient from modern, and modern points often show no hydration and unweathered sharp edges.
Elsewhere
- Wikidata: Q53754
- Wikipedia: obsidian
Cite this article
Stratum Strata. "Obsidian" (Material). Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/strata/materials/obsidian. Accessed 2026-09-21.
@misc{stratum-obsidian,
title = {Obsidian},
author = {{Stratum Strata}},
howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/strata/materials/obsidian}},
year = {2026},
note = {Material article, Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, commons, wikidata. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
} Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.