Based on the 28th International Archaeometry Symposium jointly sponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Getty Conservation Institute held in Los Angeles in 1992, this volume offers a rare opportunity to survey under a single cover a wide range of investigations concerning pre-Columbian materials. Twenty chapters detail research in five principal areas: anthropology and materials science; ceramics; stone and obsidian; metals; and archaeological sites and dating.

• Foreword
• Preface
• Anthropology and Materials Science
  • The Materials Science of Material Culture: Examples from the Andean Past
    Heather Lechtman
  • Ceramics
  • Pre-Columbian Pottery: Research in the Maya Region
    Ronald L. Bishop
  • Kiln Firing at Batán Grande: Today and in Formative Times
    Ursel Wagner, Rupert Gebhard, Enver Murad, Josef Riederer, Izumi Shimada, and Fritz Wagner
  • Ceramics Among the Hohokam: Modeling Social Organization and Exchange
    David R. Abbot and David M. Schaller
  • Stone and Obsidian
  • New World Obsidian: Recent Investigations
    Michael D. Glascock
  • Obsidian Artifacts from Oaxaca, Mexico: Source Identification and Hydration Dating
    J. Michael Elam, Michael D. Glascock, and Hector Neff
  • Obsidian from Pueblo Grande, Arizona: Modeling Social and Economic Patterns in Lithic Procurement
    Jane Peterson, Douglas R. Mitchell, and M. Steven Shackley
  • Beads from Sipan: A Functional Analysis
    Leonard Gorelick and John Gwinnett
• Metals
  • Silver and Lead in the Late Prehistory of the Mantaro Valley, Peru
    Ellen G. Howe and Ulrich Petersen
  • Pre-Hispanic Copper Alloy Production at Batán Grande, Peru: Interpretation of the Analytical Data for Ore Samples
    J. F. Merkel, I. Shimada, C. P. Swann, and R. Doonan
  • Native Copper Technology and Society in Eastern North America
    S. Terry Childs
  • Chemical Seriation of Northeastern North American Archaeological Sites Using Copper Artifacts
    R. G. V. Hancock, L. A. Pavlish, R. M. Farquhar, P.J. Julig, and W. A. Fox
  • Pre-Columbian Gold Processing at Putushio, South Ecuador: The Archaeometallurgical Evidence
    Thilo Rehren and Mathilde Temme
  • Pre-Hispanic Platinum Alloys: Their Composition and Use in Ecuador and Colombia
    David A. Scott and Warwick Bray
  • Pre-Hispanic Goldwork from the Museo de America, Madrid: A New Set of Analyses
    Salvador Rovira
• Archaeological Sites and Dating
  • A Methodology for the Study of Buried Archaeological Sites
    Luis Barba
  • Exceptional Molecular Preservation in the Fossil Record: The Archaeological, Conservation, and Scientific Challenge
    Noreen Tuross and Marilyn L. Fogel
  • Stratigraphic Dating and Cultural Sequences of Pre-Hispanic Northern South America
    Thomas van der Hammen
  • Coloration in Etowah Textiles from Burial No 57
    Lucy R. Sibley and Kathryn A. Jakes
  • Radiocarbon Dates of Teponaztlis from Mexico
    Reiner Protsch von Zieten and Rainer Berger