by Liritzis, I. and Andronache, I.
ABSTRACT
The mechanism of diffused water through the surface of archaeological Obsidian blades, in the course of time, a mainly temperature-dependent and concentration-driven phenomenon, related to the obsidian hydration dating (OHD), is a subject of ongoing development. Fourteen obsidian specimens from California, Easter Is-lands, and Africa of laboratory ageing and known age spanning from some hundreds to some thousands of years have been investigated. The microscope images of micro-scale thin hydration rims of naturally hydrated artifacts and experimentally hydrated ones have been processed. It has been shown that the high-temperature aged experiments data of an obsidian source (as image area in pixels and hydration depth) can be properly processed to calculate the age of an obsidian artifact derived from the same source, although it may be applied to different and distant obsidian sources. The first novel power law approach is presented exploring various facets of the thin-sectioned images of ab-sorbed water from obsidian surfaces. Hydration growth rates calculated from areal pixels, a power law functional behavior of temperatures of ex-perimentally hydrated layers with growth per year, as well as, their hydration thickness, is discussed. The obtained ages from the tentative power law equation are estimated for anticipated environmentally effective temperatures. Compatibility and differences with conventional OHD ages, reporting problematic reported data and image scaling issues, are critically discussed, maintaining the logic that the present and future appli-cation should be made on a similar or closely related source of both the sample to be dated and the experi-mental simulation samples at high temperatures.
