Message #30: From: AzTeC SW Archaeology SIG To: "'Matthias Giessler'" Subject: Glass Insulators in Experimental Archaeology Date: Thu, 16 Jan 97 12:49:00 MST Encoding: 16 TEXT From: Ellie McDowell-Loudan One can add to this category of glass insulator collectors. Some lithic technologists and some Native Americans (in California, I'm told) gather these solid items for experimental archeology--lithic-tool-working on a material that resembles (they tell me) volcanic glass. Errett Callahan, formerly a consultant for the Catholic University of America's archeology program (among others), noted that some folks felt that this was safer to avoid pollution of archeological sites with obsidian debitage which might be misleading to excavators. This was in the 1960's and early 1970's when there was a bit less consciousness of the importance and significance of glass insulators as cultural information. Wonder when we'll see the first "insulator core" in an artifact complex?