PRE-COLUMBIAN JADEITE AXES FROM ANTIGUA, WEST INDIES: DESCRIPTION AND POSSIBLE SOURCES

Excavation of ornamental and gem materials from workshop sites on the island of Antigua, West Indies, also uncovered jade celts (axe forms) and fragments thereof. All are jadeite jades (jadeitite), like jades from Mesoamerica. The Antigua sites date to the Saladoid period (ca. 250-500 AD), roughly equivalent to the Early Classic period for Mesoamerican cultures, and reveal “jades ” used in a context – decorative celt – well developed by Mesoamericans some 3100 km to the West. Ten of these jade artifacts were examined by a combination of mineralogical and petrographic techniques to determine their mineral constituents, mineral compositions and petrographic textures and place them in a context of possible sources among worldwide sources of jadeite jade. The common assemblage for six artifacts studied as polished sections include jadeite, omphacite, albite, a white-tan mica, quartz, zoisite/clinozoisite and titanite, with the exception of one artifact lacking albite and quartz, and one lacking mica. Allanite was found in the cores of zoisites in two jades, and glaucophane and lawsonite, each, were observed in single jades. The other four jades, which could not be studied as well, appear to contain comparable assemblages. Conspicuous among the Antigua jades is the textural setting of quartz, a phas