Fission-track dating of obsidians

Fission-track dating is applied to 16 obsidian artifacts from an archaeological excavation at Cayönü Tepesi in southeastern Anatolia. Since obsidian samples are rich in bubbles and inclusions, only the six most compact samples were found to be usable for fission-track measurements. Size studies of etched fossil- and induced-fission tracks showed that no strong thermal effects occurred during the history of these glasses so that no fading correction has been applied to the computed ages. The fission-track ages obtained range between 8.95 Myr and 25.14 Myr. It may be stated that these obsidian samples are from two different origins. © 1982