en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian
2 corrections found
The first known archaeological evidence of usage was in Kariandusi (Kenya) and other sites of the Acheulian age (beginning 1.5 million years BP) dated 700,000 BC
This is outdated: earlier obsidian tool use is documented at Melka Kunture, Ethiopia, around 1.7 million years ago, well before Kariandusi’s roughly 700,000-year-old evidence.
Full reasoning
Peer-reviewed archaeological work contradicts this sentence directly. A chapter by Piperno et al. states that "The Oldowan assemblages of Melka Kunture represent the earliest known example of obsidian utilization" and dates those Oldowan sites to 1.7–1.4 million years ago. A later paper specifically describes ~1.7-million-year-old obsidian tools from Garba IV at Melka Kunture.
That means Kariandusi is not the first known archaeological evidence of obsidian use. Kariandusi's evidence is much later (around 0.7 million years ago), so describing it as the first known evidence is incorrect by roughly a million years.
2 sources
- Obsidian exploitation and utilization during the Oldowan at Melka Kunture (Ethiopia)
The Oldowan assemblages of Melka Kunture represent the earliest known example of obsidian utilization... The Oldowan sites discovered at Melka Kunture are ... dated between 1.7 and 1.4 Ma.
- The Unknown Oldowan: ~1.7-Million-Year-Old Standardized Obsidian Small Tools from Garba IV, Melka Kunture, Ethiopia
The small tool production at ~1.7 Ma... adds to the growing amount of evidence of Oldowan techno-economic variability and flexibility.
the pupils of the eyes of their Moai (statues), which were encircled by rings of bird bone
For the large stone moai, the eye surrounds were coral, not bird bone. Sources describe white coral eyes with obsidian or red scoria pupils.
Full reasoning
This clause appears to confuse the stone moai statues with wooden Rapa Nui figures that could have bone-and-obsidian inlaid eyes.
For the large stone moai on Rapa Nui, multiple reliable sources describe the eyes as white coral with obsidian or red scoria pupils. Smithsonian states that white coral and obsidian eyes were inserted during ceremonies, and National Geographic likewise says the finishing touch was white coral eyes with pupils of obsidian or red scoria. Bird bone is associated with some wooden Rapa Nui figures, not the eye surrounds of the island’s monumental stone moai statues.
3 sources
- The Secrets of Easter Island
Eye sockets were carved once a statue was on its ahu, and white coral and obsidian eyes were inserted during ceremonies to awaken the moai’s power.
- If They Could Only Talk
As a finishing touch, they placed eyes of white coral and pupils of obsidian or red scoria into the empty sockets.
- Mata Moai (Moai Eye) | Servicio Nacional del Patrimonio Cultural
The archaeologists discovered two fragments of coral buried in the sand and, when pieced together, they confirmed an old belief: the moai had eyes.