A geologic catchment, one of our trademark products, relates the geological environment, and its resources, to raw materials and artifacts recovered from a specific archeological site or sites. The geology of a region - its plate tectonic and diagenetic history, structure, and stratigraphy - is used to explain the geographic distribution of chert, groundstone and other lithic raw materials. When combined with the knowledge of how the regional geologic history may have affected the chemistries of lithic resources, the geological catchment becomes the anchor for a whole range of successful provenance studies. Once a catchment has been constructed for the area of interest, previous geochemical studies of varying methodologies may also be re-interpreted to provide more definitive results.

The geologic catchment is an ideal approach for pipeline or longitudinal studies because it also allows investigators to alter sampling strategies in areas where prehistoric quarries are abundant, as well as predict site types with respect to the locations of known quarries.

***Updated Summer, 2009 by Margaret Brewer-LaPorta