The Arrowstone Hills lithic quarry: A major lithic source on the Canadian Plateau region of Northwest North America. Implications for social-political and economic systems

• This lithic provenance study documents the spatial and temporal distribution of a significant source. • XRF analysis successfully characterized the Arrowstone Hills source from other sources in the region. • Analysis illustrates that the geochemistry of several sources in the region is closely related, forming a source complex. • Analysis shows that the Arrowstone Hills source is a preferred lithic material. This article represents an exploratory provenance study to map the spatial and temporal distribution of Fine Grained Volcanic (FGV) lithics from the Arrowstone Hills lithic source, located near Cache Creek British Columbia, Canada. Using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis, elemental data for this source are generated, against which lithic artifacts from archaeological sites located across the Canadian Plateau were compared. The Arrowstone Hills source was also compared to five other lithic sources on the Canadian Plateau and adjacent Northwest Coast. It was determined that the Arrowstone Hills source is part of a geological complex that includes at least three other nearby lithic sources possessing a similar elemental signature and together are named here the Kamloops Fine-Grained Volcanic complex (KFGVC). Furthermore, it was determined that these materials are ubiquitous across the Canadian Plateau and were moved through extensive exchange networks. Cultural factors such as kin relationships, resource rights, and territorial sovereignty influenced how these networks operated at various times throughout the past.