A greenish obsidian blade, believed to have been found on the Texas Panhandle, may be from the 16th-century expedition led by the Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, a new study suggests.
The sharp tool's provenance is hazy, but a chemical analysis of the obsidian reveals that it came from the Sierra de Pachuca mountain range of Central Mexico, where many Indigenous people on the expedition got raw materials for cutting tools, the researchers found. It's possible that an Indigenous person traveling with Coronado crafted the blade in Mexico and later discarded it in Texas, which could help determine Coronado's exact route through the Lonestar State, the researchers said.
