Alan P. Sullivan

Debitage Analysis and Archaeological Interpretation

The systematic study of chipped stone debitage provides important information about prehistoric lithic technology. However, the results of most debitage analyses are unconvincing because of questionable assumptions and inherent flaws in the typologies used to classify the material. After briefly reviewing these problems, we present an alternative approach that does not rely on the presumed technological origins of individual artifacts as the basis for debitage classification and interpretation. An important element of this approach is a typology composed of interpretation-free and mutually exclusive debitage categories. The derivation of this typology is described and the utility of the approach is demonstrated with two Arizona case studies. The TEP St. Johns project provides new data and interpretations about Archaic Period technological and settlement changes while the Pitiful Flats study illustrates how differences in functional and organizational factors affect debitage assemblage variability.

Prehistoric Southwestern Ceramic Manufacture: The Limitations of Current Evidence

Identification of the artifacts and features used in ceramic manufacture has become a crucial aspect of Southwestern archaeology as the organization of pottery production has assumed a pivotal role in current models of Southwestern prehistory. Regrettably, pottery-making and pottery-firing areas seldom are reported, and reliable criteria for inferring their presence at archaeological sites have not been developed. A review of pertinent ethnoarchaeological and experimental literature provides some correlates for identifying artifacts and features that may have been involved in ceramic production. Presently, it appears that only two Southwestern sites, Snaketown on the Gila River and AZ I:1:17(ASM) south of Grand Canyon National Park, have disclosed convincing evidence of on-site pottery-making and pottery-firing areas. Some recommendations are developed for increasing the likelihood of recovering strong evidence of ceramic production at Southwestern sites.

Effects of small‐scale prehistoric runoff agriculture on soil fertility: The developing picture from upland terraces in the American Southwest

Prehistoric stone alignments and their associated terraces are common in upland ecozones of the American Southwest. These features are generally considered the archaeological consequences of “runoff agriculture” dedicated to domesticated-plant production. Furthermore, researchers have theorized that such production decreased soil fertility and ultimately promoted abandonment of the alignments, terraces, and surrounding landscapes. Recent investigations show that cultivated Mollisols indeed have less organic matter and less available P, and elevated pH, as well as several textural changes. In contrast, cultivated Aridisols have elevated CaCO3, available Ca, and cation-exchange capacity, as well as no textural changes. The developing picture, however, is that small-scale runoff agriculture has had largely benign effects on soil fertility and that anthropogenic terraces likely were abandoned for reasons unrelated to their productivity.

Investigating the Archaeological Consequences of Short-Duration Occupations

Sutton, M. 1986 Warfare and Expansion: An Ethnohistoric Perspective on the Numic Spread. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 8:65-82. Winterhalder, B., W. Baillargeon, F. Cappelletto, I. R. Daniel, Jr., and C. Prescott 1988 The Population Ecology of Hunter-Gatherers and Their Prey. Journal ofAnthropologicalArchaeology 7:289-328. Wobst, M. 1976 Locational Relationships in Paleolithic Society. In The Demographic Evolution of Human Populations, edited by R. H. Ward and K. M. Weiss, pp. 49-58. Academic Press, New York.

Economic and Land-Use Implications of Prehistoric Fire-Cracked-Rock Piles, Northern Arizona

Abstract Intensive archaeological survey of 14.5 sq km of the Upper Basin, an area located near the Grand Canyons eastern South Rim in northern Arizona, has discovered 126 fire-cracked-rock piles that are surrounded by artifact scatters of varying size and assemblage composition. Because these phenomena are unprecedented in upland conifer ecosystems of the American Southwest, several hypotheses are explored regarding their formation histories. Analyses of artifact assemblages, botanical remains, pollen, and faunal remains recovered from four excavated sites indicate that they result from flaked-stone artifact production, ground-stone artifact reuse and recycling, ceramic-vessel-fragment recycling, and animal and plant processing. In addition, radiocarbon dates and temporally diagnostic projectile-points and ceramics imply that the sites differ in terms of frequency, intensity, and patterns of use, and with respect to the groups of people who formed them (Anasazi, Cohonina, Havasupai, or Hopi). Byproducts of a little-known, long-term land-use pattern in Southwestern prehistory (ca. A.D. 417–1650), these sites represent a key source of information for understanding how different sources of variability come to be expressed in archaeological landscapes.

The technology of ceramic reuse: Formation processes and archaeological evidence

Abstract Archaeological and ethnoarchaeological research has shown that broken and discarded ceramics may represent potentially useful artifacts in storage or ‘provisional discard’. Because they are durable, fire‐resistant, and easily modified ‐ properties that are rarely associated with products of the natural environment ‐ reused ceramics may be used to solve a variety of technical problems of daily life. Thus, a substantial portion of ceramic assemblages that have been interpreted as ‘trash’ may, in fact, represent important elements of the technology of ceramic‐using societies. These points are illustrated with an analysis based on the exhaustive refitting of ceramics from a Kayenta Anasazi settlement, located near the Grand Canyon in the American Southwest, which was excavated completely.

ETHNOARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CERAMIC VESSELS AND ANNUAL ACCUMULATION RATES OF SHERDS

A broad examination of the synthetic results of ceramic ethnoarchaeology reveals that research has centered on the factors that influence variation in the production, use, and discard of whole pottery vessels. Far less common are ceramic ethnoarchaeological studies that investigate the various ways that broken vessels become incorporated into the archaeological record. Archaeologists who would like to apply the findings of ceramic ethnoarchaeology, therefore, are faced with the daunting prospect of determining the relevance of those findings for archaeological phenomena. In this paper, I first examine the relationship between ceramic ethnoarchaeological research on whole vessels and archaeological methods for determining annual accumulation rates of sherds for sites in southwestern Colorado. I then present an alternative method that analyzes contextual variation between use and discard assemblages at two sites in the Grand Canyon area and explore the consequences of all these studies for evaluating assumptions about vessel use-life, systemic inventories, and annual accumulation rates. I conclude with some archaeologically led suggestions about how ceramic ethnoarchaeologists might expand their research designs to make the results of their studies resonate more strongly with, and hence be more useful to, archaeologists who analyze bucketfuls of potsherds.

Archaeological survey design, units of observation, and the characterization of regional variability

It is generally presumed that intensive survey yields reliable representations of regional archaeological variability. We evaluate this assumption with an analysis of the results of two intensive surveys of the same terrain in the Upper Basin, a heavily forested upland ecosystem located south of Grand Canyon National Park in Kaibab National Forest, northern Arizona. By comparing differences between the results of site-based surveys with those of mapping-unit-based surveys, we demonstrate that units of observation have a profound effect on how archaeological landscapes and their variability are characterized and interpreted. In addition, results of four analyses of survey data show that the archaeological resource inventories created by the application of these two different units of observation cannot be reconciled. We suggest that because some units of observation may be more appropriate for certain problems and for different kinds of surface and near-surface archaeological records, additional studies of the effects of units of observation on characterizing the archaeological content of the same terrain should become a research priority in survey archaeology. Without such studies, the identification of archaeologically sensitive areas, particularly those that necessitate active management and vigilant protection on public lands, will be underdetermined, thereby placing those heritage properties at risk.

The Nature of Lithic Reduction and Lithic Analysis: Stage Typologies Revisited

Ensor and Roemer (1989) claim that our debitage categories inherently are linked to our interpretations (i.e., are not interpretation free), that we have dismissed unfairly the work of lithic analysts who use stage typologies, and that our view of lithic reduction as a continuum is questionable. In responding, we review the descriptive and interpretive limitations of stage approaches, and explore terminological issues that arise from Ensor and Roemers zealous adherence to stage approaches. Finally, we reiterate our position that approaches like ours, which seek to describe and interpret distinctive assemblages of lithic artifacts, are more likely to yield productive results than those, such as stage approaches, which focus on identifying distinctive artifacts.

Measurement, Method, and Meaning in Lithic Analysis: Problems with Amick and Mauldin's Middle-Range Approach

Amick and Mauldin (1989) claim that our approach to describing debitage assemblage variation is unproductive because our typology is free of interpretation. They suggest that our method for assigning meaning to archaeological data is sterile because it is based solely on observations of the archaeological record. Their views seem to be based on inattention to key analytic concepts, an unfamiliarity with the full range of factors affecting lithic assemblage content, and an empirically unsupported position about how knowledge of the past may be obtained from the archaeological record. Experimental studies are useful for developing generalizations about how technological factors may influence debitage assemblage characteristics, but sound description of those characteristics is an essential prerequisite to reliable interpretations.