LuAnn Wandsnider

Space, Time, and Archaeological Landscapes

Introduction: Concepts, Methods, and Theory Building J. Rossignol. Concepts and Scientific Archaeology: The Notion Site R.C. Dunnell. Seeing the Present and Interpreting the Past L.R. Binford. The Spatial Dimension of Archaeological Landscapes: Recognizing Persistant Places in Anasazi Settlement Systems S.H. Schlanger. Artifact Reuse and Recycling in Continuous Surface Distributions and Implications for Interpreting Land Use Patterns E.J. Camilli, J.I. Ebert. Landscape Scale C.R. Stafford, E.R. Hajic. Temporal Dimension of Archaeological Landscapes: Chronological Resolution in Distributional Archaeology G.T. Jones, C. Beck. Remnant Settlement Patterns R.E. Dewar, K.A. McBride. The Spatial Dimension of Time L. Wandsnider. Postscript and Prospectus: Archaeological Landscape Studies L. Wandsnider. 2 additional articles. Index.

The Character of Surface Archaeological Deposits and Its Influence on Survey Accuracy

AbstractSurvey is one of the primary methods of data collection in archaeology today. Survey data often constitute the sole conserved record of the prehistoric use of an area and are used as the foundation for culture historical, demographic, and economic reconstructions. Given the fundamental nature of survey data in relation to other archaeological pursuits, identification of biases inherent in this type of data are important and have been the subject of a number of stimulating studies. Analyses reported here focus on the accuracy of results produced through intensive survey. Using data from several siteless surveys in the American West, the effects of artifact obtrusiveness, especially size, and artifact density on the survey accuracy are investigated. Implications for interpreting a biased archaeological document are addressed.

Describing and Comparing Archaeological Spatial Structures

Quantitative archaeological spatial analysis today is radically different from that introduced more than 20 years ago. Today spatial analysis is couched in more general formational terms that include earlier functional pursuits. Today spatial analysts (1) focus on individual formationally sensitive artifact or element attributes, rather than on types; (2) use distributional rather than partitive methods and techniques; (3) consider a suite of such attributes to construct the formational history of archaeological deposits; and, least commonly, (4) undertake comparative spatial analysis. An elaboration of the latter tactic is proposed here, that of characterizing spatial structure in terms of structural elements (or “grid cells”) and relationships among those elements. This proposal is illustrated through the analysis of five well-known ethnoarchaeological sites with different formational histories. The illustration focuses on the formational process of site maintenance and relies on the relative frequencies of small and large artifacts to monitor the operation of that process. Structural descriptors describe the configuration of grid cells with different artifact size profiles in formationally meaningful terms. Importantly, these descriptors enable the rigorous comparison of spatial structure among and between ethnoarchaeological and archaeological deposits.

The Spatial Dimension of Time

Archaeological research commonly focuses on various temporal aspects of archaeological deposits, such as their age and the sequencing or the relative temporal order of one deposit to another. Another aspect is the concern for temporal scale and resolution, or the degree of contemporaneity shared by deposits, treated elsewhere in this volume by Jones and Beck and also by Zvelebil and colleagues.

Population Structures of Ghanzi and Ngamiland !Kung

The ways in which ecological circumstances condition and are conditioned by population density, population growth, and vital rates are important current interests in anthropology. We present some data relevant to understanding how mobility, diet, and disease may affect the demography of small populations; in particular we examine the widely held hypothesis that the onset of sedentism among formerly mobile hunter-gatherers permits population growth through an increase in fertility and a decrease in infanticide. In the particular case we will consider, the two major groups of !Kung Bushmen in Botswana, we will show that sedentism has led to decreased mortality but not to a detectable change in natality.

Temporal Scales and Archaeological Landscapes from the Eastern Desert of Australia and Intermontane North America

Time gets much less attention than space in discussions of archaeological scale. This may seem strange in a primarily historical discipline for which the demonstration of human antiquity is something of a defining moment (Grayson, 1983). Part of the reason may lie in the nature of time. Time unfolds along a continuum, and the way observers perceive time depends on their location and the scales they adopt. Compare the contemporary Western experience of earth time, for example, with time at the scale of the universe. A person traveling at the speed of light would experience a different time (Hawking, 1998; Ramenofsky, 1998) than the person caught up in the linear progression of our planet-bound life. Of course, archaeologists rarely deal with quantum time, but the example serves to remind us that time is not an absolute dimension. Archaeologists create their own conceptual units for measuring time. They project these units at different scales and choose their own observation points, dividing the continuum of time into arbitrary packages that relate in some way to specific research goals (Ramenofsky, 1998). Few archaeologists have grappled explicitly with scale issues. Crumley (1979) and Marquardt (1992; see also Crumley and Marquardt, 1987) emphasize that social and economic processes may each resolve best at different spatial scales. Stein

Mediterranean Archaeological Landscapes: Current Issues

The Mediterranean landscape record is recognized for its length and richness and the opportunity it offers to study the interaction between humans and their landscape. This volume explores a variety of current archaeological issues in the context of specific landscapes from southern Spain through Greece and Cyprus to Jordan and from antiquity to recent times. Over the last 25 years, researchers have initiated a dramatic expansion in theoretical approaches-both anthropological and classical. Over the same time span, a huge volume of field survey projects has been carried out in the Mediterranean arena. The contributors to Mediterranean Archaeological Landscapes take stock of what has been learned, identify lacunae, and consider new approaches to our understanding of the rich surface landscape record of the Mediterranean. Their goal is to explore theoretically diverse interpretative themes and the methods that make those approachable.

Archaeological Landscape Studies

The goal of most processual archaeological studies is to move from a description of regional archaeological variation to an understanding of some aspect of the organization of and change in past human systems, especially the subsistence component. Usually, the subsistence system is rendered in terms of the regional and annual arrangement of technology, consumers, and producers. As discussed in the introductory chapter, settlement pattern studies of the remains of both hunter-gatherer and more complex economies have accomplished this interpretative task through reconstruction of the settlement system. Over the past 20 years, however, formation process research and research on hunter-gatherer systems has made insupportable some of the critical assumptions of settlement system reconstruction. Thus, over this 20-year span, strategies have appeared that approach past subsistence by other avenues. The studies presented here illustrate one such strategy, which we have labeled the landscape approach.

Fragmentation Resistant Measures of Chipped Stone Abundance and Size: Results of an Experimental Investigation of the Impact of Cattle Trampling on Surface Chipped Stone Scatters

Abstract This study reports on the execution of a controlled experiment designed to address the impacts of cattle trampling on surface scatters of chipped stone found in Great Plains contexts. A key focus of the experiment’s design is an evaluation of the relationship between trampling duration and substrate compaction on the severity of artifact breakage. Results indicate that post-depositional artifact fragmentation can significantly distort common analytical approaches found within the archaeological literature. Namely, measures of artifact abundance, raw material proportions, and average artifact dimensions are all affected by the impacts of trampling fragmentation. Beyond a consideration of key variables in the process of trampling fragmentation and its effects on analysis, this study outlines analytical means to identify and control for this bias. Tell-tale indicators of trampling damage are described and prescriptive measures designed to mitigate against the effects of trampling are evaluated. Results indicate that if dealt with appropriately, fragmented assemblages should not to be dismissed as distorted beyond usefulness, but instead can be utilized to reveal latent information about past human behavior.

Investigating the human response to the medieval climate anomaly in the Nebraska Sand Hills: A preliminary study in building occupation histories with OSL dating

Multiple periods of dune activation triggered by drought have occurred within the Nebraska Sand Hills, the most recent period occurred during the medieval climate anomaly (MCA; A.D. 900–1350). We present a pilot study where we have successfully adapted a standard chronology-building tool, optically stimulated luminescence dating, to investigate the effects of dune reactivation on human occupation history at two sites conventionally dated to the peri-MCA: Kelso (25HO23), a Plains Woodland site, and McIntosh (25BW15) a Central Plains tradition site. At both sites the maximum optical age of the cultural layer is congruent with radiocarbon ages of materials recovered. The optical ages yielded by samples collected near the Kelso and McIntosh sites, together with radiocarbon dated site materials, suggest that these sites were respectively occupied before and during the MCA sand dune migration. Both the Kelso and McIntosh sites are located near prominent water resources that may have acted as refuges during drought and dune migration.