Mark Q. Sutton

Archaeological aspects of insect use

Insects are present in most archaeological contexts as a result of both natural and cultural processes. Insect data can be used to address a number of issues, including environmental reconstruction, forensics, identification of domesticates, taphonomy, and diet. This paper focuses on the archaeology of insect use in antiquity: their collection, processing, and storage and the archaeological manifestations of those activities. Consideration also is given to the incorporation of insect data into settlement/subsistence models.

Cluster Analysis of the Coprolites from Antelope House: Implications for Anasazi Diet and Cuisine

This paper reports on a cluster analysis of 155 coprolites from Antelope House, a prehistoric Anasazi site in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. The analysis revealed three primary clusters; whole kernel maize, milled maize, and nonmaize, which we believe to represent seasonal- and preference-related cuisine. Protein residue analysis on a subsample of the specimens added depth to the analysis.

The Anasazi Abandonment of the San Juan Drainage and the Numic Expansion

The nature of the Numic expansion into the southwestern United States, the fortified nature of Pueblo III Anasazi sites, and the close temporal correspondence between the expansion of Numic speakers and the Anasazi abandonment of the San Juan River drainage by 1300 AD lead to the interpretation that population relocations in late prehistoric times were precipitated by Southern Paiute and Ute activities.

Cluster Analysis of Paleofecal Data Sets: A Test of Late Prehistoric Settlement and Subsistence Patterns in the Northern Coachella Valley, California

Data from human paleofecal samples can be used to address a variety of questions, primarily the reconstruction of diet, but also the analysis of nutrition, health, technology, and behavior. Statistical analyses of constituents can be used to broaden the potential of paleofecal data, as well as to detail cuisine and to address larger issues of settlement/subsistence models. This potential is illustrated with a cluster analysis of paleofecal constituents from three late prehistoric period sites along the northern shore of ancient Lake Cahuilla, located in the Coachella Valley of southern California. These data were used to test competing settlement/subsistence models: one of large permanent lakeside villages dependent on lacustrine resources, and the other of seasonal, rather than permanent, lakeshore occupation. In addition, the analysis revealed additional details of diet and cuisine in the late prehistoric period.

Approaches to Linguistic Prehistory

Tracing the movements of languages through space and time is a most difficult task. The current interpretation of archaeological data alone are insufficient to determine linguistic prehistory with reasonable confidence. Presented herein is a coordinated approach that incorporates information from a variety of subdisciplines in an attempt to trace the movement of cultures and languages through time. The development of concordant lines of evidence is, at this point in time, required to form a convincing argument.

Strategy and Tactic in the Analysis of Archaeological Hunter-Gatherer Systems

Archaeologists studying past cultural systems commonly employ the concept of strategy to characterize both general and specific aspects of those systems. It is herein argued that a “strategy” is a plan; a general concept or blueprint conceived to achieve a goal. The fulfillment of a strategy requires that specific, lower-order, actions be taken. These actions are tactics—small-scale activities that generate a material record. It is the patterned remains of tactical behavior that form, and are recovered from, the archaeological record, with higher-order strategies being inferred from some understanding of tactics. In practice, however, many researchers interchange the concepts of strategy and tactic, equating plans with actions and vice versa. This tends to homogenize the reconstruction of strategies and masks the diversity, variability, and adaptive nature of the tactical inventory within the larger cultural system. Thus, the degree and scale of initial archaeological analysis should be at the level of tactic, rather than of strategy, an approach that would broaden the archaeological perspective in modeling and understanding past systems.

Late Prehistoric Interaction Spheres in the Mojave Desert

The delineation of ethnic units using archaeological data is always difficult. Material culture, settlement, and trade data are used to define three interaction spheres in the Mojave Desert. These units are not directly equated to ethnic groups but their boundaries roughly follow those of the ethnographic groups claiming the region. The results suggest that there may be definable archaeological differences between linguistic groups in the Mojave Desert and that such groups can be traced in antiquity.