AN ANALYSIS OF A STONE ARTIFACT CACHE FROM THE SHELOR SITE (31MG2051) IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA (original) (raw)

Quantitative Assessment of Stone Relics in a Western Massachusetts Town

Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, 2017

A Quantitative Assessment of Stone Relics in a Western Massachusetts Town Introduction The nature of stone works that appear with great frequency on the Massachusetts landscape has been debated between the Native community and the State MHC for some time now. A sacred site near the former village of Peskeompscut, on the mid-strech of the Connecticut River found its way through State and Federal processes of evaluation. The State attributes the many stone structures at Sacred Hill Ceremonial Site (SHCS) to “agricultural activities,” (FERC application, Section 106 report, SHCS page?) while the Native Naragansett, Nipmuc, Mohegan and Wampanoag nations insist they are sacred ceremonial landscapes. Because the State denies a Native origin for these sites, and assigns a mundane origin and purpose, ceremonial stone landscapes (CSLs) and the Traditional Cultural Practices (TCPs) with which they are associated are disqualified for protection under Massachusetts preservation laws and initiatives. However, Federal investigation concluded that the same site is indeed Algonquian in origin and that SHCS conforms to established cultural as well as religious practices of regional indigenous peoples. Under this modern dilemma lies a historic context of genocide, cultural oppression and lack of academic investment. Pertinent to this debate is the near-total absence of Native American persons on the faculties of Native American Studies departments of Massachusetts colleges, as well as their historic lack of understanding about regional Algonquian culture. To elucidate origins and purposes of numerous stone relic groups in a Western Massachusetts town, a quantitative and objective assessment of 60 ostensible CSLs was performed, as based on site surveys and inventories. All access-permitted private and public lands were assessed at a basic level, constituting roughly 60-70% of the total town area, which town has large tracts in conservation status. Of the 60 tallied stone relic sites, 25 were further assessed for characteristics and content, from which nine representative sites were selected for deeper analysis. Characteristics of the nine closely-studied sites were quantized as binary values for statistical treatment. As well, physical and correlational measures were collected for analysis. For a total of approximately 1500 stone relics in the nine final sites, 33 points of data were collected per relic. Collected data were investigated in terms of nearest-neighbor, period of manufacture, materials, methods, correlations, locations, aspect, presence of cross-cultural mixing, recent damage or alteration, and conformity with recorded cultural practices, both European and Algonquian. Data were collected to indicate presence of absence of recognizably European stone works on sites, associated historic structures and other signs of European cultural imprint. The results indicate that the stone relic groups were constructed during at least three periods preceding and including the early years of European contact. None of the sites indicate European cultural traditions of any type on record, while all of the sites conform to recorded Eastern Algonquian ritual uses. Furthermore, all sites show strikingly high levels of consistency on all measured characteristics, including location, materials, design, types of objects, arrangement of objects and number of objects. The studied sites in Western Massachusetts correlate closely to three historically documented ceremonial stone landscapes for comparison, belonging to Algonquian nations of the Munsee Delaware and Mohegan-cluster divisions, specifically, the Tankiteke of Southeast New York, the Pocumtuck of the Central Connecticut Valley and the Narragansett of Rhode Island and environs. Finally, historical records provide accounts of traditional religious practices of the Algonquian nations, which correlate to ceremonial stone landscapes, which persist here to this day.

Surface Stone Artifact Scatters, Settlement Patterns, and New Methods for Stone Artifact Analysis

Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology, 2019

Movement and mobility are key properties in understanding what makes us human and so have been foci for archeological studies. Stone artifacts survive in many contexts, providing the potential for understanding landscape use in the past through studies of mobility and settlement pattern. We review the inferential basis for these studies based on archeological practice and anthropological understanding of hunter-gatherer bands. Rather than structured relationships among band size, composition, and mobility, anthropological studies suggest variability in how hunter-gatherer groups were organized. We consider how stone artifact studies may be used to investigate this variability by outlining a geometric approach to stone artifact analysis based on the Cortex Ratio. An archeological case study from Holocene semi-arid Australia allows consideration of the potential of this approach for understanding past landscape use from stone artifact assemblage composition more generally. Keywords Lithics. Cortex Ratio. Landscape. Settlement pattern Stone artifacts survive in contexts where other material forms may not, leading to a spatially abundant stone artifact record in many parts of the world dating from the earliest periods of hominin ancestry through to the recent Holocene. It is tempting, therefore, to relate distributions of stone artifacts across landscapes to the way people in the past used space. Movement and mobility are key properties in understanding what makes us human (Kuhn et al. 2016) and have long provided topics of study for archeologists (e.g.

The Nelson stone tool cache, North-Central Ohio, U.S.A.: Assessing its cultural affiliation

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2021

The Nelson stone tool cache was discovered in 2008 in Mount Vernon, Ohio. The cache does not include any diagnostic materials, and independent age control is unavailable. Although aspects of its 164 bifaces are suggestive of a Clovis affiliationincluding the occasional occurrence of unmistakable flute scarsnearly all are in the early-to mid-stages of production, there are no definitive finished Clovis fluted points that would make it possible to assign the cache to that time period. To ascertain its cultural affiliation, we undertook a detailed qualitative and quantitative comparison of the Nelson cache bifaces with ones known to be both Clovis and post-Clovis in age. We also conducted geochemical sourcing, ochre analyses, and microwear analysis to understand the context of the cache, regardless of its age and cultural affinity. By some key measures it is consistent with Clovis caches in this region and elsewhere, but the case remains unproven. Nonetheless, if the Nelson cache is from the Clovis period, it is significant that most of its bifaces appear to be made on large flakes, in keeping with Clovis technology in the Lower Great Lakes, and an economically conservative, risk-mitigating strategy that conforms to predictions of human foragers colonizing the area in late Pleistocene times.

Rethinking ribbed stones: Defining a Northwest Coast artifact class

2021

Ribbed stones are ground stone artifacts found primarily at archaeological sites in Prince Rupert Harbour and canyons along the Skeena and Bulkley Rivers. All have deeply incised grooves that extend across at least one face of the artifact, creating a characteristic ribbed pattern of raised bands. This thesis presents an artifact class definition and morphological classification system for ribbed stones, based on the analysis of 31 specimens. Used to describe and interpret the artifact class, the system is based on physical attributes related to form. This approach, while useful, was unable to directly incorporate contextual insights shared by two Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en community members. In response to this limitation, a second classification system, referred to as "circles of belonging," was developed as a complementary method of artifact classification that may more easily engage with community derived insights and information.

Contextual Studies of the Middle Archaic Component at Cave Spring in Middle Tennessee

1984

Research in 1980 and 1981 at the Cave Spring site, located on the Duck River in the Nashville Basin of Middle Tennessee, revealed a buried paleosol in a Holocene terrace which contained charcoal, river gravel and chipped stone artifacts. Radiocarbon dates from this buried stratum range from 6500 to 7300 years before present. Evaluating the potential of this buried deposit for yielding behaviorally significant information depended upon learning (1) whether the cultural materials were undisturbed or were redeposited by the river, (2) whether one or. several periods of deposition or occupation were represented, and (3) whether material from one or more than one cultural group was included in the deposit. Gravel from the excavation was studied and compared to control samples from a nearby gravel bar and from a Pleistocene terrace. A significantly higher percentage of reddened and broken gravel occurred with the artifacts than in the control situations. This information, in conjunction with a gravel concentration exposed during excavation, suggests that the gravel had been culturally introduced for use in stone boiling or as hearth stones. Refitting analysis was conducted using chipped stone artifacts and debris to determine if the highly leptokurtic vertical distribution of artifacts resulted from disturbance processes or sequent occupations. Reconstructed flake sequences and conjoined artifact fragments documented that vertical post depositional movement of these buried materials had occurred. Pieces from the same refitted set had dispersed as much as 40 cm vertically through silty clay during the past 7, 000 ix years. Horizontal movement of pieces and systematic size sorting, as would result from stream action, had not occurred. The problem of how many cultural groups were responsible for the archaeological remains was confronted using the Cave Spring projectile point-knife sample. Given the perspective of systematic chipped stone reduction, the concept of multistage types is developed. The Eva biface reduction system is proposed with the Eva multistage type encompassing a variety of morphological and functional states which reflect expectable variation in the reduction or uselife sequences of particular artifacts within the overall system. The variability observed in the Cave Spring projectile point-knife sample, including specimens traditionally classified as Morrow Mountain points, can be attributed to a single biface reduction system and we need not infer the activities of two distinct cultural groups in accounting for the observed variability. The Morrow Mountain type in the southern Appalachian region apparently represents a biface reduction system distinct from that in the Middle Tennessee region commonly denoted as the Eva-Morrow Mountain cluster. This conclusion has significant ramifications for the assignment of assemblages to specific archaeological taxonomic units, and for making appropriate assemblage comparisons. It is not tenable to refer variability in the archaeological record directly to cultural variability. The situational nature of behaviors which operated to create the archaeological record must also be considered.

Gilat’s Ground Stone Assemblage: Stone Fenestrated Stands, Bowls, Palettes, and Related Artifacts.

In T.E. Levy (ed.), Archaeology, Anthropology and Cult: The Sanctuary at Gilat, pp. 575-684, 2006

This chapter describes the ground stone and related artifact assemblage from Gilat, one of the larger components of material culture found at the site. These objects encompass a wide diversity of forms, functions and materials ranging from domestic grinding implements to finely crafted mace heads and palettes. These tools, vessels and decorative objects epitomize the versatility of craftsmanship for which the Chalcolithic has become known throughout the southern Levant. A total of 2,038 artifacts are included in this study, representing the largest published southern Levantine ground stone assemblage from the Chalcolithic period (cf. Commenge in press;. Three primary objectives were the focus of this research; description, quantification and comparison to other late prehistoric assemblages. Though the function of many of these artifact classes is an intriguing question, and one about which we occasionally suggest hypotheses, no usewear or residue analyses were attempted, and thus the function of many artifact types is not examined in a critical fashion. Included within this discussion are also some non-stone artifacts (e.g. shell, ivory, bone, ceramic) which belong to larger artifact classes primarily made of stone such as beads, pendants and other decorative objects.

Archaeological Explorations of Workshop Rock Shelter, Upper Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee

The following research presents the results of archaeological survey and testing of Workshop Rock Shelter (40FN260), a small upland “rock house” on the Upper Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee. Luminescence dated ceramics and the ceramic assemblage from Workshop Rock Shelter are used to highlight an approach for establishing the prehistoric culture history of the region, a culture history that is expected to be significantly different than those of adjacent lowland regions. Specifically, the proximate aim of this essay is to elucidate Woodland ceramic systems on the Upper Cumberland Plateau. Problems with existing formal ceramic type designations are also discussed. Lastly, it is further suggest that scholars and cultural resource managers working in the Tennessee region use luminescence dating to aid in their archaeological investigations and National Register assessments.