Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1998

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Anthropology

Major Professor

Charles H. Faulkner

Committee Members

Jan F. Simek, Jefferson Chapman, Lydia Pulsipher, Charles Hudson

Abstract

Archaeologists have expressed an ever increasing interest in information embedded in the spatial context of archaeological materials. Spatial studies endeavor to extract and interpret such embedded information in terms of human activities and behavior. This study examines the form and content of two contemporary Mississippian period domestic structures excavated from 1986 to 1991 at the Loy site (40JE10) in Jefferson County, Tennessee for spatial patterning and attempts to explain such patterning in terms of human activities and behavior.

The structures are excavated with attention to both vertical and horizontal control. All artifacts possible are piece-plotted, and structure fill screened in small units to provide a data set, amenable to spatial analysis. Piece-plotted data are subjected to k-means analysis by artifact and size class, while the total sample data are subjected to a variety of intuitive pattern recognition techniques by artifact and size class in an effort to identify congment and contrasting patterning between the structures. Ethnohistoric data and artifacts derived from contemporary burial contexts provide gender attributions for many of the recovered artifacts, thus allowing gender based interpretation of activities and spatial patterning.

Most artifact classes present non-random distributions, some displaying congruent patterning and others contrasting patterning between the structures. Congruent patterning reflects the material results of activities and behavior common to the same space in each structure. Contrasting patterning reflects the material results of activities and behavior differing between the two structures. Architectural remains and food refuse, for example, display congruent patterning reflecting the same construction and the same accumulation of floor refuse, while larger artifact size and the presence of many presumedly functional artifacts display contrasting patterning reflecting differing states of occupation or abandonment. Patterning of gender based artifact attributions suggests some portions of each structure along the walls are primarily utilized by males and others by females, while still others, such as the hearth area and right front quarter. appear to be utilized in common.

This effort demonstrates that pattern recognition studies can reach beyond the identification of activities present in structures. Detailed excavation of entire households can provide a dynamic view of domestic activities and behavior.

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