In a message dated 3/23/2007 11:58:47 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
At the
preliminary level of examination, as Ron pointed out, you may not be
able to tell whether it is even a primary deposit. Thus the many
mistaken "midden" I.D.s in CRM literature.
Perhaps we are just splitting hairs over (the term "midden") nothing too
important. Then again, I worry about people who dismiss something as "surface
scatter" or "sheet deposit" without understanding how it fits into the larger
feature of the site. Although I am about to embark on a learning experience in
a prehistoric site (sorry, Anita, but it illustrates an important point), I
feel the lesson directly applies to historic archaeology. From 1970-1979
(usually one or two weekends a month), I participated in surveys and testing at
China Lake Naval Weapons Center in the Mojave Desert (California). We found
what appeared (from my height of 6'1") to be meaningless light scatter of
artifacts, but the good scientist Emma Lou "Davy" Davis ordered us to dutifully
map all the artifacts within 1,000 foot squares to test for features not
visible to the naked eye. Davy then took the data home and ran statistics to test
for feature clustering on the landform. She detected deflated tool reduction,
sharpening, and breakage features spread over large areas that became more
clear in the lab. Overlaying those features on the landform, she predicted the
location of buried camel butchering sites and we returned to test one in 1973
(and found butchered large mammal bone and stone tools, flakes and cores). I
experienced shock, as I realized my eyeballs at six feet were not seeing the
big picture. Several times in my career in historical archaeology, I have
conducted detailed mapping of historical artifacts (in what some would call
meaningless sheet scatter) and, lo and behold, found largely deflated features
that contained variance in personal, domestic, and workshop artifact
assemblages. Not only did the technique make me a believer, it taught me to be very
skeptical of the term sheet deposit or surface scatter. In reality, a thin
deposit with only one dimension is easier to document and interpret.
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
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