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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