473L: Archaeological Measurement

2005

EXERCISE 4: MEASURING LITHIC REDUCTION

15 pts. (4a and 4b combined)

Lab 4a and Lab 4b due on April 15 (analyze 4a results before doing 4b)

In this exercise, you will be measuring the patterns of lithic reduction by raw material. Having completed the Sullivan and Rosen exercise, you should be somewhat familiar with variation in reduced stone residues, and we are going to carry that knowledge one step further by examining chipped stone residues from archaeological contexts. The samples you will be working with derived from systematic surface collections at San Marcos pueblo collected over a number of years. You will be examining, flakes, shatter, and cores.

There are three specific goals to the exercise: First, provide some hands-on familiarity with archaeological chipped stone residue. In doing so, the exercise highlights some of the basic problems encountered in examining chipped stone collections, e.g., reliably assessing flake dimensions. Second, introduce paradigmatic classifications as research tools (for a review of paradigmatic classification, see class lecture notes and the Banning chapter). That is, the exercise provides an example of how paradigms can be used as analytical devices to partition variation in archaeological collections of objects. Third, describe and evaluate variation in core reduction within and between different raw materials. After completing this exercise, you should be able to: (1) distinguish among cores, flakes, and angular debris, (2) define and assess the basic dimensions of cores and flakes, and (3) construct paradigmatic classifications relevant to your research interests (4) build preliminary descriptions of variation in chipped stone residues by raw material.

BASIC ORGANIZATION OF THIS EXERCISE:

There are two different parts to the procedures of this exercise, and they correspond to flakes and angular debris versus cores. For flakes and angular debris, you will do an item analysis (Steffen et al 1998). We are providing a paradigmatic protocol for this part of the exercise, and you will use that paradigm to code each piece. You will also work on an item by item basis with cores (because, after all, cores and detachments comprise the totality of reduction). With cores, you will choose the variables you want to measure, but the measurements must be within the framework of the goal of describing reduction.

EXERCISE 4A: MEASURING DEBITAGE VARIATION--March 25

During this first week, you will only be considering debitage and angular debris.

STEP ONE:

Examine the material on your tray. First, separate the debitage from the cores. Refresh your memory regarding definitions of flakes versus angular debris…. This will help enormously and is essential

STEP TWO: Coding debitage

Using the debitage coding sheet provided, classify the debitage according to the list of dimensions and attributes provided (attached to the end of this document) You may not finish all the coding in the first week, but the important part is to finish coding for at least three variables, in addition to weight. The complete list of variables is debitage type, material, condition, cortex, exterior surface flake scars, platform type, and weight). As you’re examining the debitage, you also should write down other questions that are of interest to you… cortical cover, exterior surface, or perhaps even wear. These questions will become important in the second part of the exercise.

STEP THREE: Data entry and analysis

In this part of the exercise, you will construct two paradigms. To do this, you must enter the observations from the coding sheets into a computer The observations on your coding sheet is the first step in constructing units and building descriptions. In other words, your observations are the basis of constructing data—in this case, classes.

Once the observations are entered, you are ready to construct paradigms. Paradigms are constructed by sorting, using the codes of each dimension. Remember, classes are created through intersection. So a complete chert flake is class 111. A piece of chert angular debris would have the code: 291 (If you are foggy regarding paradigms, refresh your memory by looking at the lecture notes).

Paradigm 1 +Weight

You will all have observations on the first three dimensions of variation in addition to weight. This information will be sufficient to begin to examine variation in raw material size and frequencies of different kinds of raw material in your sample. To investigate these kinds of patterns it will useful to use both counts and weights in addition to the first three dimensions. Why, both counts and weights? As Teltser (1991) showed, weight is a good predictor of size of debitage, but does not address the frequency of raw material in the sample. Counts are better for examining frequency because lithic reduction is subtractive. Here you have the opportunity to examine frequencies of various classes and cross those frequencies with weight units. To do the latter, you will need to build weight units. Because the goal is to example the entire sample, weight units should be established for the entire sample. Examine the distribution of weights across your sample, and divide weights into units according to the variation in your sample.

After establishing weight units, construct a paradigm using the first three dimensions only. You do this by sorting on the coded attributes. The sort will put all the 111s together, all the 121s together, etc. Examine the distribution of items across the classes. Then it is essential to construct tables and figures so that you can see how the debitage is arrayed across classes. These classes will be the basis of your descriptions. Then you begin to examine how paradigms work. How many classes are present in this paradigm? Of the n of classes, how many have members? Which classes have the most members? Which have the fewest? Are there some classes with no members?

Once you have completed and examined through tables and figures the array of items across classes, you can intersect the first paradigm with weight classes. The results would look something like this:

Debitage classes	small	medium	Large
111	1	5	10
121	10

These intersections will inform on the variation in frequency by size of key dimensions of debitage variation.

Make preliminary notes on the variations from these first classifications. You will use them in the second part of the exercise.

DEBITAGE CODES

(1) DEBITAGE TYPE

1. FLAKE

2. ANGULAR DEBRIS

(2) CONDITION

1. COMPLETE

2. FRAGMENT

9. NOT APPLICABLE (SINGLE INTERIOR SURFACE CANNOT BE DISCERNED)

(3) RAW MATERIAL

1. CHERT

2. QUARTZ

3. QUARTZITE

4. BASALT

5. OBSIDIAN

(4) CORTEX

1. PRESENT

2. ABSENT

(5) EXTERIOR SURFACE FLAKE SCARS

0. ZERO FLAKE SCARS

1. ONE FLAKE SCAR

2. TWO FLAKE SCARS

3. THREE OR MORE FLAKE SCARS

9. NOT APPLICABLE (SPECIMEN IS NOT COMPLETE)

(6) STRIKING PLATFORM (FLAKE BUTT)

1. CORTICAL

2. UNIFACET (SIMPLE)

3. MORE THAN ONE FACET

5. FRAGMENTED (CRUSHED)

9. NOT APPLICABLE (PLATFORM IS ABSENT)