Homework 5 – Interpreting a Site
Due ______Please use this sheet or staple it to your answers.
Name ______Anth 3
The assignment: You are the principal archaeologist at a site at a proposed Hinde Development Corp. shopping mall in Mississippi. Following preliminary fieldwork, your assignment is to interpret the results and make recommendations for further research.
The data: Please see the figures and tables on the other side of this sheet. Test trenches (Figure 1) have revealed features including a house, a hearth, a kiln, burials, and storage features (Table 1). Structure 1 was a house with an attached storage pit (Figure 2). A number of artifacts and ecofacts, including fresh-water pearls, were recovered from various contexts (Table 2). The burials and their associated grave goods have already been recorded and reburied with the cooperation of a local tribe.
Your report: Please fill out the following outline of a report.
I.Preliminary interpretations
A.Subsistence pattern
1.Interpretation: ______
2.Supporting evidence: ______
______
B.Political pattern
1.Interpretation: ______
2.Supporting evidence: ______
II. Recommendations: What fieldwork might confirm or disprove your interpretation of subsistence or political pattern? Why?
______
DATA SUMMARY FROM THE HINDE SITE
Figure 1. Site map showing some test trenches and features. / Table 1. Feature interpretations. Features 1 – 6 are not shown on Figure 1.Feature / Interpretation
Struc. 1 / house
Fea. 1 / hearth
Fea. 2 / burial
Fea. 3 / burial
Fea. 4 / burial
Fea. 5 / roasting pit
Fea. 6 / storage pit
Fea. 7 / hearth
Fea. 8 / kiln
Figure 2. Feature 6 close-up. Above: Plan of post-enclosed pit shown attached to Structure 1. Below: Profile of post-enclosed pit. This feature contained 256 corn cob fragments.
/ Table 2. Contexts of recovered items. Other artifacts found included grinding slabs near the hearths. All artifact categories found are listed.
Recovered / Distrib. in Features
items / Struc. / Burials
1 / 2 / 3 / 4
Ceramics / 68 / 0 / 3 / 25
Lithic flakes / 571 / 0 / 0 / 0
Stone axes / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1
Carved stone pipes / 3 / 1 / 2 / 5
Turtle shell / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1
Pearls / 1 / 0 / 0 / 85
Corn cobs / 3 / 4 / 4 / 16
Deer bones / 0 / 1 / 1 / 5