Occupation Lengths in Middle Missouri Sites

Summary

Collections and reports from Middle Missouri salvage archaeology, conducted primarily in the 1950s, hold a wealth of information about Plains Village farming communities, much of which is still being studied. In this paper, I provide a basis for the assessment of occupation lengths in the Middle Missouri utilizing data culled from site reports on several Middle Missouri sites, spanning time and space. This study utilizes evidence of repair of housing structures, overlapping storage pits, and artifact counts to build a statistical model for the examination of occupation length. A unique aspect of this study is the incorporation of potsherd counts for each site. Due to the general approach of Plains Archaeologists to the study of ceramics, the potential for ceramic potsherds and vessels in a study of this kind is largely overlooked. Though they are usually resigned to taxonomic purposes, I attempt to incorporate sherd counts into an analysis of site occupation lengths, utilizing accumulations research that has been conducted in other areas of North America.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Those Dam Sites: Recent Archaeological Research in the Dakotas

Keywords

Spatial Coverage