A Statistical Analysis of the Spatial and Temporal Components of the Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit Site (45PI408), Mt. Rainier, Washington

Summary

Understanding the change of artifact frequencies through time and across space at the Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit site is essential to testing hypotheses about settlement and subsistence in the Pacific Northwest. Some problems associated with intra-site time-averaging were controlled with intensive chronological analysis and volumetric control of artifact bearing sediments. Initial differences in analyzed artifact frequencies reveal a decrease in technological diversity and an increase in functional diversity through time. While the differences are intriguing, the effects of time-averaging are obvious as each temporal component is not comparable in duration. The raw artifact frequency of each component was converted into density data in order to compare the volume of excavation per component. The density of artifacts in the upper component is 1,739 lithics per m3 while in the lower component there is a density of 581 lithics per m3. The upper component dates to 2000-1000 cal. years B.P. and the lower component dates to 4000-2500 cal. years B.P.. The greater technological diversity earlier in time and more abundant functional diversity later in time are at least in part a function of significant changes in the duration of land use between the two components.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage