Spatial Signatures of Ceremony and Social Interaction: GIS Exploratory Analysis and Spatial Modeling at Tule Creek Village (CA-SNI-25), San Nicolas Island, California

Summary

The spatial patterning of artifacts and features excavated from the Tule Creek site (CA-SNI-25), San Nicolas Island, provides an opportunity to analyze the intra-site correlations between artifact types, materials, and features. Excavations at East Locus at CA-SNI-25 have yielded evidence of trade with other islands as well as evidence suggesting complex ceremonial activity, such as dog and bird burials, large hearths, stacked stone features, and multiple discrete pits. Here we use GIS exploratory analysis to examine the intra-site spatial distributions of artifact types and materials in context with ceremonial features. The clustering of artifact and material types are evaluated using spatial autocorrelation and hot-spot analysis. Our analysis includes circular and j-shaped shell fishhooks, sandstone saw abraders, local and extra-local lithic debitage, red ochre, quartz and calcite crystals, and chipped and ground stone tools of exotic toolstone. We utilize GIS exploratory methods to isolate distributions of formal artifacts and features, and to examine the organization of space in both ceremonial and utilitarian contexts. Ultimately, spatial analysis using intra-site GIS reveals possible linkages of artifacts, as well as patterns of spatial and temporal variability in technology, subsistence, and behavior at a village on San Nicolas just prior to European contact.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17143