Technological Approach to Fire Cracked Rock

Summary

Fire cracked rock (FCR) is an artifact category that has not received much attention, normally reduced to counts and weights. However, FCR is a dynamic material that undergoes a specific sequence of changes. In this poster, the authors propose different ‘stages’ corresponding to different hot rock technologies and features, such as hot rock cookery, hearths, and limestone temper. An experiment is designed to identify the physical and geochemical changes that occur during hearth construction and maintenance, and a methodology is proposed to identify those changes in the archaeological record. Using the archaeological assemblage of FCR from Woodpecker Cave, a Late Woodland rockshelter, we are able to use physical and geochemical changes combined with ethnographic analogy to show the sequence of maintenance behaviors performed on a hearth feature.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16218