Spatial Analysis in the Woodland: Foraging Behavior in Sedentary Agricultural Societies

Summary

Spatial analysis has the potential to yield substantial evidence about the organization of economic and social interactions of prehistoric archaeological sites. There is a growing body of ethnoarchaeological research that allows robust interpretations of spatial patterning in the open-air campsites of mobile peoples. The very fact that such sites may represent short-term, low density occupations means that the configuration of labor and activities may actually be clearer than in longer-term open-air or architectural sites, where accumulated activities create more ambiguous palimpsests. The content and configuration of occupied surfaces offer not only information about activities carried out there, but also the potential for interpreting the role of site usage within a larger settlement pattern. Even otherwise sedentary agricultural societies may have mobile components that fulfill other roles in their settlement and subsistence systems. An example from Woodpecker Cave, a Late Woodland rockshelter in Iowa, can be contrasted with the Paleolithic open-air sites of Pincevent and Verberie to give insight on the commonalities of behaviors and adaptive poses of site occupants identified through spatial analysis.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20210