A Spatial Analysis of a Knapper's Replication of Debitage Debris from Hunter-Gatherer Camp and Hunting Sites

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

As hunter-gatherer groups manufacture and rejuvenate stone tools at hunting and residential sites, they left behind traces of these behaviors in the form of spatial patterns of discarded lithic debris. GIS modelling of the spatial organization of debitage provides a useful tool for comparing lithic reduction episodes from various hunter-gatherer site types. This poster presents an experimental analysis testing models of lithic-discard behaviors that occurred at hunting versus habitation sites. Stone cores were reduced at "sites" recreated to mock prehistoric arrangements of site furniture and settings. Morphology and provenience data was recorded for the lithic debris and spatially modeled using ArcGIS. Results were compared to previous models of artifact spatial distribution and reports documenting lithic spatial data recorded at a variety of sites to test the utility of these experimental models for interpreting site-specific past human lithic reduction behaviors.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25173