Laying the Groundwork: A Preliminary Analysis of Manos from the Basketmaker Communities Project

Summary

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

The data potential of grinding tools has been neglected by archaeologists since the beginning of research in the American Southwest. The study of ground stone provides an excellent opportunity to examine important aspects of life in the Pueblo past, including food production and gender, and therefore should not be overlooked. This paper uses methodology adapted from Jenny L. Adams’s Ground Stone Analysis: A Technological Approach (2014) to analyze manos collected by the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center during their Basketmaker Communities Project. Artifact attributes such as increased coarseness, design, use-life, and efficiency were examined. Comparisons were made between the mano assemblages from six sites within a 1,200-acre project area. These consist of three Pueblo II period sites and three Basketmaker III sites, including the Dillard site, which is a large, multi-habitation site with a great kiva. The results not only show a diachronic change in mano forms and use-life but reveal a difference in grinding needs between an atypically large site and more average-sized sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25975