Preliminary Data and Experimental Studies of Fire-Cracked Rock from Two Archaic Period Sites in North-Central Texas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Recent investigations at two campsites—41DN580 and 41DN624—along Hickory Creek in Denton County are providing insights into precontact period lifeways in Texas’s Upper Trinity River basin. These sites contain deeply buried and stratified components spanning the Middle Archaic, from around 5800–2800 cal BP, making them among the very few well-preserved and excavated sites of this age in north-central Texas. Both sites are characterized by multiple discrete fire-cracked rock (FCR) features with limited associated artifacts. Three categories of FCR features were identified representing both formal and informal hearths, as well as earth ovens. Experimental studies were conducted to determine approximate heating temperatures and duration using alteration analyses focusing on color change, sooting, and fracture patterns of locally available rocks. Resulting patterns are described alongside feature-specific attributes to examine purpose, intersite variability, and possible diachronic changes in feature-type preference. This presentation will discuss the results of these investigations, preliminary analysis for both sites, and the implications for socioeconomic choices and strategies of Archaic period mobile hunter-gatherers of the Trinity River Basin.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)   •
• Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35878.0