An Experimental and Ethnographic Approach to the Analysis of Fire-Cracked Rock at Three Monongahela Sites in Southwestern PA: The Case for a Middle Monongahela Stone Boiling Technology

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.

Despite being a ubiquitous artifact class, fire-cracked rock (FCR) has been largely overlooked in traditional archaeological studies. Due in part to its shear abundance and cumbersome nature, FCR is often more cursed for its space consumption than embraced for its interpretive potential. As a result, the archaeological literature offers little discussion regarding the nuanced perspective that FCR research can impart to archaeologists’ understanding of prehistoric cooking and food processing technologies. Using an experimental and ethnographic approach, this paper investigates the use of stone at three Monongahela villages in southwestern Pennsylvania. Results suggest that both dry roasting and stone boiling technologies were used. Additionally, residents appear to have preferentially selected high-quality stones for their thermal resistance and potential for reuse. These findings suggest that the adoption of ceramics does not preclude the use of stone boiling and that greater variability in Monongahela cooking technologies may have existed than previously thought.

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

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36032.0