Refuse Disposal and Activity Area Patterns in a Fur Trade Period Pithouse on the Nechako Plateau, British Columbia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Excavations in a 19th century housepit revealed a simple stratigraphy allowing distinctions to be made between the artifact assemblages of the roof-fill and those of the house interior. It was found that lithic debitage was most common in interior living spaces, and seemingly still usable trade goods occur in the roof zone. These results are contrary to some conventional expectations about the curation of exotic goods and routine storage, activity and disposal patterns in pithouses – particularly as regards the use of the roof for lithic reduction and messy processing activities. Some implications for understanding attitudes towards different materials, including what may be regarded as trash, how pithouses may have been experienced as actively lived in spaces, especially in winter; and how house maintenance and abandonment processes may contribute to roof zone assemblages are discussed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37292.0