Testing Theoretical Approaches for the Composition of Charcoal Assemblages

Summary

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

Archaeologists use charcoal assemblages principally to reconstruct chronologies and past vegetative landscapes, especially when sampled from long-used refuse features, though human decision-making plays a role in the construction of these assemblages. In this paper, we will gather together a dataset reflecting an unpublished dataset from three sites in the Wadi ar-Raki region of northern Oman, as well as eight published charcoal assemblages from the greater Gulf region. The assemblages originate from sites dating as early as the Neolithic era (i.e., 6000–3000 cal BCE) into the Late Sasanian and Early Islamic (fifth to eighth century CE) periods. Commonly, anthracologists test for the Principle of Least Effort (PLE) in operation in wood harvesting (targeting wood for collection based on its position as a common resource in the environment), owing to the frequency of collection. We will compare this model (which we term the null) against a human behavioral ecology model for selecting woods based on their fuel efficiency, and an avoidance model based on ethnographic data gathered from Arabian ethnobotanical research. The intent is for these results to reveal possible wood acquisition strategies utilized in the area and offer insight into shifts in species preference over time.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37320.0