Ongoing Excavations at Big Village (42EM2861) in Range Creek Canyon, Utah

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Excavations were conducted from 2007 to 2013 by the University of Utah at Big Village (42EM2861) in Range Creek Canyon, Utah, to explore questions related to Fremont residential site structure and adaptations, primarily by exploring the relationships between surface features and subsurface features and artifact assemblages. Additional excavations performed from 2021–2022 focused on two previously identified overlapping structures. Methods included total station and GIS mapping, triangulation mapping, three-dimensional modeling, artifact recovery and analysis, radiocarbon dating, and starch analysis. A total of 5,478 artifacts were collected during the 2021–2022 excavations. Radiocarbon dating returned median dates inconsistent with stratigraphic layering, confounding efforts to establish a precise chronology; however, the structures may be relatively contemporaneous as the 95% confidence intervals of the dates overlap. Further exposure of the features may contribute to a more robust understanding of site features and relationships. Prior studies of Fremont villages in the region indicate that surface rock alignment features are associated with pithouses, but this is confirmed neither by the limited previous studies performed in Range Creek Canyon nor by the current study, the results of which can contribute to understanding of Fremont adaptations and site structure within the broader context of Southwest prehistory.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38218.0