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Microarchaeological Approaches to the Identification and Interpretation of Combustion Features in Prehistoric Archaeological Sites

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Abstract

Combustion features inform archaeologists about the prehistoric use of space, subsistence behaviors, and tempo of site visitation. Their study in the field is difficult because burned sediments are susceptible to reworking and diagenesis. Microarchaeological analyses, including micromorphology, are essential for documenting the composition, preservation, and function of hearths and other burned residues. These investigations focus on the description of fuels, depositional fabrics and structures, and mineralogy. As evidenced by a literature review, microarchaeological analyses have much to offer Paleolithic archaeologists, while applications of the techniques to Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites and in ethnographic or experimental contexts are presently rare.

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Notes

  1. Also spelled “rubefied.”

  2. Other types of ash, such as fly ash or volcanic ash, are not considered here.

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Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to J. Quade, M. Stiner, P. Goldberg, and S. Kuhn for providing comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Funding for research and a portion of the writing was provided, in part, by the PEO Foundation and the University of Arizona School of Anthropology Emil Haury Dissertation Improvement Grant. Support for micromorphological analyses and access to collections cited in this paper were provided by the Asıklı Höyük project funded by NSF grant no. BCS-0912148 to M. Stiner; the Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project, funded by donations from Nicholas and Athena Karabots, the Karabots Foundation and Annette Merle-Smith; the excavations at Pech de l’Azé IV funded by an NSF grant to H. Dibble, samples collected by P. Goldberg; the La Quina project, funded by an NSF grant to A. Jelinek, samples collected by T.D. Young; the excavations at Üçağızlı Caves I and II, funded by NSF grant nos. SBR-9804722, BCS-0106433, and BCS-0410654 and a Leakey Foundation Grant, samples collected by P. Goldberg. The author would also like to thank T. Manne and C. Miller for their insights on the topic and contributions to experimental combustion research and the three reviewers for their thoughtful comments and suggestions.

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  1. Tübingen Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoecology, Rümelinstr. 23, 72070, Tübingen, Germany

    Susan M. Mentzer

  2. INA—Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Rümelinstr. 23, 72070, Tübingen, Germany

    Susan M. Mentzer

  3. Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Susan M. Mentzer

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Mentzer, S.M. Microarchaeological Approaches to the Identification and Interpretation of Combustion Features in Prehistoric Archaeological Sites. J Archaeol Method Theory 21, 616–668 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-012-9163-2

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