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Beyond the Formation of Hearth-Associated Artifact Assemblages

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The Interpretation of Archaeological Spatial Patterning

Part of the book series: Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology ((IDCA))

Abstract

Ethnoarchaeological investigations have recently shown that cultural formation processes contribute significantly to the structure of modern hunter-gatherer campsites. One of the more important findings of this research has been the discovery that the sorting of artifacts according to size determines, to a large extent, their final spatial distribution around hut and hearth. Given the variety of ethnographic settings (e.g., Binford 1978, 1983; O’Connell 1979, 1987; Meehan 1982; Yellen 1977; Jarvenpa and Brumbach 1983; Gifford and Brehensmeyer 1977) and experimental studies (e.g., Gifford-Gonzalez et al. 1985; Stockton 1973; Courtin and Villa 1982; Villa and Courtin 1983) in which size-dependent sorting by human activity has been documented there is little reason to believe that this process was not operative in the past. Prehistoric people, after all, faced many of the same life-space problems and challenges that hunter-gatherers do today (Binford 1983). For thousands of years, refuse had to be managed and living areas maintained to minimize interference with activity performance. In short, I would submit that size sorting within domestic and intensively occupied areas may be one of the few recurrent phenomena we can expect to find at hunter-gatherer campsites.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H4, Canada

    Marc G. Stevenson

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706, USA

    Ellen M. Kroll  & T. Douglas Price  & 

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Stevenson, M.G. (1991). Beyond the Formation of Hearth-Associated Artifact Assemblages. In: Kroll, E.M., Price, T.D. (eds) The Interpretation of Archaeological Spatial Patterning. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2602-9_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2602-9_10

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