Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology of the Colorado High Country

Stiger, Mark

University Press of Colorado（2008/09発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 352 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780870819100
• DDC分類 978.8

Full Description

Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology of the Colorado High Country offers data on 8,000 years of cultural change across a wide area of western Colorado and updates archaeological methodology in the mountain West.

Synthesizing research from several important, previously neglected sites, the book anchors its findings in a massive body of data that Mark Stiger gathered over eight years at Tenderfoot - a large lithic-scatter site once categorized as insignificant. Advances in spatial analysis, theoretical approaches, and excavation methods have allowed lithic-scatter sites, once considered less revealing than intact structures and similar sites, to yield startlingly rich cultural evidence.

Presenting artifactual data that reflects changes in houses, game drives, fire pits, stone tools, and debitage, Stiger explains the cultural sequence in the Upper Gunnison Basin and its connections to changes across the West.  He relates environmental and cultural changes, relying on paleoenvironmental evidence, changes in floral and faunal usage patterns, and data recovered in multi-year, repetitive surface collections.  An overview and critique of past research in the region complements discussion of the advantages of horizontally extensive block excavations and other contemporary ways of excavating and analyzing surface sites.

Stiger's findings hold promise for future research, as high-altitude surface sites are common, under-researched, and relatively well-preserved. The advances in archaeological method and theory that enabled Stiger's outstanding results in the Upper Gunnison Basin will allow many other Western sites to yield fascinating evidence.

Contents

; 1: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF COLORADO'S HIGH COUNTRY; 1 History of Research; 1 Jennings's 1968 Summary; 1 Buckles's Ute Prehistory Project on the Uncompahgre Plateau; 3 Vail Pass Camp; 4 Sisyphus Shelter; 4 Harris Site; 5 Sorrel Deer; 5 Yarmony Pit House Site; 5 Benedict's Colorado Front Range Material; 6 Mount Albion Complex (Benedict and Olson 1978); 6 Fourth of July Valley (Benedict 1981); 6 Arapaho Pass (Benedict 1985a); 7 Old Man Mountain (Benedict 1985b); 7 Coney Creek Valley (Benedict 1990); 7 Bode's Draw (Benedict 1993); 7 Game Drives of Rocky Mountain National Park (Benedict 1996); 7 Other Research in the Upper Gunnison Basin; 8 Curecanti National Recreation Area; 8 Monarch Pass; 9; Cochetopa Dome; 9 Lake Fork; 9 Mount Emmons Project; 10 Western Area Power Administration (WAPA); 10 Mill Creek Site Evaluation; 10 Elk Creek Village; 10 Uranium Mill Tailings Removal Act (UMTRA) Project; 11 U.S. West Phone Line Project; 11 Summary of Gunnison Basin Archaeological Research; 11 2: CURRENT PERSPECTIVES IN COLORADO HIGH-COUNTRYARCHAEOLOGY; 13 Formation Processes; 13 Guthrie's Study Areas; 16 Conventional Views of the Archaic; 17 The Mountain Tradition as a Social Construct; 18 The Concept of Social Relationships in Regional Archaeology; 19 The Definition of Culture as a Mental Phenomenon; 20 Social Processes as the Interchange of Ideas; 20 Problems with Detecting Social Relationships; 22 in the Archaeological Record Theoretical Basis for Ethnic Explanations; 23 Culture History of the Upper Gunnison Basin; 26 Colorado Mountains Study Region Prehistory; 26 (Guthrie et al. 1984) The Oshara (Irwin-Williams 1973); 28 The Northern Colorado Plateau (Schroedl 1979); 29 The Western Archaic-General Statements; 29 3: THE UPPER GUNNISON BASIN; 33 Natural History of the Upper Gunnison Basin; 33 Environmental Dynamics; 34 Terminal Pleistocene; 35 Post Pleistocene; 36 Pollen; 36 Macrofossils; 36 Multiple Lines of Evidence in the San Juans; 37 Summary of Natural History; 38 The Tenderfoot Site; 38 History of Investigations; 40 Fieldwork; 40 Excavations; 41 Features; 41 Lithic Artifact Analysis; 43 Flotation Analysis; 45 4: PREHISTORIC USE OF FAUNA IN THE UPPER GUNNISON BASIN; 47 The Nature of Big Game Exploitation; 49 as Evidenced by Pelvis and Scapula Elements; Species Trends; 50 Fauna at the Tenderfoot Site-A Spatial Analysis; 51 Summary of Basin Faunal Exploitation; 57 5: FLORAL EXPLOITATION IN THE UPPER GUNNISON BASIN; 59 Temporal Patterns of Plant Use; 59 Charcoal; 59 Seeds; 60 Summary; 61 6: INTERPRETATION OF ARTIFACTS; 63 Assemblage Structure-Theory and Definitions; 63 Recognizing Assemblage Organization; 64 Expectations for Assemblage Organization; 66 Spatial Maintenance and Technological Organization; 67 Assemblage Organization-Empirical Evidence; 68 Summary of Burial Assemblages as Organizational Indicators; 68 Summary of Hafted Tools; 69 Archaeological Patterning of Bifaces at Tenderfoot; 71 Lithic Technology in the Upper Gunnison Basin; 75 Site Structure Analysis; 79 Lithic Artifacts and Spatial Structure at Tenderfoot; 80 All Artifacts; 80 Artifact Size; 81 Raw Materials; 84 Technological Attributes; 86 Tools; 89 Bifaces; 89 Projectile Points; 92 Flake Tools; 93 Unifaces; 93 Hammerstones and Abraders; 93 Ground Stone Tools; 94 Cores; 95 Summary of Tenderfoot Artifact Distributions; 95 7: INTERPRETATION OF FEATURES; 101 Firepits-Methods and Reasons; 101 Summary of Ethnographic Fuel and Fire Use; 101 Summary of Experimental Firepit Construction; 102 Regional Patterning of Features; 102 Classification of Features in the Upper Gunnison Basin; 102 Feature Types; 103 Fire-Cracked-Rock (FCR) Features; 103 Big-Deep Fire-Cracked-Rock Features; 103 Small-Shallow Fire-Cracked-Rock Features; 109 FCR-Outside Features; 110; Rock-Lined Firepits; 110 Unlined Firepits; 111 Boiling Pits; 111 Structures; 112 Amorphous Stains; 112 Game Drives; 113 Interpretation of Feature Variability; 113 Numbers of Features Through Time; 113 Sequence of Boiling Pits and Fire-Cracked-Rock Features; 114 8: ABOUT SURFACE SITES; 117 Surface Collections at the Tenderfoot Site; 117 Comparison of Surface to Subsurface Materials; 119 The Dynamic Nature of Surface Materials as; 123 Shown by Repetitive Collections Finer Spatial Scales of Analysis for the Surface Collection; 125 The Research Value of Surface Sites; 127 9: SITE COMPARISONS; 129 Structures; 130 Site 5GN205; 130 Elk Creek Village; 130 Checkers; 131 Site 5GN247; 131 VanTuyl Village; 131 Zephyr Site; 132 Tenderfoot Site; 132 Abiquiu Reservoir, New Mexico; 132 Site LA25358; 132 Summary of Site LA25358; 134 Site LA47940; 134 Summary of Site LA47940; 135 Site 5MT2731-Casa de Nada; 135 Summary of Site 5MT2731; 137 Kewclaw; 137 Yarmony; 137 Other Sites and Components; 138 Site 5GN207; 138 Mt. Bump Camp; 138 Tenderfoot; 139 Assemblage Interpretations; 139 Site 5GN205; 139 Tools; 139 Elk Creek Village Block C; 139 Abiquiu; 139 Site LA25358, Area 1; 140; Site LA25358, Area 2; 140 Site LA25358, Area 3; 141 Site LA25358, Area 4; 141 Site LA25358, Area 6; 141 Tools-Site LA25358; 143 Site LA47940; 143 Tools; 147 Casa de Nada; 147 Tools; 149 Kewdaw; 149 Tools; 151 Site 5GN207; 151 Mt. Bump; 152 VanTuyl Village; 152 10: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS; 155 Who Were Those Guys?; 155 The Nature of Surface Sites; 156 and Their Value to Archaeological Research Multiple Occupations; 157 The Size of the Prehistoric System as Shown by Obsidian Distributions; 157 Projectile-Point Styles; 159 Stone Tools; 161 Personal Gear; 161 Site Furniture; 162 Expedient Gear; 162 Sequence of Technological Organization; 162 Raw Material Use; 162 Features; 163 Game Drives in the High Country; 163 Flora and Fauna; 167 Explanation of the Cultural Sequence; 168 The Early Paleoindian; 169 The Late Paleoindian; 169 The Archaic; 170 Post-300 B.P.; 171 Appendices A: Tenderfoot Feature Descriptions by Erik Bjornstad; 175 B: Lithic Sources in the Upper Gunnison Basin; 215 C: Identified Sources of Archaeological Obsidian; 223 Found in Colorado D: Faunal Remains Found in the Upper Gunnison Basin; 229 E: Floral Remains Found in the Upper Gunnison Basin; 235 by Provenience F: Burial Assemblages from Archaic and Basketmaker II Contexts; 241; G: Hafted Stone Tools in the Ethnographic; 245 and Archaeological Records H: Tenderfoot Tool Illustrations; 251 I: Ethnographic Record of Fuel and Firepit Use; 271 J: Experimental Firepit Construction; 277 K: Descriptions of Features at Abiquiu and Casa de Nada; 281 References Cited; 289 Index; 311;