Analytical Applications in the Archaeology of Eastern North America

Session for the 2007 Annual Eastern States Archaeological Federation Meeting

Friday, November 9, 2007

Sponsored by:
The Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Missouri Research Reactor

Session Organizer:
Matthew Boulanger

The history of archaeological investigations in eastern North America is almost as old as European colonization of that region. A similar statement may be made for the incorporation of methods from other disciplines into archaeological research. In some regions of eastern North America, the deaths of many of the early pioneers in archaeology caused a dramatic decline of archaeological research during the early decades of the twentieth century. The subsequent rebirth of archaeology during the 1960s and 1970s, mainly in the form of compliance-oriented projects, has produced a large volume of primary data. But, for the most part, eastern North American archaeology, specifically that of the Northeast, is viewed from the outside as lacking breadth and sophistication in methods, theory, and disciplinary integration. The papers presented in this session highlight recent analyses of archaeological materials from eastern North America, and present new research involving archaeometry, computer applications, geoarchaeology, and other methods used to advance our knowledge of past cultures. In short, this session challenges the prevailing impression of eastern archaeology as a bastion of culture history and an archaeological backwater. This session provides a glimpse at the myriad analytical approaches being developed and employed in the region, and challenges regional archaeologists here and elsewhere to rethink the archaeology of eastern North America.

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy of Geological and Archaeological Chert from Southern Ontario

Eric Tourigny, Alicia Hawkins, Darrel Long, Patrick Julig, & Jeff Bursey

Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis of Middle Woodland Pottery from the Delaware Valley

George L. Pevarnik, Matthew T. Boulanger, & Michael D. Glascock

Building Tools for Identifying Local Variability and Cultural Patterns:A Digital Ceramic Attribute Analysis

Angela Labrador

Moving Beyond the Reduction Stage in Debitage Analysis, with a Little Help from the Pot Sherd

Niels R. Rinehart

The Utility of Dog Bone (Canis familiaris) in Stable Isotope Studies for Investigating Prehistoric Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) Consumption: A Preliminary Study

Sharon Allitt, Timothy Messner, & R. Michael Stewart

Preliminary Results of an ICP-MS Analysis of Abbott Zoned Incised Ceramics from Virginia and New Jersey

Laura Steadman & Martin D. Gallivan

Pelham Prase - A Local Connecticut Valley Lithic Resource

John P. Pretola

Woodland Adaptations at the Vergennes Substation (VT-AD-1474) Native American Site, Vergennes, Vermont

Christopher Donta & Antonio Medina

Geographic and Compositional Variability of Ceramic Resources in Northern New England

Matthew T. Boulanger

Elucidating the Origin of Middle Atlantic Pre-contact Copper Artifacts using Laser Ablation ICP-MS

Gregory D. Lattanzi

Characterizing the Mont Royal Hornfels as a Means to Understanding its Prehistoric Use and Distribution in the Northeast

Adrian L. Burke & Christian Gates St. Pierre

Artisan Choices and Technology in Native American Pottery Production

R. Michael Stewart & George Pevarnik

True Blue: Vivianite as Mineral Pigment

Carolyn Dillian, Charles Bello, & Nequandra Bowen

Presentation Abstracts

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy of Geological and Archaeological Chert from Southern Ontario

Eric Tourigny¹, Alicia Hawkins¹, Darrel Long², Patrick Julig¹, & Jeff Bursey³

¹ Department of Anthropology, Laurentian University; ² Department of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University; ³ Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto

Lithic sourcing provides archaeologists with a means to study ancient exchange and travel routes, but archaeologists are frequently confounded by raw materials that are similar in appearance and cannot be accurately sourced visually. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) can identify the presence of important trace minerals and represents one possible research avenue for the low cost analysis of multiple chert samples with minimal destruction of the artefacts. We examine geological samples obtained from known locations across Ontario and identify the chemical differences among them. The methodology for creating FTIR samples follows that developed by Long et al. whereby a small amount of chert powder is diluted with KBr. The analysis of the geological samples shows that it is possible to identify some chert types by the presence or absence of distinctive trace minerals. In other cases, geological cherts can be characterized by the presence of a combination of different minerals. The chemistry of archaeological material from Emmerson Springs, a sixteenth century Neutral Iroquoian site from southern Ontario is compared with that of the geological samples.

Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis of Middle Woodland Pottery from the Delaware Valley

George L. Pevarnik¹, Matthew T. Boulanger², & Michael D. Glascock²

¹ Department of Anthropology, Temple University; ² Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Missouri Research Reactor

One hundred nineteen late Middle Woodland (ca. A.D. 200-900) sherds and ten clay samples from four loci in the Delaware Valley were analyzed by Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA). The goals of this project were to 1) determine the utility of INAA as a method for studying ceramics in the Delaware Valley and 2) provide an empirical method with which to evaluate an existing settlement model (Stewart 1998) by identifying likely ceramic source/production areas. Principle component analysis (PCA) of the elemental data resulted in the preliminary identification of eight compositional groups. Two of these groups (n=40) and the Piedmont derived clay samples (n=4) are noteworthy because they exhibit markedly higher Na concentrations in relation to the full dataset, which includes clay samples from the Coastal Plain (n=6). Given this observed compositional difference in Na content and because 57.7% of the high Na sherds are from sites located well into the Piedmont, it is concluded that the Piedmont is the likely source/production area for this subset of sherds. Furthermore, mineralogical data from petrographic microscopic analysis reinforces the conclusion that these differing Na values are the result of geologic origin and not diagenetic processes. Finally, the occurrence of five of the eight defined compositional groups at the Abbott Farm National Historic Landmark (AFNHL) supports the hypothesis that it functioned as a hub for groups moving seasonally between the Piedmont and Coastal Plain. Until further testing is conducted, these interpretations must be viewed as tentative.

Building Tools for Identifying Local Variability and Cultural Patterns: A Digital Ceramic Attribute Analysis

Angela Labrador

Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts–Amherst

Recent studies of Northeast Algonquin cultures emphasize variation on the local level and position individuals as agents operating within a worldview, but not inescapably constrained by one. This welcome theoretical focus in Northeast studies presents a particular dilemma to the treatment of archaeological datasets.  How can archaeologists structure and quantify data in ways that remain sensitive to local change and agency while simultaneously allowing for recognition of cultural tradition across space and time?  This paper documents the process of building a digital model and web-based tool for archiving and analyzing ceramic attribute datasets using current theories in the field of Knowledge Discovery.  Modeling and automating a manual lab process offers many lessons in the limits of statistical tools, the challenges of relational data schemas, and the continuing potential for computerized tools in archaeology.

Woodland Adaptations at the Vergennes Substation (VT-AD-1474) Native American Site, Vergennes, Vermont

Christopher Donta & Antonio Medina

Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts–Amherst

The University of Massachusetts identified, evaluated, and completed a data recovery survey in 2006 and 2007 of the Vergennes Substation site in advance of construction of an electrical substation by VELCO. The excavations documented a series of fire pits truncated by plowing, in association with several lithic concentrations, which are presented in context with radiocarbon and floral data. Levanna projectile points predominate the diagnostic artifacts, which also include a Meadowood perforator. The project provides insights into Woodland habitation in the Otter Creek drainage, as well as offers advice on evaluation of site significance based on Phase I and II surveys.

Moving Beyond the Reduction Stage in Debitage Analysis, with a Little Help from the Pot Sherd

Niels R. Rinehart

Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts–Amherst & The Louis Berger Group, Inc.

The two central goals of identifying stages of reduction and type of tool industry limit the potential of debitage analysis. There may be more variation within debitage assemblages with which we can ask and answer different questions than these two goals. The problems lie with our construction of lithic typologies and our conception of mixture in debitage assemblages. The typologies we have constructed are built to answer the two central goals of lithic analysis, therefore limiting our ability to ask different questions. Assemblages that do not readily answer these goals are determined to be mixed. The problem is that the mixture may, in some cases, actually be finer grades of variation than we are able to see because of our limited goals and typologies. In this paper I briefly compare a collection of pot sherds to an assemblage of debitage. Like a pot sherd, a flake has attributes resulting from the process of its production. On their own, these attributes are meaningless. However when we put attributes together within the context of particular questions we may be able to see finer grades of variation in debitage assemblages and to interpret greater levels of choice beyond reduction stages and tool industry.

Pelham Prase - A Local Connecticut Valley Lithic Resource

John P. Pretola

Gray & Pape, Inc.

In the Northeast, studies of lithic trade have sometimes obscured the importance of local lithic resources.  Local materials may be misidentified as trade items, or simply placed in the miscellaneous category.  This paper documents a local Connecticut Valley chert mineral much favored in the Woodland Period for thumbnail scrapers at the Quinnetuck Narrows Site, Gill, Massachusetts.  Both X-ray diffraction and optical mineralogy techniques identify this as a circumscribed local chert that is unprecedented for being located in a heavily metamorphosed terrain.  Outcrops, glacial boulders, and stream cobbles probably provided ready access to this material in the local area.

Artisan Choices and Technology in Native American Pottery Production

R. Michael Stewart & George Pevarnik

Department of Anthropology, Temple University

Clay sources of potential use to Indian potters in the Middle and Lower Delaware Valley are extensive and varied. Single massive exposures often contain clays of variable colors, although all seem equally workable, and laboratory experiments show that upon firing, color differences between these clays are discernible. Evidence from Late Woodland archaeological sites in the valley show that certain of these clays are more frequently used by ancient potters than others, with clays that fire white to tan being rarely employed, but concentrated at a small number of sites Technological and cultural factors that might explain the clay selection process and the distribution of white clay pots are explored.

Geographic and Compositional Variability of Ceramic Resources in Northern New England

Matthew T. Boulanger

Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Missouri Research Reactor & Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri–Columbia

Approaches to ceramic analysis in northern New England have historically followed a normative approach to describing form and decoration. Further, these analyses have, with few exceptions, been limited to addressing questions of culture history and chronology. Recent analysis of pottery from the Woodland and Contact periods as well as natural clay deposits from Vermont and New Hampshire serves as a case study in how regional archaeologists may move beyond simplistic questions of “Who?” and “When?”, and begin to pursue the “How?” and “Why?”. To that end, these data are discussed in terms of technological choices and transmission of cultural knowledge across generations.

Elucidating the Origin of Middle Atlantic Pre-contact Copper Artifacts using Laser Ablation ICP-MS

Gregory D. Lattanzi

Department of Anthropology, Temple University

Although rarely found during archaeological investigations in the Middle Atlantic, pre-contact copper artifacts typically inhabit museum collections, historical and geological societies, and the homes of avocational archaeologists. An examination of pre-contact copper artifacts in these collections provides valuable and quantifiable information about trade and exchange networks, social complexity, and cultural change. Using Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA ICP-MS) a copper “fingerprint” with which to compare artifacts to known native sources is established.  In this way, copper artifacts are traced back to their probable geologic source. Results from a recent study conducted on Late Archaic to Middle Woodland copper artifacts from museum and other collections illustrate some of the benefits of conducting this type of research. This current study adds to previous research providing further validity of this technique in copper provenience studies.

Preliminary Results of an ICP-MS Analysis of Abbott Zoned Incised Ceramics from Virginia and New Jersey

Laura Steadman & Martin D. Gallivan

Anthropology Department, College of William and Mary

Though they have great promise, materials characterization methods have only rarely been used to evaluate archaeological evidence of hunter-gatherer social interaction in the Middle Atlantic.  This paper presents preliminary results from one such study, an analysis of Abbott Zoned Incised (AZI) ceramics identified at sites of hunter-gatherer aggregation in Virginia and New Jersey. Pottery found on Middle Woodland sites such as Maycock’s Point on the James River exhibit zoned-incised motifs nearly identical to designs on contemporary ceramics from sites on Abbott Farm in New Jersey. The scarcity of these ceramics in Virginia and their presence in locations of periodic social gatherings raise the possibility that AZI was a restricted good that played a role in feasting and ceremonial events. Additional evidence of AZI’s origins is critical to understanding the role of AZI ceramics in Middle Woodland social dynamics.  Our analysis of 114 sherds using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) focuses on the question of whether the AZI ceramics recovered from five Virginia sites were products of the Abbott Farm area or were locally produced emulations.  The results of the study will contribute to an understanding of whether the AZI vessels used by James River communities arrived through exchange or through a common pottery tradition in which local potters drew from a suite of decorative techniques shared with distant communities.

Characterizing the Mont Royal Hornfels as a Means to Understanding its Prehistoric Use and Distribution in the Northeast

Adrian L. Burke¹ and Christian Gates St. Pierre²

¹ Département d'anthropologie, Université de Montréal, ² Ville de Montréal

In 1993, archaeologist Yvon Codère discovered a prehistoric quarry and lithic workshop associated with bedrock outcrops of hornfels on Mont Royal in the center of Montreal. For years archaeologists had identified materials resembling the hornfels on sites from southern Quebec and usually identified them as siltstone. Following geochemical and petrographic studies in the 1990s, archaeologists and geologists identified the archaeological material as a hornfels, probably from the aureoles around the plutons forming the Monteregian hills of southern Quebec. We have now begun a new phase of research that seeks to accurately and precisely characterize, both physically and chemically, the hornfels from the only confirmed prehistoric hornfels quarry in Quebec. Preliminary results of complementary petrographic, SEM, XRF and NAA analyses are presented. Initial insights into the temporal use and geographic distribution of this unusual raw material in Quebec and the greater Northeast are discussed.

The Utility of Dog Bone (Canis familiaris) in Stable Isotope Studies for Investigating Prehistoric Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) Consumption: A Preliminary Study

Sharon Allitt, Timothy Messner, and R. Michael Stewart

Department of Anthropology, Temple University

This preliminary study investigates an alternative method to exploring and understanding the dispersal and adoption of maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) based farming practices using stable isotope ratios from dog (Canis familiaris) bone as a surrogate to human bone. Using this methodology, this pilot study aims to begin to provide insight into the presence and prominence of maize within the subsistence economies of two prehistoric populations in coastal New Jersey – an area where some researchers argue people relied little upon this tropical domesticate. The third sample included in this study is from a prehistoric population in Pennsylvania where cultivation and consumption of maize have been evidenced by macrobotanical remains and stable isotope analyses on human bone. Data derived from this project offers the potential to provide new insight into the distribution of maize into the coastal regions of the Middle Atlantic, as well as enhance our understanding of the diversity of applications for stable isotope analyses in the investigation of human subsistence patterns.

True Blue: Vivianite as Mineral Pigment

Carolyn Dillian¹, Charles Bello², and Nequandra Bowen¹

¹Princeton University, ² Archaeological Society of New Jersey

Blue is a color that does not frequently occur in nature. As a result, organic or mineral pigments must be created to color clothing, objects,and human skin. Native Americans of the eastern United States may have used vivianite as once source for blue pigment, particularly for use as a body paint. However, processing is needed to transform vivianite from a dusky grey mineral to a vivid blue paint. This paper uses an interdisciplinary approach combining geology, ethnohistory, and experimental archaeology to determine vivianite's potential as a source of blue mineral pigments. Replicative experiments revealed techniques for maximizing the vivid blue color of this material that could have been employed by prehistoric Native American inhabitants of the eastern United States.