A Model For Predicting Late Prehistoric Architectural Sites At The Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site In Southeastern Colorado

Author : Elizabeth Marie Dreyer-Lynch
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781321515640
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (156 download)

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Download or read book Prehistoric Grinding Landscapes of the Southern Plains written by Elizabeth Marie Dreyer-Lynch and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prehistoric inhabitants of southeastern Colorado constructed permanent milling spaces on exposed bedrock outcrops and sandstone boulders in rockshelters and protective overhangs. These bedrock milling spaces are well-known and wide spread throughout the region, but very little is known about them. In many archaeological narratives and descriptions constructed milling features are simply noted as bedrock mortars or bedrock mutates and go unrecorded. Where they exist on the Southern Plains, stationary milling surfaces (most commonly referred to as bedrock mortars, metates, or slicks) are rarely considered to be a significant part of the cultural configuration derived from archaeology. The stationary milling sites are hard to date and their function is difficult to establish as no ethnographic context exists; as a result they become "isolates" that are left out of the overall picture of an archaeological culture--other than to say that people ground things there. Throughout North America prehistoric peoples created and maintained permanent milling facilities amid resource procurement landscapes or near homes and villages. Distinct from portable milling artifacts by their permanence and formally constructed environment, stationary milling areas offer a unique opportunity to understand how prehistoric peoples socialized their traditional landscapes and created spaces that reinforced social values and cultural knowledge. Formally constructed stationary milling features occur within household and village settings and facilitate social food processing that may include groups of grinders working together or supporting each other's labor, mothers with young children, or communal groups of grinders and their extended kinship groups. Ethnographic and archaeological evidence for bedrock ground stone features elsewhere in North America indicate that fixed milling sites were created for a number of purposes, ranging from communal production of food resources for household consumption, to staple foods ritually processed for culturally significant occasions such as puberty ceremonies or harvest festivals. An important aspect of bedrock acorn milling features from California is the social significance of the space within which collective labor was organized and cultural knowledge was conveyed between generations along with the social expectations and sense of self. The preferential use of bedrock milling spaces for processing food resources in California crossed cultural and linguistic boundaries reflecting a common reliance on a similar staple food resources (acorns) and a preferred mechanism (communal food processing) for ensuring the transmission of social and cultural values and norms of the group. Bedrock milling spaces in southeastern Colorado have the potential to provide insight into regional social spaces and prehistoric landscape use. Although resistant to direct dating, archaeological remains in close association with bedrock milling features suggest an extended period of use from the Archaic (3000 to 1850 B.P.) to the Late Prehistoric (1850 to 500 B.P.), during which time hunter-gatherers lived in small band-level groups and made extensive use of the abundant food resources in the canyonlands. Through time local populations increased and the use of canyons became more extensive, habitations shifted from rockshelters to the upper canyon rims. To concentrate on the organization and distribution of social milling spaces, this dissertation employs an intensive, landscape approach to canyon survey. A stratified terrace survey provides a landscape driven construction of bedrock milling spaces. This dissertation focuses on the design and organization of bedrock milling surfaces, the differences and similarities between features and the placement of in one tributary canyon (1 km2). Standard ground stone recording methods are enhanced to record bedrock features in the field and new techniques are used to analyze and interpret data, such as the use of sub-features to group related ground stone surfaces on features. Dissertation results support the hypothesis that bedrock ground stone features are constructed, built environments that are similar to architectural features acting as a focal point for human activity. The results show differences between bedrock grinding features: some were committed food processing features while others were probably tool production locales. This dissertation documents difference in feature construction and surface distribution throughout the canyon. Bedrock ground stone spaces represent conceptual and ideational landscapes. The features are localized expressions of milling activity that included family level involvement to extended family involvement. As a focal point for social interaction, the features were hubs of social networking, reproduction of cultural norms and values, and fundamental places at which individuals learned and managed their social identity.