COMPOSITIONAL CHARACTERIZATION OF FRENCH LIMESTONE: A NEW TOOL FOR ART HISTORIANS*

Limestone from quarries known to medieval craftsmen and from the monuments they built and embellished, as well as from carvings now in museum collections, has been characterized by neutron activation analysis. Specimens from 38 quarries in the Lutetian and Jurassic limestone formations of France and from sculptures in American and French museums have been tested, and the results have been compiled in a data base to which art historians may refer when attempting to determine provenance for sculptures. Multivariate statistical analysis of concentration data shows stone from a particular quarry in the Paris basin to be compositionally homogeneous and distinguishable from other quarries in the same formation. The same approach to data related to quarries near the Burgundian abbey of Cluny finds general agreement between classifications based on compositional and on petrographic data, but the number of samples available for analysis at the time of writing was insufficient to achieve the finer distinctions reported for the Paris basin.     

The Preservation and Identification of Piñon Resins by GC‐MS in Pottery from the Western Great Basin

Gas chromatography — mass spectrometry analysis of a sherd from the Nevada Test Site revealed a high quantity of terpenes, including sesquiterpenoids and diterpenoids, demonstrating that piñon resins were prepared in the pot in prehistoric times. The presence of these biomarkers allowed for a very specific identification of the products prepared in the pot, a level of detail not often achieved in lipid residue analysis. That the terpenes are relatively unoxidized demonstrates that they are quite stable over long periods of time. The study also shows that sherds on the surface of archaeological sites can preserve lipids and terpenes and are amenable to organic residue analysis.     

GC–MS ANALYSIS AND FATTY ACID RATIOS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL POTSHERDS FROM THE WESTERN GREAT BASIN OF NORTH AMERICA*

The study of organic residues in archaeological pottery has focused on fatty acids due to their relative stability and longevity. However, even these compounds are subject to degradation, which makes assignment of residues to original foods problematic. This paper suggests that the use of ratios of fatty acids that degrade at roughly the same rate can be useful to identify very general categories of foods. It compares independent information on pot function based on ethnography and engineering/technological studies to that reconstructed based on extracted fatty acid ratios. The results support the notion that Great Basin pots were used primarily to boil seeds and that pot shape and pot function were related.     

CHARACTERIZATION OF NATURAL PRODUCTS ON NATIVE AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ETHNOGRAPHIC MATERIALS FROM THE GREAT BASIN REGION,U.S.A.: A PRELIMINARY STUDY

Although documentary evidence provided by ethnographers makes reference to the source of adhesives, sealants, dyestuffs and medicines used by the communities of the Great Basin, much of it is sporadic and unspecified. However, observations of amorphous deposits surviving on stone tools, ceramics, basketry and wooden artefacts have prompted an investigation of their identity, procurement and use. The aim initially is to study samples from a number of archaeological and ethnographic contexts from the region. Comparative material includes higher plant and insect resins. The study provides a unique opportunity to document use patterns in plant and animal resources in the Great Basin region.     

COLD NEUTRON PROMPT GAMMA ACTIVATION ANALYSIS—A NON‐DESTRUCTIVE METHOD FOR CHARACTERIZATION OF HIGH SILICA CONTENT CHIPPED STONE TOOLS AND RAW MATERIALS*

Recently, several archaeometrical projects have been started on the prehistoric collection of the Hungarian National Museum. Among the analytical methods applied, non‐destructive prompt gamma activation analysis has a special importance. We have also tested the potential of this method on chipped stone tools, with the aim of determining their exact provenance. On the basis of major and trace element components, characterizations of stone tools and their raw materials—silicites (flint, chert, radiolarite and hornstone) as well as volcanites (felsitic porphyry and obsidian)—were performed. We discuss some important results concerning each group, as case studies. Compiling the data set of different PGAA analysis series, compositions of 110 samples are reported, including 76 archaeological pieces. In the future, we plan to extend the number of investigated objects in each class.     

CORRESPONDENCE AND DISCRIMINANT ANALYSES OF SAND AND SAND TEMPER COMPOSITIONS,TONTO BASIN,ARIZONA*

Geologists use petrographic modal analysis to relate fluvial sand composition to source rock composition, thus establishing provenance. Archaeologists seeking to establish provenance of sand temper in pottery can use similar petrographic methods, but their finer scale of investigation requires more precise statistical tools than those employed by geologists. A quantitative method for performing that task is presented. It utilizes correspondence analysis and discriminant analysis of logratio transformed point‐count data to define petrofacies, or sand temper resource procurement zones. The procedure is illustrated with sand and sand‐tempered sherd samples collected from the Tonto Basin, central Arizona; temporal trends in utilitarian ceramic production c. AD 100–1350 are reviewed.     

Measuring Foraging Efficiency with Archaeological Faunas: The Relationship Between Relative Abundance Indices and Foraging Returns

In western North America, models from foraging theory have been used to address subsistence change using archaeological faunas. Several studies have argued that return rates from foraging declined in a variety of late Holocene contexts and support this position by applying a method involving the computation of a relative abundance index (AI) of large bodied animals to the sum of large and small ones. We present the results of a series of computer simulations devised to identify the relationship between changes in such indices and changes in a forager's average return rate and discuss the implications of these simulations in light of our current work in the Little Boulder Basin Area of north-central Nevada. These include, (1) the importance of using knowledge of both post-encounter return rates and changes in AI s to make inferences about changes in overall return rates; (2) the fact that there are good reasons to expect AI values to be low; and (3) what factors might contribute to the high AI values observed at archaeological sites.     

Fremont Hunting and Resource Intensification in the Eastern Great Basin

Empirical tests of resource-intensification models argue for diminishing foraging efficiency among hunter–gatherers in California over the past 2000 years (Basgall, 1987,Research in Economic Anthropology9,21–52; Broughton, 1994aJournal of Archaeological Science21,501–514; 1994bJournal of Anthropological Anthropology13, 371–401). The evidence for this long-term trajectory consists of decreases in the abundance of large, high-ranked prey in archaeofaunal assemblages. This paper presents faunal data from Fremont structural sites in the eastern Great Basin and Northern Colorado Plateau as an additional empirical test of resource intensification patterns and compares them to trends in California and the American Southwest. The measure of resource efficiency used is the artiodactyl index (following Broughton, 1994ab), a tool derived from prey choice models of optimal foraging. Faunal data from Fremont structural sites argue that (1) foraging efficiency declined during the Fremont period, and (2) this decline was due to population growth.