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UTAH ARCHEOLOGY A Newsletter
Vol. 3. No.4
December 19'.57 Contents
Editor's Notes . . . . . • . . • • . . • . . . . . '. • . . . . . Archeology.-and the Scientif.ic Method: Part II. . . . . . • . Preliminary Report of 1957 Work at Snake Rock . . . . . • . Notice to Old and New Members. . . . . . . . . . . • . . . .
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Pictograph (actual size) from near Ferron,
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. . . . .._.. '. ,;, _ .! -..<.• .--,,,.~,;:,2 . . Fay-Cooper Cole 3 . James H. Gunn~rson 7 . . . ....... 1 3
Utah
Utah Archeology is distributed quarterly to all members of the Utah -Statewide Archeological Society . All correspondence should be directed to the Editor: James H . Gunnerson. Department of Anthropology. University of Utah, Salt Lake City 12, Utah
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EDITOR"S NOTES With thi-s i-ssue ,we complete -the first voli.un-e ·of Utah Archeology for which the members of the SGcietyhav-e·paid. It is gratifying-that th-e-e-st-abl-ishment .of-a membership fee has not disastrously affected the-number o-f member-s. The f-ee -of $1.-00 per y-ear , plus several {)ash--gifts -and-part-i-al University subsidy has left the organi·z ation in .good financial con. dition aJlda financial report will be included in the next newsletter. This brings us to the facts that 1958 membership fees arc now thl~ru1d· .tlw.t sooiety~membership and oontinued receipt of the newsletter will be CQuting-ent upon your remitting another dollar ~ Attached to the newsletter is a blank form to facilitate your remittance. This Issue: The lead article is the seconil and final part of Archeology and the Spientific Method, by Dr. Fay- Cooper Cole. Volull).e 3, No.3 carried the' first half of thi~ article Which is reprinted from the University of Utah Anthropological Papers, No. 26. Th.e other article, by your editor, is a preliminary report of one segment of the archeological activities of the University of Utah in 1957. Partial subsidy was arranged for the page of illustrations. Loc.cal Chapters: According to informal reports, the Moab Chapter of USAS continues to function actively. ~ Also chances seem very good that a local chapter will soon be organized iil Logan. Upper Colorado River Basin Survey: The University of Utah has remodeled a building across the street from the Museum of Anthropology to serve as a laboratory for this salvage project. Some equipment for the laboratory has not ¥et been delivered, but the processing and analysis of the material collected last summer is underway in these new quarters, which supplement very nicely the facilities in the Museum building. The UniverSity plans to have Eleveral parties in the Glen Canyon area this coming summer, some starting as early as April. Recent Publications: Dangf:'}r Cave, by Jesse D. Jennings, with a chapter on textiles by Sara Sue Rudy and six appendices by Chatles B. Hunt and Roger Morrison j ' Charles C, Sperry, Robert L. Fonner, Morris F. Skinner, Jesse D. Jennings and Carma Lee Smithson. U~iver~ity of Utah Anthropological Papers, No, 27. xxii 328 PI>. , 246 figs. , 31 tables. Published also as Memoir 14, Society for Americl:\.ll Archmeblogy, American Antiquity, Vol f xxm, No.2, Pt. 2. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, Utah, $6.00. . This monograph will be of special interf3st to members of the USAS, since it reports extensivE! excavation at Danger Cave, near WendovElr, Utah, and detailed analysis and (cDJIWlrative studies of the material recovered. This site is py far the most significant early man site elXcavated in Utah, and its 11 ,000 year continuo~s archeological record provides a framework for all Great Basin arch.eology. The dryness of this cave has preserved many artifacts which are ordinarily subject to decay and has thus increased the artifact inventory and made possible a far more complete description of the Desert culture than would have been possible from only the non-perishable arti'facts ~ The volume is profusely illustrated witlr photographs and drawings, making it extreme"ly useful for comparative purposes.
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The data from the cave have several implications that reach beyond archeology, The dating of occupation levels whioh are vepy close to the clean beach gravel on the floor of the cave has shown that the Great Salt Lake receded to essentially its present level from the next older major stab~ilized level more recently than formerly was thought , AlSO, ' there was no evidence of changes in the inventory of plants and animals during the entire prehistoric span of about 10,000 years, The Desert culture, essentially unchanged during the entire occupation of Danger Cave, had complete exploitation of its envh.'Dn;ment as its dominant characteristic. Thus evidence of all the usable pUnts and animals from the neighborhood was l~ft in the detritus in the cave. A comparison of plant and animal remains obtained from the cave with the present flora and fauna of the area indicates that the environment of the Great Basin has apparently not changed significantly in the last 11 ,000 years , I strongly recommend this publication.
ARCHEOLOGY AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD Fay-Cooper Cole Part II Establishing Chronolo/i?Y Although it has been implied many times in tq.is paper, we have not used the term chrQnelogy, whioh is basic toallo Ollr procedures, Sequâ&#x201A;Źm~es oan be built up by stratigraphic techniques, made possible in many oases -by a recognition of complexes of traits . They may be indioated on a percentage basis; by seriation or stylistic development, or by the distributional method. The stratigraphic method of the geologist is aided by such techniques as radi<icarbon dating; by the fluorine and nitrogen content in bones; or by dendrochronOlogy, pollen analysis, clay vari.i: es and other hints offered by various sciences, This emphasizes the fact that we cannot work effectively in isolation . Other sciences can and often do furnish importaIit data . Likewise other branches of anthropology may help to an understanding of our materials, and we may in turn furnish basic data to them. When we are able to recognize and define cllltural complexes; when by stratigraphy and other means we establish chronology; when we demonstrate cultural, trends and, more particularly, when by comparative studies we are able to throw light on the nature and working of culture, we are close to cultural anthropology. By the same method$ we are in a position to give data to the ecologist. Not only do we indicate how man first adapted himself to his Part I ". of the above article by Dr ~ . Cole appeared in the newsletter, Vol. 3, No . 3. The entire article ' is reprinted from Universio/ of Utah Anthropological Papers, No . 26. '
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natur;;tl environment, but we oan de:tnDl1stI'ate how he has- changed it bW cutting back the forest, or how he -has · surmouJlted it by bringing in--and maintaining foreign plants, An excellent example of this is foun.d -in our Southwest ,wher-e the Anasazi people w,ere able to carryon the domestication of importl:'ld plants in spite of adverse conditions, In establishing trends we may find
ourselvesemploying~-sta.t1stioal
methods, TbJs has been particularly useful whlm based on the analysiS of artifact samples (especially pottery) taken from chronologioally established levels of m-ounds or villa ges-Ues. Tbe more exact the controls used the more probable is the obtaining of correct I'€Sultfs, By way of caution let us note that (1) results based on limited samples--are QllcertaiUi (2) .the only data on which reli-ance pan. be ·placed ar~ those in which the -element -of personal evaluation does not enter, If two persons Oall pl~ce different valu~son- the data under cons-ideration ,- it is ·not va-lid for statistical use, Let me cite -one example, Several years ago a statistical study was made, not by ·an-anthropologist! of the ptorality qf European nobility, Since-it is highly unlikely that -any two persons would give the same numerical ratings to King Edward and Kings Alfonsoand,Le-opold it seems self- evident that the results of such a study are of little value, even though ~iven in precise figures,
E4cept -for the initial p ar-agraph, Iha-V'a not mentioned }'the sQientific method ,." -Berhaps I can be ·pardone d by quoting from-a r-ecen-t.publication by Dr, Conant , Modern Science and Modern M-an , in-whi·ch he --approves the s tatement th""t there is no such thing ;a 8 the . scientific method, To understand this statement let us review a few facts ;;tbout science, for it has had a long and diverse histo:ry
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In early times certain thi-J1g-s were obvious Certainly the earth was flat, "To question . -Bu,cn a sel£-evidentfact was to bring down on the heretic the oonde-mnatioll of society It was llOt until the sixteenth century that CopernicU'l) forced the schola:rs of his time to -abandon the idea that our world was not the center of the universe, Galileo was interested in knowing how things behaved and set up experiments toward that end, But he did not reason why, Bacon~-stressed the gathering of facts in order to show the r elaJtionships between them, but he gave scant attention tp hypothesis and deduction, When the apple fe~l on Newton he wanted to know the I'eaSon Then:ca:me~ experiments that led to the law of gravitation, Through the years emphasis has come to be placed on comparison and setting up of problems, Then as different fields of investigation have made their materials av:ailable, one soienoe has gorrowed from another so that aspects of one can now be used to check on another, Thus physiology, while using metpods peculiarly its own, places great dependence o:p. chemistry, physios , zoology, anatomy, and pathology; Herrick (1~29, 19) summarizes by saying that the application of a scientific method i~ "finding out as much as possJOle about natural things, how they are constructed and how they work, They operate according tp rule; and when we have learned these rules we have formulated thy laws of nature," Kroeper (19481, 464) says, "Scientific progress begins, with devising methods of separating diverse data and extricating consistent findin~s put of th~ welter of confused, , ,phenomena ,II . 0
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Science today begins with the observation of facts. It then seeks to give them order by classification. But it is not content with the collection ·of data. It searches for meanings and I'elationships . Hence it sets up theories regarding natUI'e which it tests by various techniques. It evaluates the evidence and accepts,-or rejects according to the data at hand. What of archeology? Doel:l it follow scientific procedure? We have said -that it observes-11M records; it describes -and -classifies; it -~s taxonomic; it-is comparative; it employs geological, paleontologi~al and other scientific data to establish chronology; it uses statistical evidence; it notes ecological adaptation; it seeks to understand th.e processes which1 underlie cultural change. Above all , it seeks wtthout bias to evaluate the evidence. It utilizes theory, but only asa working tool, not -as a means of -establishing claims of any kind. When a researcher attempts to prove a theory, when he waJ:1)s the evidence in any manner, when he resorts to special pleading, he has left science. Archeology as a Social Science It seems then
that archeology does ··f ollow ·scientific ·meth-od, but in doing so it need not
forego its claims -to-a place in the. soci·a l sciences and humanities. It can give tiIl1-e depth to ethnology; it demonstrates acculturation; it indicates trends. By its contributiqns to an understanding<: of cultural processes it can and does assist in functional studies. :qoes this mean that we are ignoring our view that archeology is an historical discipline? I think not.· In the Southwest -it has been possible to define and trace Anasazi culture from simple beginnings; through the high development of Pueblo III to the modern Pueblos. Great droughts and migrations have been documented and by means of dendrochronology have been dat-ed. This is unwritten history, despite the fact that we cannot give the name of aaribe or an individual until recent times. Steward, Schmitt " Strong and others have stressed the direct historical approach -and have shown that we can work from known complexes back to similar complexes of earlier settlements. Yet even archeology must rely primarily on the study and interpretation of material culture. This brings us to the interesting observation, namely, that archeology as history is made possible by scientific procedures. A final but by no means the least important observation: When the field material has been gathered and documented, the real task of evaluation takes place in the laboratory. As in genetic~s , we go from description to analysis to tentative interpretation. Now we are ready to make generalizations, to set up theories to be tested. For example: On the basis of published rep:orts Griffin (1946, 37-38) finds "enough resemblances between early levels in the West and those in the East to indicate cultural connections which probably should be interpreted as a common cultural background modified by subsequent regional specialization." Here then is a theory to
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be tested, and-Griffin ·:ultimat~ly brings·to light ·signifioant factsrci-ating ·to cultural continu.-it4.BS from-widespread early horizons to Late Woodland, as well as possible relatiOnships between, East and West . . -F-inal·analysis·-and .cGmpar-isons -are for the ~most part labo;r.:ato.l'Y .tasks ,asare many of . the procedUl:es-already mentioned. Then comes what is perhaps the rp;ost important step-publicati-en,·The-best data -Js of little use if it Ites buried -and-unknown in the files of ·SO-IDe -university. Exoavationwithout reoording -is looting, whether done bya ·professional-archeologist of by a pot hllu~ter. Sequestering data once gathered is like booty from sacked cultures lost in the vaults of a university or museum. Archeology is a scientific volume written in many languages, some difficult of transcription. . Pages·are dra-wn from the physical·and biological sciences·; even the -cuneiform symbols like C 14 must-he painstakingly deciphered. Some recorc:is are fragmentary, but at long last they are beinmpieced torgether into an unbiased-narrative. Occasionany a false document is slipped in, but ultimately the true o·:utline appears.
It may ·be,'.--as Dr; Conant·-says, that there ·is no -such thing·as the -scientific method, but ..in its many,diffe·rent approacnesone· cardinal ·aimis-apparent--complete -objectivity in the gathering. and processing ·oct t;iata, the willingness to ·experiment or .t{) ·set up theor-ies to be tested. -Always there painstaking analysis and comparison and final conclusions are based on observed fact. Insofar as archeology follows such procedure it follows scientific method.
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PRELIMINARY REPORT OF :!-957 WORK AT
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James H. Gunner&on The Utah Statewide Archeological Survey restricted its 19.57 work, outside of the Glen Canyo;n路.ar-e~ ,to addit;ional testing at Snake Rock (42Sv5) . The author assisted by Dolores Gmm~rson and with a crew of three men (Gordon Stringham, Kendall lY,Iortensen and Gerry Oviatt) hired loc-ally "devoted the period Aijgust 6-22 to extending 'an( excavation started~in ~ :L956 , The work w~s financed in part by a grant from the University of Utah Research Fund, Previous, work at this site has been reported (Gunnerson, 1956, pp, 8-.1'0; 1957), j
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The sHe is located about 12 miles southwest of Emery, Utah, and is situated on a boulderstrewri ridge with a boulder and gravel core 'on the south side of Ivie Creek, just above the point where the creek leaves the mountains (Wasatch Plateau), The valley is about a quarter -of a mile路 wide at this point and probably provided good horticultural land when the site was occupied, This site with many others 路jllong lvie Creek and in Castle Valley in general, was occupied about 900-1100 A,D, by the FremoI}.t people who were primarily farmers but also did somy hunting, An intensive study of the Fremont culture is one of the long-range (but currently interrupted). projects of the Department of A,nthropology at the University of Utah, 1;'he 1956 excavation was i'e~openedand was extended to include all or part of five pithouses (Fig, 2) , the building sequence of which could be determined (Fig ,1) , The floor of House I was about a foot higher than the floors of HOl,lses III and V and overlapped them, The floor of House III in turn was about a foot higher than that of House IV and bverlapped it, The walls of Houses IV and VI were tangent.: Apparently House VI had been built first and later House IV was built against it. The houses were all similar but showed variations, which if verified elsewhere, could possibly help give dates to other sites, The houses were all rounded rectangles: all fOl,lr Sides were convex and the corners wer~ rounded, The more recent houses tended to be; more round, While the oldest house (VI) appears to have been nearly rectangular, but ortly one corner of this house ~as exposed, One house (III) was somewhat irregular in outUne with two nearly straight walls meeting in a corner and the remaining wall, in; places poorly preserved, tending toward roundness, Most of the straight walls had been removed by the construction of House L Two recent houses (1 and V) were nearly round with a maximum diameter (four diameters measured) of 15 feet and a minimum diameter of 12 feet and 7 inches, HouSes I, III and IV were essentially of this same . size,. The rectangular oldest house (VI) appears 路to have been a little .larger, The floors of the houses were -from 63 inches deep, Jhaximum for the next to oldest house (IV) , to 27 inches .minimum for the mOst recent house (I), The pr.esent ground surface, which slopes down froni House VI to House I, appears to be about oile foot above the
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surfa-Ge--at the -time-of-occup-ation,--judging -fr-om too depth-at;.which the top of the belew-sudaoe -wans were encountered . The BIle f-oot of nIl probably -came from the washing down of adobe walls higher. on the ridge and back dirt from "pot holes."
ThewaUs"in·the underground part-of the houses consistof-a -pit lining of adobe and stones in the· earHer houses and just -adobe plaster in the IDDst r-e.cent one" The walls slope out-about one·half -to one foot in a three foot height. The earlier walls tend to be the thickest That of House W is 1 1/2 to feet thick while the adobe plaster in :aouse I , . is 3 to 5 inches thick. All of the houses except for possibly the two eadiest ones (Houses IV- and VI) were dug at least in part into midden fill which had been dumped into or had accumulated in the previ0.us pithouses . 0
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-The floors c{}nsisted of a layer of adobe on the bottom -of the pit ; probably for two reasons. The first was to seal off the detritus into which the! pit was dug and the other was to leV{~1 the floor .. In House III, for example, an attempt to excavate the pit at least a foot deeper was frustr-ated when boulders were encountered; the irregularities had to be filled in with clay to obtain a level floor. Newevidence-on r-oof construction wasgainedfrom'f several houses, two -of which were burned. - Central·vertioal posts f-ormed a squar-eabout six feet on a -side, oriented with the cardinal directions and with~;.1he quadrilateral outline of the houses Other posts were sometimes present but did not appear to form .a pattern ~. The four center poles had probably been joined at the top with stringers. Radially placed poleS, with their butts resting on top of or just behind the top of the portion of the wall below the level of the ground and extending to the stringers had served ·as rafters. Numerous charred beams were found in such radial positions in House V. On top of some of these radial beams were found oharred fragments of mats -with the willow <?) warp elemmits at right angles to the beams. The weft elements were about an eighth of an inch in diameter and about two inches apart, The weave was a simple wicket weave, Over the mats there had apparently been a layer of other plant material including much cOrn husk and some corn cobs. The roof had then been covered with clay. 0
The·absence of·any. evidence of an -entr~ce .suggests that the houses were entered through the roof .. At a hearby site (the Emery site) -on the floor of a similar house a thin sandstone disk about 2 feet in diameter was found and thought to be a hatch cover for clOSing such a roof opening . . (Gunnerson, 1956, p. 7; 1957). Each pithouseat Snake Rock, as at other Fremont sites I. had a central fireplace consisting of a tim of adobe around a shallow pit in the hOlllse floor. The fireplace in Hou$¢ V differed somewhat from the usual pattern in that on opposite sides of it were two boulders, each forming about one fQurth of the entire rim. Several other boulders proj~cted through the floor of this house, so it is probable that these two were left where they originally occurred, and utilized in the fireplace rather than removed; Of the fireplaces encountered, all but the one in the most recent house had been paved with thin sandstone slabs.
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Fig 1 Plan (above) and profile (A-A' ) of houses in 1957 excavation at Snake Rock (42Sv5) Roman numerals are house numbers (House IT was excavated in 1956 and not reopened in 1957) Fireplaces are indicated by circles, postholes by dots, probable extent of unexcavated pprtions of houses by dashed lines and edge of excavation by ticked lines. 0
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10 Fig, 2, Excavations at Snake Rock a) View facing west northwest across excavation, There is about a foot of fill on most of the floor of House V in the foreground, House I, just beyond, is completely excavated and has part of the wall and part of the floor removed, Through the gap in the wall of House I can be seen part of the stone and adobe wall of House III, beyond which is the wall shared by Houses IVand .VI. The rocks on top of the ridge at the far end of the trench are part of the wall of a badly vandalized house, b) House I, completely excavated with parts of wall and parts of floor removed exposing floor of House III to the left hand and of V to the right, The north-pointing arrow is in the fireplace, Chaining pins are in the four postholes, This pit was lined with adobe plaster, which has partly slumped on the far side, c) House In after excavation, Note the rock and adobe wall to the left and rocks from slumped wall to the right, North-pointing arrow is in adobe rimmed, rock slab-paved fireplace, . Storage cist is at lower right, Part of floor and wall of House I at top of picture have been removed to expose all of floor of House III, One of the center postholes can be seen above and to the left of the fireplace, d) Facing northwest across House III (in foreground) and portions of Houses IV and VI beyond, A little less than a quarter of the wall of House IV can be seen in the center of the picture, Another section ( a little more than a quarter) had been removed in the construction of House III and about half of the wall is presumably in the unexcavated section under the dirt pile to the right, The wall of Houses IV and VI meet tangentially just abolVe the center of the picture, The trench at the top of the picture is through House VI, e) House V to right and House I to left, Note in House V charred post buUs (still in the floor) and some of the roof timbers still in situ, The one in the upper center of the picture is especially interesting in that the butt of it is res~ing on the edge of the w~ll of the house, Many charred fallen timbers have been removed in the course of clearing the house, f) House V after excavation, Three post butts are in place and the fourth was at chaining pin in the lower left hand corner, Two boulders forming} part of the fireplace rim and stone slabs forming the floor can be seen in the center of the house, The boulder in the wpper left corner of the house apparently was pushed into the pit after the house was abandoned, Construction of House I (floor visible at left) took out part of \ivall of House V Top of boulder and adobe wall of House V can be seen about a foot below the surface of the ground, 0
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One unique -and interesting feature-was enc-ountered in the southwest corner of House III {Fig. 2 , -c -and d), Here, built -against the waH -was a storage cist consisting of a wall of stone and adobe built around -a pit in the floor. The -L-shaped wall ·had sides 37 and 30 inches long and was 12 inches high. The top w-as flat except for a low adobe rime that surrounded it. Through one end of the top was a D~shapedopening· 13 by ·-12 inches which had pres\lmably had a stone slab for cover. The maximum inside dimensions cof were 22 by 20 inches. The bottom of the ci-st was 21 inches below the top of the rim. A little trash, none of it significant, was found in the fill of the cist. Analysis of the artifacts collected at the site has been started butt not ;yet completed. Perhaps the most signifi-cantadditions to the previous artifact assemblage from the site (Gunnerson 1957) were several fragments of clay anthropo)n:orphic figurines similar t-ol ones previously found at other Fremont culture sites. What appear to be fragments of charred robe, w-oven of cord and -either·£eathers -or strips -of fur were also recovered. Thisyear!·s collection fr-om the site will also contribute to our kn-owledge -of Fremont pottery, stone work and bone w-ork. It is hoped that it will be possible to get dendrochronological dates from some of the sections of charred logs collected. Th€·t9sting·this past summer has confirmed :$e.-e-v..aluati-on made -of the site after the initial·testing in 1956--that the site is .extremely important and that ext-ensive excavation there would contribute greatly to our understanding of the Fremont culture, since it -appears to have been occupied longer than most other Fr-emont sites. Further work at the site is planned on~e the urgency of salvage archeology is past.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Gunnerson, James H. 195f6 :li9:56 Archeological Activities of the UniverSity of Utah. Utah Archeology , Vol. 2, No.3, pp. 4-14 . .]:,9.57
An Ar.cheol.ogical Survey of the Fremont Area. University of Utah Anthropol ogical Paper§ , No. 28. (In Press) .
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NOTICE TO MEMBERS
19"58 membership fees for the Utah Statewide Archeological Society are now due. This will be your onlynotic-e,
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James H. Gunnerson Depal'tment of Anthropology Un-i versity of Utah Sal~ Lake City 12 , Utah I I
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-Ut-ah -Archeology University of utah Department of Anthropology Salt Lake City 12 , Utah
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