Process and Meaning in Spatial Archaeology: Investigations into Pre-Columbian Iroquoian Space and Place
256
Process and Meaning in Spatial Archaeology: Investigations into Pre-Columbian Iroquoian Space and Place
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Overview
The research in this volume represents a new wave of spatial research—exploring beyond settlement patterning to the process and the meaning behind spatial arrangement of past communities and people—and describes new approaches being used for better understanding of past Northern Iroquoian societies. Addressing topics ranging from household task-scapes and gender relations to bioarchaeology and social network analysis, Process and Meaning in Spatial Archaeology demonstrates the vitality of current archaeological research into ancestral Northern Iroquoian societies and its growing contribution to wider debates in North American archaeology.
This cutting-edge research will be of interest to archaeologists globally, as well as academics and graduate students studying Northern Iroquoian societies and cultures, geography, and spatial analysis.
Contributors: Kathleen M. S. Allen, Jennifer A. Birch, William Engelbrecht, Crystal Forrest, John P. Hart, Sandra Katz, Robert H. Pihl, Aleksandra Pradzynski, Erin C. Rodriguez, Dean R. Snow, Ronald F. Williamson, Rob Wojtowicz
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781607325109 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University Press of Colorado |
| Publication date: | 01/21/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
John L. Creese is assistant professor of anthropology at North Dakota State University. He works primarily on household and settlement archaeology in the Woodland Northeast. He has published on such topics as village spatial organization, place-making, rock art, and material culture in a variety of journals including the Cambridge Archaeological Journal and the Journal of Social Archaeology.
Read an Excerpt
Process and Meaning in Spatial Archaeology
Investigations into Pre-Columbian Iroquoian Space and Place
By Eric E. Jones, John L. Creese
University Press of Colorado
Copyright © 2016 University Press of ColoradoAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60732-510-9
CHAPTER 1
Dwelling, Daily Life, and Power at Parker Farm
Erin C. Rodriguez and Kathleen M.s. Allen
The routines of daily life are at the core of all human experience, past and present. Society is shaped and culture formed through the minute-to-minute actions, activities, and experiences of individual people interacting with each other and their surroundings. However, too often archaeological analysis, hampered by the realities of the archaeological record that represents the accumulation of countless such moments, neglects the daily scale of past human life to reach broader, more abstract conclusions. Analysis of archaeological materials at the scale of daily life provides an opportunity to consider the variability in lived experience, which was the everyday reality of past people. This chapter shows how the organization of activities within a single compartment of a Cayuga Iroquois longhouse may have affected social and power relations among its residents, particularly adult women. Because of the flexible nature of longhouse space (Kapches 1979, 1990), we avoid using static designations such as public or private while attempting to differentiate between spaces with more communal use among residents of the longhouse and areas more likely reserved for use by individual families. We interpretthe use of both communal and familial spaces by adult women as supporting a flexible power-balancing arrangement restricting the possible authority of any individual member of the longhouse.
Daily Life, Taskscapes, and Domestic Space
A "dwelling" perspective, advocated by Ingold (1993, 2000), provides a conceptual means for archaeologists to visualize the material effects of interactions among humans and their physical surroundings. In this view, material landscapes are not only formed by environmental processes upon which humans act or respond but are also constitutive of the actions, lives, and experiences of those dwelling within the landscape. This formation is neither static nor one-dimensional but occurs through the temporality of daily life. This taskscape forms the social lives of humans through the spatial and temporal rhythms of daily, moment-to-moment actions, interactions, and events that, through time, are embodied in the landscape (Ingold 1993, 2000).
Gaining an understanding of domestic life has become an increasingly common avenue of investigation among archaeologists. However, use of a dwelling or taskscape perspective is relatively rare (Boivin 2000; Scattolín et al. 2009). While daily life is integral to all aspects of sociality, residential space forms one of the most concrete locations for undertaking analysis from a dwelling perspective, as it is this space that most intensely and consistently embodies daily interactions. The quotidian use of space within residential architecture is vital to the construction of subjective and intersubjective relationships. Residential spaces are formed through these interactions and simultaneously provide a structure to stabilize them into consistent patterns (Hegmon, Ortman, and Mobley-Tanaka 2000; Hendon 2010; Wright 2000). As routines of daily life are embodied in physical space through storage, disposal, and modification of space for specific activities, those using the space develop patterns in their spatial and temporal routines based on previous modifications. This cyclical interaction creates a landscape as embodied taskscape and facilitates archaeological analyses to interpret the daily activities that led to the formation of archaeological assemblages.
The spatial organization of domestic and residential taskscapes does not reflect only convenience and efficiency in spatial arrangement of activity areas but also social relationships among the persons using that space on a regular basis (Ingold 1993, 2000). Archaeological work has also shown the importance of considering the organization of domestic space and activities (Hendon 1996). Lightfoot and colleagues (1998) showed the promise of approaches for examining daily practice in understanding continuity and change in the context of Native/European contact. These approaches have been used to great effect by archaeologists working in northeastern North America (Ferris 2009; Jordan 2008; Williams-Shuker 2009). In the Levant, Wright (2000) documented changes in cooking and dining habits through changes in food-related domestic spaces. Creese (2012) showed how the physical structure of Iroquoian longhouses reflected distinctly Iroquoian concepts of personhood. Hegmon and colleagues (2000)considered how the organization of domestic space relates to power dynamics, particularly in terms of gendered workspaces. This is particularly important for the current study as it shows how the physicality of taskscapes can reflect and recreate power relationships among persons. The locations of task spaces can indicate degrees of autonomy and power as well as provide opportunities for participation with other workers or monitoring by more powerful residents (ibid.). Hendon (2010:106) made a similar point: "Spatial arrangements that affect access, movement, relative position to others, what is seen, and who interacts with whom are means of controlling space and people. They contribute to intersubjective relations and social differentiation and are thus connected to the realization of such abstractions as gender, class, seniority, and solidarity that we commonly invoke when discussing social identity."
Taskscapes and their embodied form, landscapes, are not merely accumulations of the debris from past activities but also encode information about the relationships and interactions between those using, constructing, and reconstructing the space. Considering archaeologically defined activities in this way moves an analysis of daily life from describing the locations of routine activities into interpreting the relationships among persons and groups of people participating in that space. Creese (2014) recently focused on understanding intra-village social relationships and control through an analysis of the spatial layout of residential structures and village space at two early-fourteenth-century villages from two different cultural traditions in the Northeast (ancestral Iroquoian and ancestral Monongahela). While his approach focused on the analysis of postmold and feature layouts and traced them over the occupational histories of the sites (ca. 100 years and 25 years, respectively), he found evidence for cultural dispositions in spatial organization and their relationships to social interaction and control. Based on that study and an earlier one examining floors at a number of Ontario Iroquoian longhouses (Creese 2012), Creese demonstrated long-term consistency in the organization of domestic and social space around central corridor hearths. These patterns suggest that the compartment structure in the longhouse was foundational to the development of social and economic identity and cohesion. While these two studies focused more on features than on artifacts, they have implications for understanding the patterning of material culture found within longhouse compartments and vestibule areas. The qualities of taskscapes noted and the organization of residential spaces are particularly important to the following analysis as they show how use of communal and familial spaces provided a means for Iroquoian women to balance longhouse power relations.
Iroquoian Domestic Structures and Women
By the early 1400s, the primary Iroquoian residential space was the multi-family longhouse. These longhouses varied greatly in size, with some more than 100 m in length. Iroquois longhouses traditionally consisted of approximately 6-meter-long compartments divided by a central corridor containing hearths. Vestibules were located at each end and were the locations of some activities as well as storage. Each half-compartment is thought to have housed a woman, her children, and occasionally her husband. Residents of longhouses were related through the maternal line so that while women of a longhouse were related to each other, men had connections with their maternal longhouse, their wife's longhouse, and possibly their father's longhouse (Brown 1970;Carr 1884; Engelbrecht 2003; Morgan 1851; Prezzano 1997; Snow 1994).
It is thought that women did the majority of daily work in the longhouse (as well as in the village and nearby agricultural fields), while the majority of men's work was either seasonal within the village (clearing fields, building and maintaining longhouses) or located beyond the village (such as trade, warfare, hunting) (Allen 2009; Engelbrecht 2003; Fenton 1978;Perrelli 2009; Snow 1994). This division has been characterized as women being associated with the village (the clearing) and men with the forest (the woods), although this division was not absolute and considerable flexibility existed (Venables 2010). Women were known to have left the village for councils, hunting and fishing parties, and other occasions and also had a substantial role in determining extra-village affairs (Brown 1970; Engelbrecht 2003; Prezzano 1997; Snow 1994). While instances are less well documented, it is likely that men, while resident in the village, would have performed activities such as manufacture and maintenance tasks in longhouse segments primarily designated "women's space."
The gendered division of power among contact-period Iroquois was balanced, and power was not restricted to either men or women. While men could gain power as chiefs or war leaders, the headwomen, or matrons, of the longhouses had the power to select and remove male leaders (Brown 1970; Prezzano 1997; Snow 1994). Women also were responsible for organizing horticultural labor and controlled the distribution of the products of their own and men's labor. Women's workgroups were organized by longhouse headwomen (Prezzano 1997; Snow 1994), although how these groups structured internal power relations is unclear. The longhouse as a residential unit has been extensively studied to document its spatial structure over time and the variability within family compartments (Funk and Kuhn 2003; Kapches 1979, 1990,1993, 1994). Several recent studies have provided evidence for long-term stability in the organization of space within longhouses and for the foundational role of matrilineal families in instilling social identity and structuring social interaction (Creese 2012, 2014). Others have noted the open nature of longhouses and the relative visibility of all activities, resulting in fewer opportunities for individuals or lineage segments to acquire greater prestige or wealth (Prezzano and Reith 2001). Although we focus more on the daily activities that took place in the longhouse compartment (at the hearth, near the bench-lines, and in an adjacent vestibule), this study considers these taskscape locations as structuring elements in identity, interaction, and power.
Parker Farm
The current analysis focuses on material recovered from Parker Farm, one of several sites located in the uplands of the Allegheny Plateau west of Cayuga Lake in upstate New York (map 1.1). These sites have been identified as a sequence of villages occupied by ancestral Cayuga from AD 1400 to 1550/1600 (Niemczycki 1984); a larger ancestral Cayuga population was located on the east side of Cayuga Lake from AD 1250 to the late 1600s (ibid.). Parker Farm is about 1 hectare (2.5 acres) in size and was likely occupied in the mid–sixteenth century. Two charcoal samples from features at Parker Farm have been radiocarbon dated by Beta Analytic, Inc., and calibrated to a 2-sigma range (95% probability). One sample was dated to cal AD 1400–1520 and cal AD 1580–1630; the other sample was AMS dated to cal AD 1450–1650 (Michaud-Stutzman 2009:132). The ambiguity regarding the exact time of occupation remains, although, based on pottery seriation, the site was likely occupied during the early to mid-1500s (Niemczycki 1984), which roughly corresponds to the radiometric dates.
Parker Farm has been investigated by the second author through a series of five field schools organized through the University of Pittsburgh from 1998 to 2008. During the 2000 and 2002 field seasons, a longhouse compartment and attached vestibule area were uncovered (Allen 2010; Michaud-Stutzman 2009). Previous studies of a sample of features and plow-zone units from these areas have shown an emphasis on female domestic activities such as food preparation, cooking, and consumption in the longhouse compartment (Michaud-Stutzman 2009) and various activities, including lithic and bone tool production along with food processing, in the associated vestibule area (Allen 2010). The units selected for the current study come from a larger number of units from this longhouse compartment and vestibule section. Artifactual remains from the plow zone of eighteen 1 x 1–m excavation units were included in the study. Mean depth of the plow zone for these units was 24.3 cm, and all sediment was screened through ¼-inch hardware cloth. The units comprise five discrete areas within the longhouse, each of which included three or four individual excavation units (figure 1.1). The units were selected to include locations from the hearth (Area 1), benches (Areas 4 and 5), and vestibule (Areas 2 and 3) of the longhouse, with unsampled space between sampled units to decrease the influence of spatial autocorrelation. Artifacts recovered from excavation primarily include lithic debitage, used flakes, a few lithic tools, pottery fragments, burned and unburned bone fragments, and rare modified bone tools.
Plowing has affected the cultural layers at Parker Farm in nearly every context, and all features have been truncated. The units examined in this study come from a wooded area of the site and have experienced both shallower and less plowing than other units excavated in the open field area. In an earlier study of some of these longhouse units, contents of a sample of features in the corridor, bench area, and associated vestibule were compared with the contents of the excavation units immediately above (Allen 2004). Patterns of significant artifactual differences between these areas were the same regardless of whether feature or unit contents were used, suggesting significant integrity to the spatial patterning of plow-zone material. In the current study, a larger sample of excavation units and their contents was analyzed to identify taskscapes, and only plow-zone material was used. Results from the current study also suggest that the horizontal displacement of materials from plowing was minimal. Two areas analyzed (2 and 4) are directly adjacent to one another but separated by a line of postholes comprising an internal wall of the longhouse between the compartment and vestibule sections (figure 1.1). If plowing had affected the horizontal distribution of material, we would expect these areas to be highly similar. However, the concentrations of artifactual material in Areas 2 and 4 are not greatly similar (see table 1.3), suggesting that the effect of plowing has been minimal.
Methodology and Analysis
The following discussion presents a comparison of the communal and familial spaces analyzed from Longhouse 1 at Parker Farm. As discussed, in each space, artifactual remains from three or four 1 x 1–m units were analyzed (figure 1.1). Detailed analysis of the artifactual assemblages in these spaces was undertaken as part of an undergraduate honors thesis by the first author and is presented elsewhere (Rodriguez 2010). Lithic debitage, pottery, and unmodified bone occurred in the highest frequencies; formal lithic tools and modified bone were scarce. Densities of material (frequency of artifactual material per cubic meter of excavated sediment; weight of faunal material per cubic meter) are used to control for differences in unit volumes (table 1.1) and are described below.
In addition, the first author conducted usewear analysis on a sample of used flakes from each area following methods described by Tringham and colleagues (1974). The usewear analysis examined edges of used flakes at low magnification (40 x) for characteristics such as flaking, chipping, smoothing, rounding, polish, and striations, which are indicative of cutting, scraping, and use on hard or soft material (ibid.). Usewear results are presented in table 1.3, which shows the proportion of uses (as more than one type of use was identified on some flakes) for each category by area. Comparative usewear analysis relied on a teaching collection rather than a controlled experimental study, so the analysis should be seen as preliminary. Overall, cutting and scraping of soft material was the most common usage of used flakes.
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