Homework 5 – Interpreting a Site
Due ___________ Please use this sheet or staple it to your answers.
Name ________________________________
Anth 3
The assignment: You are the principal archaeologist at a site at a proposed Hinde
Development Corp. shopping mall in Mississippi. Following preliminary fieldwork, your
assignment is to interpret the results and make recommendations for further research.
The data: Please see the figures and tables on the other side of this sheet. Test trenches
(Figure 1) have revealed features including a house, a hearth, a kiln, burials, and storage
features (Table 1). Structure 1 was a house with an attached storage pit (Figure 2). A
number of artifacts and ecofacts, including fresh-water pearls, were recovered from various
contexts (Table 2). The burials and their associated grave goods have already been
recorded and reburied with the cooperation of a local tribe.
Your report: Please fill out the following outline of a report.
I. Preliminary interpretations
A. Subsistence pattern
1. Interpretation: __________________________________________
2. Supporting evidence: ____________________________________
_________________________________________________________
B. Political pattern
1. Interpretation: __________________________________________
2. Supporting evidence: ____________________________________
II. Recommendations: What fieldwork might confirm or disprove your interpretation of
subsistence or political pattern? Why?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
DATA SUMMARY FROM THE HINDE SITE
Figure 1. Site map showing some test trenches and features.
Figure 2. Feature 6 close-up. Above: Plan of postenclosed pit shown attached to Structure 1. Below:
Profile of post-enclosed pit. This feature contained
256 corn cob fragments.
Table 1. Feature
interpretations.
Features 1 – 6 are not
shown on Figure 1.
Feature
Interpretation
Struc. 1
Fea. 1
Fea. 2
Fea. 3
Fea. 4
Fea. 5
Fea. 6
Fea. 7
Fea. 8
house
hearth
burial
burial
burial
roasting pit
storage pit
hearth
kiln
Table 2. Contexts of recovered items.
Other artifacts found included grinding
slabs near the hearths. All artifact
categories found are listed.
Recovered
items
Ceramics
Lithic flakes
Stone axes
Carved
stone pipes
Turtle shell
Pearls
Corn cobs
Deer bones
Distrib. in Features
Struc.
Burials
1
2
3
4
68
0
3
25
571
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
3
1
2
5
0
1
3
0
0
0
4
1
0
0
4
1
1
85
16
5