Papers by Emily R . Bartz
Serving a multitude of functions from subterrestrial cavities of storage, basins for cooking, to ... more Serving a multitude of functions from subterrestrial cavities of storage, basins for cooking, to vessels that securely hold pounds of rice allowing the grains to be danced upon to thresh, pit features are one of North Americas most common archaeological feature. These constructions are dug to fit a diversity of needs based on the people who manufacture them. By understanding the distinct function(s) a pit or group of pit features played at a site-level, the needs of the people who inhabited that landscape are better understood. The nature of a pit feature is to store or process something that is of value, by virtue of the objects pits once contained, those materials are predominantly reclaimed from the pit when it was in use. This lack of associated material remains found in the archaeological record make it difficult to understand the activates associated with these features. Recorded pit features of the lower peninsula of Michigan have contained varying floral remains, charred wood, burned soils, fire-cracked rocks, and limited amounts of ceramics and lithics. A considerable amount of regional ethnohistoric accounts demonstrates the importance of pit features in the subsistence and settlement patterns of native Upper Great Lakes groups. Despite these accounts, and high frequencies in which these features manifest throughout the region, there have been no formal archaeological investigations into pit feature use in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. To address this regional gap in research, archaeological investigations into selected pit features at the Muskrat Point site (03-910) were conducted under the direction of the Grand Island Archaeological Project in the summer of 2017. Field survey identified 24 surface depressions, likely to be pit features along the southern end of Grand Islands eastern lobe. Fifteen of these are located in the area of the Muskrat Point site, four of these surface depressions were excavated, each confirmed to be pit features. A performance-based approach is used to consider pit stratigraphy, macrobotanical remains, radiocarbon dating, and other contextual evidence in order to investigate pit feature function at this coastal Lake Superior site. This research acts as an initial step towards understanding the roles pit features played in Native American lifeways of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Southeastern Archaeology
Despite the ubiquity of charred hickory nutshell in archaeological contexts throughout the Easter... more Despite the ubiquity of charred hickory nutshell in archaeological contexts throughout the Eastern Woodlands, evidence for nut processing and storage is elusive and ambiguous. To the extent that hickory nuts factored prominently in Indigenous foodwaysparticularly as a storable resourcemass processing was possibly specialized at times and sited in places for that express purpose. One such place was Victor Mills (9CB138) in Columbia County, Georgia. Excavations at this site of Early Stallings activity (ca. 4350-4050 cal BP) revealed an assemblage of pits, fire-cracked rock, anvils, hammerstones, fiber-tempered pottery, and soapstone slabs indicative of largescale nut storage and processing. Given the seasonal ecology of hickory production, visits to Victor Mills for harvesting and storing nuts took place in the fall, but also at other times of the year, when stores were tapped and nuts processed for transport to sites of habitation. Put into larger context, nut storage at Victor Mills fits the conditions for concealment as outlined by DeBoer ([1988] Subterranean Storage and the Organization of Surplus: The View from Eastern North America. Southeastern Archaeology 7:1-20), that subterranean stores were established in places subject to raiding when left unattended. Implications follow for the land-use patterns of Early Stallings communities and their relationship to neighbors upriver.
Southeastern Archaeology, 2022
Despite the ubiquity of charred hickory nutshell in archaeological contexts throughout the Easter... more Despite the ubiquity of charred hickory nutshell in archaeological contexts throughout the Eastern Woodlands, evidence for nut processing and storage is elusive and ambiguous. To the extent that hickory nuts factored prominently in Indigenous foodwaysparticularly as a storable resourcemass processing was possibly specialized at times and sited in places for that express purpose. One such place was Victor Mills (9CB138) in Columbia County, Georgia. Excavations at this site of Early Stallings activity (ca. 4350-4050 cal BP) revealed an assemblage of pits, fire-cracked rock, anvils, hammerstones, fiber-tempered pottery, and soapstone slabs indicative of largescale nut storage and processing. Given the seasonal ecology of hickory production, visits to Victor Mills for harvesting and storing nuts took place in the fall, but also at other times of the year, when stores were tapped and nuts processed for transport to sites of habitation. Put into larger context, nut storage at Victor Mills fits the conditions for concealment as outlined by DeBoer ([1988] Subterranean Storage and the Organization of Surplus: The View from Eastern North America. Southeastern Archaeology 7:1-20), that subterranean stores were established in places subject to raiding when left unattended. Implications follow for the land-use patterns of Early Stallings communities and their relationship to neighbors upriver.
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Papers by Emily R . Bartz