[109] VII. APPENDIX A: MATERIAL CULTURE

The material culture of the Sunset Creek Site is divided into three areas of investigation: the typology, the presentation of the artifacts, and the uses to which certain raw materials, such as basalt and obsidian, were put. Faunal remains and chipping detritus are discussed in the component descriptions embodied in Part IV of this report.

Typology

Daugherty's extension of Krieger's typological concept has been used to organize and present the material culture of 45KT28.

Krieger (1944:272) originally stated that "the purpose of a type in archaeology must be to provide an organizational tool which will enable the investigator to group specimens into bodies which have demonstrable historical meaning in terms of behavior patterns." To this concept Daugherty (1956:233) added the terms "form" and "style:"

These tenns have been applied in much their original sense. Thus, individual specimens and small groups which are nonrecurrent through time and space have been assigned the term "form." A form is judged to be of little comparative value.

Groups of artifacts found in temporarally restricted, but differentiated subcomponents of 45KT28 have been assigned the term "style," the assumption being that such a distribution within the site indicates probable use elsewhere, at least in the Vantage locale. The designation "style" also has been applied to groups of artifacts where local comparative material has been reported, or for which there exist a few reports from scattered sites in the Columbia Plateau. Use of the term "style" indicates comparative value on a local level, and potential value on the regional and areal levels.

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Ideally a type should be precisely defined in time and space, so that it fills a temporal continuum of known duration and occurs in a spatial unit no smaller than the region (Willey and Phillips 1958:19). In the strict sense, it is impossible to apply this exacting a definition to artifact assemblages from the Plateau because most present knowledge of the area is derived from historical documents, ethnographies, site surveys, and unintegrated site reports. Local sequences are emerging, however, in areas such as The Dalles (Butler 1958a, 1961; Caldwell 1958; Cressman 1960), the Vantage locale (Swanson 1956, 1958, 1962a; Crabtree 1957; Osborne 1956-57), and along the Snake River (Fryxell and Daugherty 1962). Although these, coupled with a growing body of data from other areas of the Plateau, are sufficient for the postulation of hypotheses, they are not an adequate sample for the precise delineation of individual artifact types. Therefore, the designation "type" has been assigned to those classes of artifacts which are temporally defined at 45KT28 and spatially restricted to no smaller an areal unit than the region, under the assumption that such artifacts are culturally related to their counterparts elsewhere in the Plateau.

In addition, a fourth typological term, the "type variant," has been employed for subdividing types to smaller, potentially meaningful units. Hence any given type includes the type variants within it, and any miscellaneous specimens which fall within the type as a whole but do not correspond to any particular type variant.

It must be remembered that the application of these designations (form, style, type, and type variant) concerns individual artifacts and not gross generalizations about the shapes or manufacturing techniques apparent in assemblages of artifacts. Thus a form - a leaf-shaped projectile point of divergent shape and size, for example - may be of little use in across-the-board artifact comparisons. Yet, if it occurred in a component characterized solely by leaf-shaped points, the fact that it, too, was leaf-shaped would have a measure of significance. Conversely, if it had come from a component from which no other leaf-shaped points were recovered, it would be significant as a strike[109/110]ingly deviant form. The frequency of forms, as well as styles and types, and the nature of their divergence from the norm might well be of value in studying instances of prehistoric acculturation, the manner in which the individual viewed and interpreted his particular culture, and the processes, or at least rates, of innovation in specific communities and cultures.

The problems which these distinctions pose involve different levels and kinds of abstraction. The designations form, style, type, and type variant are designed to call the researcher's attention to the value of artifacts in across-the-board comparative studies.

Typological classification was accomplished by working concurrently with the morphology and provenience of the artifacts.  1. The artifacts were sorted into morphologically similar groups. At this stage splitting was the rule of thumb, and the resultant classes were many.  2. Temporal distribution for each class was determined and morphologically similar groups compared. Those with identical or nearly identical distribution patterns were combined, while those exhibiting dissimilar patterns were left unaltered. Cases arose, of course. In which it was difficult to justify either the lumping or splitting of classes.  3. In such cases archaeological literature was searched for significant comparisons. Temporal-morphological clines between the disputed groups were sought, and the general problems of the degree of morphological differences and potential comparative value considered.

After these classes had been established, they were analyzed in the light of Plateau and, on occasions, coastal archaeology. When it had been determined to what extent they appeared related to artifacts from these areas, each group was assigned an appropriate typological designation.

The typological classes which resulted then were arranged for presentation by the use of a purely descriptive classification involving three levels of organization, designed to integrate the individual typological classes. On the first level, the material culture is divided into a few large categories, determined by a general consideration of material, technique, and function. Bone and antler, chipped stone, metal, shell artifacts of trade, ground adzes, basalt spall scrapers, and ground stone ornaments are representative examples. Although in some measure arbitrary, each such category was chosen with a definite purpose in mind. For example, bone and antler artifacts were treated as a unit because many typological classes included specimens of both materials. Moreover, previous studies have made particular note of their distribution, relative both to each other and to other gross categories of material culture. Another good example is that of the shell artifacts, the majority of which were articles of trade originating at various points along the Pacific coast.

Each of these primary categories has been subdivided into a number of groups determined by the inferred function of its members. Thus, the bone and antler category is composed of numerous groups with titles such as splitting wedges, awls, flaking tools, and hafts. Description at this level is designed to record and discuss data about functionally related classes of artifacts.

With few exceptions each group based on artifact function has been divided into several typological classes or assigned to a single typological class. The exceptions are fragmentary artifacts which cannot be assigned specific typological designations.

Each typological group of artifacts has been described by means of following a standardized form: (a) number of specimens, (b) material, (c) measurements and description, (d) technique of manufacture, (e) comments, (f) distribution, and (g) comparable specimens. Though some of the headings are entirety self explanatory, others require amplification and are described below.

Measurements and description. Measurements and morphological descriptions of artifacts define the range of variation within any given group, as well as its modal configuration. If a typological class contains less than four complete artifacts, measurements for individual specimens are recorded separately. Any measurement which does not express the true dimension of an artifact, i.e., the true length, width, or thickness, is preceded by an asterisk (*). In cases where all the artifacts in a group are fragmentary, estimated measurements (clearly marked as such) are offered. If a group is composed of four or more complete artifacts, measurements are given in the form of extremes -and modes for the group as a whole. Such figures are based solely on complete artifacts. Thus, if the group is composed of eight specimens five of which are complete, the statistical figures presented are based on those five [110/111] artifacts alone. Appropriate notes are inserted when it is apparent that an incomplete specimen does not fall within the range defined by the rest of the group.

It should be noted that modal and not mean, or average, figures are used in this report, for it is the mode which records that which is most frequent or typical within any group. Archaeologists in the Northwest have used mean figures to describe both normal and skewed populations, as well as groups containing too few individual specimens to derive a statistacally meaningful mean.

Comments. Though primarily designed to record comments about the significance and distribution of artifact types, this heading also subsumes items of information which do not readily fall under any of the other headings.

Distribution. The seven Roman numerals recurrently listed under this heading represent cultural components. "I" is the earliest and "VII" the latest. Cultural Component VII has been further divided into a series of subcomponents, each represented by an Arabic letter. "A" is ajudged earliest, "L" latest. Unfortunately, about 25 percent of the artifacts recovered from Cultural Component VII could not be assigned to specific subcomponents, and have, therefore, been listed under the term "undesignated" (und.). Whenever possible, stratigraphic limits for these undesignated specimens are given; e.g., a specimen may postdate Subcomponent VIIA and antedate Subcomponent VIIH.

Comparable specimens. "Comparable specimens" include only those examples for which published illustrations are available. These references are designed to extend the number of illustrations for any given typological class.

LAST REVISED: 03 MAR 2015