I’ve got a question for the general audience relating somewhat to fire issues, more to obsidian dating:
I work a lot out in southern Tooele County on the Vernon parcel of the Forest (ok, as if most of you haven’t heard me compulsively raving about the joys of Vernon…). Long story short, we see tons of little non-descript lithic scatters, mostly Fremont in my book, but quite a few have Archaic points. Most sites have at least a few little bits of obsidian, though I’d say the points are more often chert. There are typically no associated features and very few ceramics, but a lot of these suckers are huge (most of the sites are strung out along the creek beds and can be as long as a mile or more).
Now here’s the issue. For years, my boss has put off making an eligibility statement on any of them because she and Dykmann have gone back and forth about the whole potential to contribute scientific information. There is a distant possibility that they may have buried deposits, but not even enough evidence to justify a test pit (though we’ve put a few in over the years and generally don’t see anything besides lithics in the first 10 cm—to complicate it more, most of the area has been cultivated or chained, or both!). Dykmann’s primary argument, though, is that we can’t call them Unknown Aboriginal and Not Eligible simply because, in his book, we could technically do obsidian hydration on every site. I guess he wants them all Eligible. Problem is, we’ve got documentation of burns over almost the entire Vernon unit, and no doubt, of course, that there have been fires prehistorically as well.
So what do you think? I’m not hugely familiar with obsidian dating, but I know fire can reset the clock. If we don’t have buried deposits (particularly because things have been so disturbed historically) deep enough that the obsidian has been protected, could we ever really trust hydration dates? And is it even remotely worth dating little scatters that don’t even have diagnostic points? Obviously, part of the issue has been solved with Dykmann’s retirement, although maybe Seddon will have a problem, too, but I’m looking to finish up these forms and write an article or two on the prehistory of Rush Valley one of these days and it’d help to have a solid grounding on eligibility. It’s a neat little microcosmic world out there, with some cool patterns, so the report really deserves to be published.
Any thoughts are appreciated. Apologies to any anti-CRM among us who take horror at the thought of being reduced to discussing National Register status. =)
8 comments:
Jim is full of crap on this one. It doesn't really matter if you could date the obsidian or not. By his logic, every site with any obsidian would be eligible. That makes no sense at all.
Sounds to me that this is just part of his trend of wanting to call everything eligible -- and he's looking for any excuse to do so. On some level, the logic makes some sense. Eligibility gives a site added protection. But he's out of hand with it.
Your boss should tell him to go to hell. If it's in the forest, it's none of his business anyway. As for me, if I've got huge lithic scatters spread out along a creek bed, I'm thinking there are buried deposits. You don't put that much debitage down without at least lighting a lot of fires. Are the sites eligible, could go either way, might be better to err on the side of eligible.
PS: Are you telling me that Seddon is the new compliance archaeologist? When the H did this happen? If so, who is the new PI of the SLC SWCA office?
PPS: Seddon is all about the obsidian hydration (see the Kern River II report). It was a gallant try, but I doubt the results.
Thanks Chris. Dykmann's officially been retired since September but in actuality I think they only picked Seddon up a little bit ago. I haven't actually heard who picked up SWCA yet, but hope it's someone palatable.
Charmaine more or less HAS told Dykmann to go to hell, but they had a professional agreement not to talk about the fact, so I think that's been part of the delay in sending the things.
I agree that there should be features out on those things, we've just had zero luck finding them. My sense is that Char. and I would both like to make calls based more on the presence of diagnostics or, in a few cases on sheer size, and have the freedom to make the comparatively small sites without diagnostics Not Eligible. But we try to keep things happy between the Forest and SHPO.
Freakin' politics getting in the way as usual.
Seddon jumping ship is a bizarre move. I can't imagine that the compliance gig pays better than the previous job. Unless he's a control freak or something, I can only figure that he's positioning himself to become State Archaeologist when KJ retires or steps down.
An interesting development, but Matt seems like a good guy. It will probably be good for the Fremont anyway.
It seems more than shallow shovel tests would have to be done to verify buried deposits. Can you guys take on a 1 x 1 or something of the sort to get a better idea for what is down below, or is it too hard to determine where to dig seeing that there has been so much disturbance with the topsoil? If there really is so much obsidian, you would think it would be somewhat eligible. But who am I to say?
The whole National Register eligibility system is broken. Right now you can make almost ANY site eligible. Even though the standard says it has to contribute significant new knowledge (or something like that). So billions and billions (image Carl Sagan saying this) of sites get nominated and less than 1% will ever be even seriously considered. And yet anything nominated is afforded full protection, which…..of course only means that people have to consider it before they destroy it. I agree with Thomas King here, the system is broken and needs to be fixed. Massive reorganization
All politics and eligibility aside, lithic scatters that lack diagnostics raise an interesting question (in my mind).
Ultimately, it seems like getting a date or evidence of depth is the first step to determining eligibility.
Would flake size and material preference help in at least suggesting an age for the scatter? In other words, if it is a paleo or archaic scatter would the debitage be larger?
I don't know how this could be determined, and I know it is not the best solution to the issue. I wonder however, if flake size, mode of reduction, or material preference could at least suggest the age of a site.
Dave, you had some experience with this when you were deep into the North Creek test pits. Of course, you had the luxury of cultural depth and radio carbon dates, but if I remember correctly, there were some changes in the type of debitage you were pulling out. No BJ or MPW coming out of the paleo/archaic was there?
To be honest, I don't remember...but you raise an interesting point. If you're working in an area where generally the early stuff is nasty big clunkly stuff, but the late is smaller and more fine, would you be justified in using ratio's of debitage (like pressure flakes vs. primary or secondary flakes) to assign age? I'm not sure but I think its worth thinking about and I'm sure you could come up with some tests for it. Take a sample of sites where you do have some dates and compare the debitage ratio's. We date site based on the finished lithic tools, why not the byproducts produced in creating those same tools? Interesting.
Hasn't Geib done something with this? Maybe in Glen Canyon Revisited or the Kaibarowits Report?
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