University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 12-2013 Issues of Commingling Within the Gold Mine Site (16RI13) Collection: Adult Human Humeri and Tibiae Kinsey Brett Stewart University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Part of the Biological and Physical Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Stewart, Kinsey Brett, "Issues of Commingling Within the Gold Mine Site (16RI13) Collection: Adult Human Humeri and Tibiae. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2013. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/2643 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Kinsey Brett Stewart entitled "Issues of Commingling Within the Gold Mine Site (16RI13) Collection: Adult Human Humeri and Tibiae." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in Anthropology. Dawnie W. Steadman, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: David Anderson, Amy Z. Mundorff Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Issues of Commingling Within the Gold Mine Site (16RI13) Collection: Adult Human Humeri and Tibiae A Thesis Presented for the Master of Arts Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Kinsey Brett Stewart December 2013 Copyright © 2013 by Kinsey Stewart All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION To the people of Gold Mine, long-parted, and the donors of the William M. Bass Skeletal Collection, on whose bones I learned the infinite curiosities of the human body. In death you have taught me much, and it is my hope that this work can pass those teachings on to others. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thanks and eternal gratitude to my family for all of their assistance, patience, good humor, and love. To my thesis advisor, Dr. Dawnie Steadman, who introduced me to the Gold Mine Site Collection and provided the equipment and laboratory space used in this research. Without her guidance throughout the evolution of this thesis I might still have been wandering through territories unknown. To all of the department members who provided consultation and guidance, but particularly the members of my committee: Dr. Amy Mundorff, for her inspirational work in how to best process and catalog large assemblages of human remains, and Dr. Dave Anderson—who indulged the more decomposition-oriented aspects of my bioanthropological research interests as well as provided moral, cultural, and nutritional support—for his insights on prehistoric archaeology and cultural development in the American Southeast. With special consideration to Dr. Brad Adams for his advice on applying many of the analytical methods used in this thesis, and to Dr. Chip McGimsey for his generous loan of the Gold Mine Site Collection. Without his invaluable and remarkable efforts in reconstructing the history of the Gold Mine, its excavation, and all associated documents and collections, this thesis would not have been possible. iv ABSTRACT Gold Mine (16RI13) is a Troyville ossuary mound site (circa CE 825) in northeastern Louisiana. Approximately 10-20% of the primary mound (Mound A) was excavated over the course of three field seasons (1978-1980), yielding a host of human skeletal remains. Extensively commingled secondary burials make up the majority of interments. The number of individuals represented within the collection (N) has been estimated at 150+ (McGimsey 2004:214), but attempts to quantitatively determine N have produced varied results. Formal analysis of the skeletal collection is complicated by the loss of provenience for many remains as well as additional post-excavation fragmentation and commingling. Adult humeral and tibial material was selected for study and extensively documented, including observations on pathology and instances of animal modification, resulting in the production of the Gold Mine Site (16RI13) Adult Humerus and Tibia Photographic Catalog. In order to quantitatively determine N, visual pair-matching (VPM) was attempted for both humeri and tibiae; osteometric analysis could not be performed due to the lack of a comparable reference sample, but osteometric data were taken using a combination of the standard Forensic Database Measurements and supplementary measurements for fragmentary remains (Byrd and Adams 2003). The humerus VPM sample (MNI=53) proved inadequate for visual pair- matching due to the high degree of intra- and interobserver error. The less fragmentary and more morphologically distinct tibia VPM sample (MNI=38; author’s MLNI=65, r=48.48%, CI=50-88) produced more statistically-validated results. Pathologies were observed in over one third of all tibial elements, including multiple cases of anterior bowing (saber shin) possibly linked to treponemal infections. MNI and MLNI for the adult tibiae was lower than previously reported for adult femora (Lans 2011), suggesting differential treatment of the tibia at Gold Mine that restricted its representation within the recovered assemblage. Study of animal modification also yielded new insights into mortuary behaviors at Gold Mine; multiple cases of rodent gnawing consistent with gray squirrel gnawing patterns indicate that skeletal remains were left exposed to the elements for a minimum of 12-30 months prior to final interment within the mound. v PREFACE Technical Note: On Terminology All of the individual osteological items pulled from the Gold Mine Site Collection for use in this thesis—be they a solitary fragment or a whole, intact bone—are referred to as “elements”. This is in accordance with the terminology used in previous research with the collection, whereby any number or other non- numeric identifier meant to distinguish one whole bone or fragmentary bone from another was designated as its “element number”. In order to avoid confusion with the use of “element” to designate a specific bone within the human body as a generalized concept as opposed to a whole or fragmented piece of bone from a specific individual, groups of humeri, tibiae, crania, etc. are referred to either by their anatomical name or “skeletal elements”, collectively. In common usage “bone”—when not in reference to osteological tissue in general—tends to carry with it a presumption of uniqueness. The body is composed of multiple bones, and each of those bones may respectively fracture into pieces. To refer to each of those pieces on their own as bones as opposed to elements would therefore imply that each originated from a separate individual. In order to avoid this implied inaccuracy, the term “bone” as an identifier is reserved for those cases where it has been previously established that none of the other left or right humeral or tibial material being discussed could have originated from the same individual. By this criteria, all of the components of the various visual pair-matching samples—all of which share a common identifying feature—might be referred to as bones, while all of the components of the humeral and tibial assemblages in total—which do not always share those same features—may not. These distinctions may seem superficial, but they allow for a more precise distinction between the total number of elements and the total number of distinct bones (and therefore, distinct individuals) represented within this thesis and its accompanying catalogs and data sets. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL INFORMATION 1 Background 1 1.1.1 The Gold Mine Site (16RI13) 1 1.1.2 The Gold Mine Site Collection 5 Research Focus 7 1.2.1 Research Aim 7 1.2.2 Research Objectives 8 Value of Research 8 Research Approach 10 CHAPTER II: GOLD MINE SITE AND REGIONAL HISTORY 12 Introduction 12 Baytown Period and Troyville Culture 14 Gold Mine Site Excavation and Collection Curation History 17 Reconstructing Life and Death at Gold Mine 22 2.2.1 Mortuary Practices 22 2.2.2 Health and Diet 26 Conclusion 28 CHAPTER III: DETERMINING N 29 Introduction 29 MNI and MLNI 29 3.1.1 MNI 29 3.1.2 LI and MLNI 31 Osteometric Sorting 33 Other Approaches 34 3.3.1 Supplementary Osteometrics for Fragmentary Remains 35 3.3.2 Spatial Analysis 36 3.3.3 Quantitative Algorithms 36 3.3.4 M 37 Previous Attempts to Determine N Using the Gold Mine Site Collection 39 Conclusion 42 CHAPTER IV: MATERIALS AND METHODS 44 Introduction 44 Sample Selection 44 4.1.1 Selection of Humerus and Tibia 44 4.1.2 Preliminary Survey 46 4.1.3 Sampling Criteria 47 4.1.4 Reassociating Fragments 48 Database and Catalog Construction 50 4.2.1 Data Recorded 50 4.2.2 Treatment of Reassociated Elements 52 4.2.3 Photograph Parameters 53 vii Determining N 54 4.3.1 Sample Selection 54 4.3.2 Visual Pair-Matching 59 4.3.3 Osteometric Analysis 62 4.3.4 Determining N: Final Methodology 63 Conclusion: Limitations of Methodology 67 CHAPTER V: RESULTS 69 Introduction 69 Gold Mine (16RI13) Adult Humerus and Tibia Photographic Catalog 70 5.1.1 Catalog Organization 70 5.1.2 Juvenile Elements in the Catalog 72 5.1.3 General Condition