Courtney D. Lakevold
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Space and Social Structure in the A.D. 13th Century Occupation of Promontory Cave 1, Utah by Courtney D. Lakevold A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Anthropology University of Alberta © Courtney D. Lakevold, 2017 ABSTRACT Promontory Cave 1, located on the north shore of Great Salt Lake in northern Utah, has yielded many extraordinary archaeological artifacts that are amazingly well-preserved. Promontory phase deposits in Cave 1 are extremely thick, and rich with perishables and other material culture. Bison bones, fur, leather and hide processing artifacts have been recovered at the site, in addition to gaming pieces, basketry, pottery, juniper bark for bedding, knife handles, ceramics and moccasins. A large central hearth area, pictograph panels, pathways and entrance and exit routes have also been identified. Bayesian modeling from AMS dates indicates a high probability that the cave was occupied for one or two human generations over a 20-50 year interval (A.D. 1240-1290). Excavations have taken place at the cave from 2011-2014 by an interdisciplinary research team with members from the University of Alberta (Institute of Prairie Archaeology), the Natural History Museum of Utah (NHMU), Oxford, the Desert Research Institute and Brigham Young University. The extraordinary preservation and narrow time frame (A.D. 1240-1290) for the occupation of Promontory Cave 1 on Great Salt Lake allow for unusual insights into the demography of its Promontory Culture inhabitants. This thesis looks at the cave as a humanly inhabited space and examines what the Promontory Culture group may have looked like in terms of population size and group composition, and how they used or organized space in the cave. This is accomplished by combining accurate data on the livable space in Cave 1 with calculated space needs per person from ethnographic accounts of Western North American hunter-gatherer groups in order to estimate likely group size. These data, combined with work done with by Billinger and Ives (2015) on moccasin data from the cave (indicating age and stature of the inhabitants), allow insights into group composition. ii Space in the cave is analyzed using space syntax analysis and soundscapes, and common patterns of spatial organization of built dwellings of Western North American hunter-gatherer groups are compared to areas of cultural deposition and excavation data from the cave. Models of how the space may have been used are presented. In addition, defensibility of several sites located on Promontory Point are calculated and compared to defensible sites on the Northwest Coast and in the Fraser Canyon area of British Columbia. I argue that the three Promontory Culture sites located on Promontory Point are highly defensible. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my family – thank you for your unconditional love and support. I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. John (Jack) Ives, for taking me on as a graduate student and giving me the opportunity to work on the Promontory project. It has been an invaluable and amazing experience that I will carry with me for the rest of my life and career. Thank you for your support and guidance throughout this process and for your patience as I juggled a full time job, life, and thesis writing. To my IPA cohort – thank you for being there to listen and to run ideas by, for providing support and guidance when needed, for your comic relief and visits to the pub. Having the support and understanding of good friends has made all the difference. And, thanks to Todd for including me in your NWT adventures! Thank you to George and Kumeroa Chournos for your kindness, generosity, warmth, and for your willingness to share such a special place with us. Thank you also to the Brigham Young University crew of Dr. Joel Janetski, Lindsay Johannson and Katie Richards for a great field season and for showing us Canadians the ropes down in Utah. Thanks also to Scott Ure for assistance with the 3D point cloud data. I must also thank Dr. Sally Rice and Conor Snoek for their help with the acoustic testing in Cave 1. Many thanks to my thesis committee: Dr. Kisha Supernant, Dr. Robert Losey, and Dr. Ruth Gruhn, for your comments, feedback and support. Kisha has also provided mentorship, guidance, and TA opportunities throughout this process and for that I am grateful. In addition to all of that, she is also a wonderful role model! I am grateful to John Kristensen who provided valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this thesis. Others that kindly provided assistance throughout this process include Pierre Boulanger (University of Alberta), Dr. David McGee (M.I.T.) and R. Kyle Bocinsky (Washington State University). Thank you to the Baikal–Hokkaido Archaeology Project for use of their 3D modeling software and for the opportunity to attend the Leica 3D scanner workshop. Special thanks to Erin Jessup for accommodating me. Funding for this research was provided in part by the Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research (QEII Scholarship) and Dr. John Ives’ SSHRC Insight Grant 435-2012-0140 (Apachean Origins: New Explorations of the Canadian Heritage of A. D. 13th Century Dene at Promontory Point, Utah) and Landrex Distinguished Professorship. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..........................................................................................................................................iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................................................. v LIST OF TABLES...................................................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF PLATES ......................................................................................................................................................... x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUND ..................................................................................................................................... 4 2.1 Region...................................................................................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Environmental History............................................................................................................................................. 8 2.3 Regional Culture History ....................................................................................................................................... 21 2.4 Promontory Cave 1 ................................................................................................................................................ 30 2.5 Other Promontory Culture Research ...................................................................................................................... 40 2.6 Chapter Summary .................................................................................................................................................. 43 CHAPTER 3THEORETICAL APPROACH .............................................................................................................. 44 3.1 Theories of Space and Place .................................................................................................................................. 44 3.2 Space Syntax Theory ............................................................................................................................................. 46 3.3 Anthropological Theory......................................................................................................................................... 52 3.4 Ethnographic Analogy in Archaeological Research .............................................................................................. 56 3.5 3D Modeling and Its Uses in Archaeology ............................................................................................................ 58 3.6 Archaeoacoustics ................................................................................................................................................... 60 3.7 Chapter Summary .................................................................................................................................................. 62 CHAPTER 4 USE OF SPACE AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE: ...................................................................................... WESTERN NORTH AMERICAN HUNTER-GATHERER GROUPS ..................................................................... 63 4.1 Group Hierarchies .................................................................................................................................................. 64 4.2 Group Sizes ..........................................................................................................................................................