University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2016 A Comparison Of Shovel Testing And Surface Collection As Archaeological Site Discovery Methods: A Case Study Using Mississippian Farmsteads Cameron Smith Howell University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Howell, Cameron Smith, "A Comparison Of Shovel Testing And Surface Collection As Archaeological Site Discovery Methods: A Case Study Using Mississippian Farmsteads" (2016). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 337. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/337 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A COMPARISON OF SHOVEL TESTING AND SURFACE COLLECTION AS ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE DISCOVERY METHODS: A CASE STUDY USING MISSISSIPPIAN FARMSTEADS A Thesis presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology The University of Mississippi By CAMERON SMITH HOWELL May 2016 Copyright Cameron Smith Howell 2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT Shovel testing and controlled surface collection are common methods of archaeological site investigation that are generally approved by state and federal agencies as well as the academic community for cultural resource management projects and research. While both techniques are equally utilized, little research has been conducted on how equivalent these techniques are in terms of their efficacy for finding site. This thesis seeks to find a way to compare these techniques by creating Mathematical Models to describe how well the methods behave when tested on known datasets generated from Mississippian period farmsteads. The predicted performance can then be compared to real world results of investigations. A discussion then follows on the implications for treating the investigation techniques as equivalent and recommendations are made to adjust for survey efficacy bias in future research designs. ii DEDICATION For my parents Harold and Harriet Howell and especially my son, Rowan Howell. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It has been a long, arduous journey, but I have finally made it. I could not have done it without the help of a number of people and institutions. Dr. Jay Johnson and my committee members Robbie Ethridge and Matthew Murray have shown extreme patience and a continued willingness to work with me, which was essential to me being able to finish and not having to start all over again. I would likely still be working on it in the next lifetime, if that were the case. To them I owe a big debt of thanks for helping push this through. Thanks also go to the numerous people who provided reports as well as the state historic preservation offices in Mississippi and Georgia. Mark Williams allowed me to quickly dive through their nascent site database and pull out reports. Janet Rafferty and Evan Peacock provided reports which greatly helped to add to the database for Mississippi, as did Jay Johnson from his own surveys in the area. I am thankful for the fieldwork done by graduate students at Alabama whose work provided almost all of the information on the Black Warrior River Valley. An underlying goal of this thesis was to learn statistical techniques and geographic modeling. I had the benefit of great teachers who helped me achieve this goal through their patient instruction: my father Harold Howell for ideas on how to model geometrically the surface collection model, Dr. Henrique Momme for spatial analysis, Jay Johnson for basic statistical reasoning, and the University of South Carolina’s Drs. John Grego and Brian Habing for more intricate statistical understanding. iv Along the way I had a great deal of involvement from a number of helpful ears and oftentimes bewildered readers who provided editorial commentary and positive feedback which makes all the difference for creating the energy necessary to finish this kind of task: Leoma Gilley for editorial comments on organizing life and the thesis, Linda Christensen for positive reinforcement and life outlook, my mother Harriet Howell for help on graphically illustrating the Mathematical Models, and Rachel Black for editorial feedback. Finally, the energy and unwavering belief in me by my family and friends made all the difference, and I count myself as being especially blessed and privileged to have had their love and support. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... ix LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... xi 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 1 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................... 11 2.1 Bias ................................................................................................................................. 12 2.2 History of Archaeological Methods and Theory of Site Discovery ............................... 15 2.3 Regulation and Development of Cultural Resource Management ................................. 27 3 DATA ................................................................................................................................... 36 3.1 Mississippian Farmsteads ............................................................................................... 36 3.2 Database ......................................................................................................................... 42 3.3 Major Database Regions ................................................................................................ 52 3.3.1 Piedmont ................................................................................................................. 52 vi 3.3.2 Black Warrior River Valley .................................................................................... 53 3.3.3 Black Prairie............................................................................................................ 55 3.4 Analytical Units.............................................................................................................. 56 4 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................... 61 4.1 Real World Data Model ................................................................................................. 62 4.2 Mathematical Model ...................................................................................................... 64 4.2.1 Site Detection .......................................................................................................... 66 4.2.2 Site Metrics: Size and Density ................................................................................ 70 4.2.3 Surface Collection Model ....................................................................................... 72 4.2.4 Shovel Testing Model ............................................................................................. 74 4.3 Site Modeling ................................................................................................................. 76 4.4 Testing Significance ....................................................................................................... 78 5 RESULTS ............................................................................................................................. 81 5.1 Real World Modeling Results ........................................................................................ 82 5.2 Mathematical Model Results .......................................................................................... 89 5.3 Regional Differences and Implications based on the Mathematical Model ................. 100 5.4 Comparing the Real World Model to the Mathematical Model................................... 104 5.5 Results Discussion........................................................................................................ 112 vii 5.6 Effects of Survey Bias on Discovery of Significant/National Register Eligible Sites . 113 5.7 Methods for Achieving Surface Collection and stp Detection Probability Parity ....... 118 5.8 Making the Settlement Data Between Regions Comparable ....................................... 122 5.9 Issues, Concerns, and Future Directions Generated by the Use of the Database ......... 125 5.10 Mathematical Model Reliability ............................................................................... 125 5.11 Results Summary .....................................................................................................