Mississippi State University Scholars Junction Theses and Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 8-9-2019 Sourcing bifaces from the Alexander Collection at Poverty Point (16WC5) using VNIR (Visible/Near-infrared Reflectance) and FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Reflectance) spectroscopy Simon P. Sherman III Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/td Recommended Citation Sherman, Simon P. III, "Sourcing bifaces from the Alexander Collection at Poverty Point (16WC5) using VNIR (Visible/Near-infrared Reflectance) and FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Reflectance) spectroscopy" (2019). Theses and Dissertations. 3999. https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/td/3999 This Graduate Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Scholars Junction. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholars Junction. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Template B v4.0 (beta): Created by L. Threet 2/5/19 Sourcing bifaces from the Alexander Collection at Poverty Point (16WC5) using VNIR (Visible/Near-infrared Reflectance) and FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Reflectance) spectroscopy By TITLE PAGE Simon P. Sherman III A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Mississippi State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Applied Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures Mississippi State, Mississippi August 2019 Copyright by COPYRIGHT PAGE Simon P. Sherman III 2019 Sourcing bifaces from the Alexander Collection at Poverty Point (16WC5) using VNIR (Visible/Near-infrared Reflectance) and FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Reflectance) spectroscopy By APPROVAL PAGE Simon P. Sherman III Approved: ____________________________________ Darcy Shane Miller (Major Professor) ____________________________________ Evan Peacock (Committee Member) ____________________________________ James W. Hardin (Committee Member) ____________________________________ Diana M. Greenlee (Committee Member) ____________________________________ Ryan M. Parish (Committee Member) ____________________________________ David M. Hoffman (Graduate Coordinator) ____________________________________ Rick Travis Dean College of Arts & Sciences Name: Simon P. Sherman III ABSTRACT Date of Degree: August 9, 2019 Institution: Mississippi State University Major Field: Applied Anthropology Major Professor: Darcy Shane Miller Title of Study: Sourcing bifaces from the Alexander Collection at Poverty Point (16WC5) using VNIR (Visible/Near-infrared Reflectance) and FTIR (Fourier Transform InfraredReflectance) spectroscopy Pages in Study: 86 Candidate for Degree of Master of Arts Poverty Point is a monumental earthwork center dating to the Late Archaic Period (ca. 3700-3100 Cal BP). The site is well known for its diverse collection of foreign lithic materials indicative of a wide-ranging acquisition network. Among the extra-local items recovered from the site are lithic raw materials that were used for bifaces in the form of projectile points and/or knives (PP/Ks). Here, I determined the atomic and molecular composition of 847 bifaces from the Alexander Collection using Visible/Near-Infrared Reflectance (VNIR) and Fourier- Transform Infrared Reflectance (FTIR) spectroscopy. The combined wavelength spectra datasets were compared to a raw material database to determine the location of the parent formations from which the raw materials were obtained. The PP/K raw materials analyzed were sourced to outcrops stretching across the Southeast, Mid-South and Mid-West. DEDICATION For Mom and Dad…Thank you for your sacrifices ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to the Poverty Point Station Archaeology Program (University of Louisiana-Monroe) and the Louisiana Office of State Parks for granting me access to the materials, especially Diana Greenlee and Alisha Wright, and to Ryan Parish from the University of Memphis, for his help in “zapping” the materials. The suggestions and comments made by Drs. Evan Peacock and Diana Greenlee on earlier versions of this work were extremely insightful. Appreciation for their contributions to this document, and for their guidance more generally throughout my graduate student experience cannot be overemphasized. I want to thank my advisor, Dr. Shane Miller for his essential input on this project, especially with realization of certain statistical techniques and his ArcMap expertise. My deepest appreciation is for his service on my Graduate Committee and as a mentor. To the faculty, staff and graduate students of Mississippi State University, and especially to the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures (AMEC), I want to express my sincerest gratitude. Finally, I want to thank my Mother, Father, and my Shiba Inu (Baby Dirl) for their love and support over the last two-and-a- half years. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ................................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................1 II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ...................................................................................5 Poverty Point: An Overview .............................................................................................5 Previous Fieldwork ............................................................................................................8 Lithic Raw Materials at Poverty Point ............................................................................10 Exotic Materials at Poverty Point ....................................................................................14 Poverty Point Models: Site Origin and Function ............................................................16 Hypotheses ......................................................................................................................19 III. MATERIALS AND METHODS ....................................................................................21 VNIR and FTIR spectroscopy .........................................................................................24 Description of the Raw Materials ....................................................................................30 Bangor .......................................................................................................................31 Bigby Cannon ............................................................................................................31 Brassfield ...................................................................................................................32 Burlington ..................................................................................................................32 Dover (Lower St. Louis) ............................................................................................32 Fort Payne ..................................................................................................................33 Kaolin .......................................................................................................................33 Knife River Flint ........................................................................................................34 Novaculite ..................................................................................................................34 Ste Genevieve ............................................................................................................34 Tallahatta Quartzite ...................................................................................................35 Tuscaloosa Gravel Chert ...........................................................................................35 Upland Complex Gravels (Citronelle) .......................................................................36 Upper St. Louis ..........................................................................................................36 iv Warsaw ......................................................................................................................37 Statistical Analysis ..........................................................................................................37 IV. RESULTS ........................................................................................................................40 V. DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................................45 VI. CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................49 Future Directions .............................................................................................................50 REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................53 APPENDIX A. MASTER EXCEL SPREADSHEET