University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Anthropology Department Theses and Dissertations Anthropology, Department of 11-2019 An Analysis of Ground Stone from the Basketmaker Communities Project in Montezuma County, Southwest Colorado Anna R. Dempsey Alves University of Nebraska - Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/anthrotheses Part of the Anthropology Commons, and the Indigenous Studies Commons Dempsey Alves, Anna R., "An Analysis of Ground Stone from the Basketmaker Communities Project in Montezuma County, Southwest Colorado" (2019). Anthropology Department Theses and Dissertations. 59. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/anthrotheses/59 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Anthropology, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthropology Department Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. AN ANALYSIS OF GROUND STONE FROM THE BASKETMAKER COMMUNITIES PROJECT IN MONTEZUMA COUNTY, SOUTHWEST COLORADO by Anna R. Dempsey Alves A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts Major: Anthropology Under the Supervision of Professor Carrie C. Heitman Lincoln, Nebraska November, 2019 AN ANALYSIS OF GROUND STONE FROM THE BASKETMAKER COMMUNITIES PROJECT IN MONTEZUMA COUNTY, SOUTHWEST COLORADO Anna R. Dempsey Alves, M.A. University of Nebraska, 2019 Advisor: Carrie C. Heitman In this thesis, I analyze an assemblage of ground stone tools, including manos and metates, from Basketmaker III period (A.D. 500-725) settlements in the central Mesa Verde region of Montezuma County, Colorado. Ground stone is a historically understudied class of artifacts, and the data collection and analysis practices employed for most projects remain subpar, despite the publication of best practices guidelines (Adams 2014). Ground stone informs on critical research topics and must be analyzed to the same degree as other artifact categories. The sites include the Dillard site (5MT10647), an aggregated site with a great kiva, and five surrounding, smaller habitation sites termed hamlets. The Basketmaker Communities Project, conducted by The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, synthesized comparable data from contemporary sites in the region, asking questions about social dynamics at the earliest period of agricultural, sedentary lifeways in this region. Through the ground stone analysis, I gain insight to the production, use, maintenance and discard of ground stone tools and use the differences and similarities between the Dillard site and the hamlets to discern social dynamics at sites of different scales at the period when lifeways were drastically changing for Ancestral Pueblo people in the central Mesa Verde region. The results show that residents of the Dillard site ground in longer, intensive sessions, as indicated by their preference for formal tools and their investment in the use lives of those tools. While individual households ground some of their own product, not every household contained grinding tools. Combined with the presence of a mealing pit room that is closely associated with the great kiva, this indicates that at least some grinding took place above the household level at the Dillard site. Ground stone tools from the hamlets were less formal than those at the Dillard site, and while less comfortable in long grinding sessions, required less time to manufacture and maintain. Because of the smaller population at the hamlet sites, grinding tasks had to be completed in shorter sessions to allow time for other household tasks. The higher grinding efficiency of tools at the hamlets reflect the need to maximize ground product processed in each session. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my thesis committee for their advice and support not only during the process of writing this thesis, but throughout my time at the University. I am immensely grateful to my committee chair, Carrie Heitman, for her support and guidance, and have grown both academically and personally through her mentorship. I thank Phil Geib for teaching me much of what I have learned about lithic analysis and am grateful that my methods and data analysis chapters in particular benefitted from his knowledge and passion. I thank Heather Richards-Rissetto for her comments which greatly improved this thesis, as well as for her enthusiastic support. I am incredibly grateful to have had Kari Schleher as a mentor over the last six years and am especially thankful that she encouraged me to undertake the research project which became this thesis during my internship at Crow Canyon. I could not have completed this thesis without her support. I will always be grateful to Shanna Diederichs for inspiring me as a younger archaeologist when she supervised my field work on the Basketmaker Communities Project. I appreciate the helpful information that she passed on during my thesis writing process. I thank Leigh Cominiello for her help with the pilot study and the research poster we created from it. I am especially grateful to Marlon Magdalena for enthusiastically providing me a statement and photographs to use; his knowledge was an extremely appreciated addition to my introductory chapter. I thank Jenny Adams for her innumerable contributions to the study of ground stone, and for her feedback on my poster and encouragement at the Pecos conference. I am grateful for the mentorship of v Erin Dempsey at the Midwest Archeological Center and for her encouragement to apply to graduate school. I am honored to call Andrea, Jade, June, Olivia and Sara my friends. Being surrounded by such brilliant women has made me both work and laugh harder. I would not be where I am today without the unwavering support of my parents, who never doubted that I would be the archaeologist I have always wanted to be. Thank you for raising me to dream big and work hard. Lastly, I thank my husband, Felipe, for being there with me through it all, talking me through every snag and celebrating every triumph. Eu te amo muito. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv Chapter 1. Introduction and Background .......................................................................... 16 The Importance of Ground Stone Research .......................................................... 16 Ground Stone as a Historically Understudied Artifact Class .................... 16 Ground Stone and Gender ......................................................................... 18 Gender and Groundstone in the Basketmaker III Mesa Verde Region .... 22 The Basketmaker III Period (A.D. 500-725) ........................................................ 23 Basketmaker III Population Growth and the Neolithic Transition ........... 25 Basketmaker Communities Project Background .................................................. 30 The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center ................................................ 30 Indian Camp Ranch................................................................................... 31 Basketmaker Communities Project Research Design and Questions ....... 33 Environment .......................................................................................................... 28 Site Descriptions ................................................................................................... 35 The Switchback Site (5MT2032) .............................................................. 37 Mueller Little House (5MT10631) ........................................................... 40 Portulaca Point (5MT10709) .................................................................... 41 The Ridgeline Site (5MT10711) ............................................................... 43 The TJ Smith Site (5MT10736) ................................................................ 45 The Dillard Site (5MT10647) ................................................................... 47 vii Chapter 2. Methods ........................................................................................................... 55 Adams’s Theoretical Approach to Ground Stone Analysis .................................. 55 Crow Canyon’s Protocol ....................................................................................... 58 Lithic Raw Material Types ....................................................................... 66 Artifact Type Definitions .......................................................................... 61 Artifact Variables and Analytic Procedures ......................................................... 68 Mano Cross-Section .................................................................................. 70 Efficiency and Use Intensity ..................................................................... 72 Chapter 3. Ground Stone Analysis ................................................................................... 74 Overall Assemblage .............................................................................................. 74 Basic Variation of the Sample .................................................................