Aaron Fergusson and Dr. Joel C. Janetski, Anthropology

During BYU’s 1995 field school many artifacts were brought back to BYU for analysis, including the important data set of toolstone artifacts and debris. At Fish Lake the sites excavated date from the Archaic (F7 area), Fremont (Mickeys Place), and Late Prehistoric (F14 area) time periods, each representing a different way of life. The Archaic and the Late Prehistoric time periods in the Great Basin are defined as representing a hunter/gatherer way of life. These were highly mobile, or residentially mobile groups and occupied a series of residential camps seasonally. The Fremont period 1 represents a horticultural way of life. These people were logistically mobile, able to move around, but confined to an area immediately surrounding their permanent residence. The analysis was done by myself, David DeBry2, and Cindy Eccles3 and included categorizing both tools and debris by material and the amount of modification and wear present. This made possible the identification of different technologies used in the productions of chipped stone tools.

Because if the inconsistency of analysis by three different analysts, the data on the technological differences between the time periods is as yet inconclusive. I assumed that I would be able to see that the highly residential mobile groups would have used bifaces as cores. With this technology there would be a higher incidence of utilized or modified flakes that would be discarded after little use. The low residentially mobile groups would have had more bifaces that were used as long use-life tools because of the scarcity of material. These ideas would have fit right into the model proposed by Kelly, and I suspect that with careful, consistent analysis this model would apply here.4

The material analysis of both the formal tools and the debitage did show a few large differences between the high residentially mobile groups and the low residentially mobile groups. Materials were classified by both the geologic classifications of chert, obsidian, quartzite, silicified volcanic materials etc. as well as varying colors and relative translucent qualities of chert. The first and most obvious difference is that the Fremont appeared to use much more obsidian (OB) than even the other two time periods combined. All the obsidian from all time periods at Fish Lake was sourced and presented by Paul Adams to have come from either the Mineral Mountains or from the Blackrock volcanic flow.5 Both of these sources are between sixty and sixty five miles from Fish Lake.

The Archaic and the Late Prehistoric also shared a few other similarities which the Fremont lacked. Both had similar percentages of CR, CG, and DC, as well as having QU where the Fremont had none. While no percentages were equal for all time periods, using Rochelle Lurie’s model it is obvious that there are differences in the toolstone used for different time periods.1 I propose that this fits with what would be expected with changing life styles, The Fremont used more obsidian for tools than any other material, as well as more obsidian than the preceding and following time periods. This means that for whatever reasons, the Fremont had greater access to obsidian that the others even though they were more restricted because of their horticultural lifestyle.

References

• Laurie, Rochelle. 1989. Lithic Technology and Mobility Strategies: the Koster Site Middle Archaic. In Time, Energv, and Stone Tools, edited
  by Robin Torrence, pp. 46-56. New Directions in Archaeology, Cambridge University Press.
• DeBry, David. 1996. Chipped Stone Tools at 42Sv2304–Fish Lake Utah.
• Eccles, Cindy. 1996. Chipped Stone Tools ad Debitage Analysis of Excavation Area 2.
• Kelly, Robert L. 1988. Three Sides of a Biface. American Antiquity 53:717-733.
• Adams, Paul. 1996. Fish Lake Obsidian Analysis.