Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Evaluating The Analytical Contribution Of 1/8-Inch (0.32 Centimeter) Lithic Debitage At The Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit Site (45pi408), David R. Davis

All Master's Theses

Due to a relatively recent trend toward universal use of screens with ⅛-inch (0.32 cm) mesh-sized openings, archaeologists in the Pacific Northwest have expressed concerns regarding the overall utility of collection and analysis of 0.32 cm (⅛-inch) mesh-sized lithic debitage. Recovering and analyzing these small-sized artifacts is a time-intensive endeavor that adds costs to fieldwork and laboratory tasks. The information potential from attribute analysis of 0.32 cm (⅛-inch) mesh-sized lithic debitage when a site’s lithic assemblage consists of mainly debitage is largely missing from the programmatic literature. The Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit Site (45PI408), located on the slopes of Mount …

The Origin Of Dark Mats At The Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit Site (45pi408) Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, Sean Stcherbinine

All Master's Theses

The Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit Site is a precontact archaeological site located in the upland forest soils of Mount Rainier National Park. Site stratigraphy is complicated, consisting of tephra deposits from mostly known origins that are intercalated with dark sediments of unknown origin, referred to here as dark mats. Precontact occupation has been split previously into two components based on the ambiguous depositional history of the dark mats, notably their unknown parent material, depositional environment, and relationship with adjacent tephra strata. Stratigraphic samples from excavation units, features, and one off-site excavation unit was used to investigate these data gaps. Grain …

Toward A Scientific Approach To Significant Assessments Of Prehistoric Achaeological Properties At Mount Rainier National Park, Nicholas James Smith

All Master's Theses

Managing prehistoric archaeological properties at Mount Rainier National Park (MORA) is challenging. The prehistoric archaeological record is not well known, a myriad of geomorphologic processes are at work from minute to catastrophic, and until recently, archaeologists largely ignored stratovolcanoes in the Pacific Northwest. They, therefore, lack the local and regional contexts to evaluate many kinds of prehistoric archaeological properties at MORA in terms of their data potential.

Once thought to be of scarce data potential (cf. Boxberger 1998; Burtchard 1998; Daugherty 1963; Grabert and Pint 1978; Mierendorf et al. 1998; Smith 1964a; Zweifel and Reid 1991), the montane environments of …