Reconstructing Identity in the Bonneville Basin: Holocene-Aged Cordage and Coiled Basketry from the Eastern Great Basin

Abstract

This dissertation examines perishable artifacts to contribute to current studies on the multi-scalar identity of past people, and the flexibility and situational qualities of social organization in prehistoric populations in the eastern Great Basin, western North America. I take both a diachronic and synchronic view of technological variability in perishable artifacts of the Bonneville Basin in the eastern Great Basin to compare the role of the environment on prehistoric forager subsistence strategies and other social processes. I apply a chaîne opératoire approach of studying technological organization to explore the manufacture and use of artifacts in a holistic and quantifiable way, which reflects overlapping gendered-tasks in a prehistoric community, and the significance of perishable artifacts in the daily lives of Great Basin people. This dissertation is divided into two analyses which seek to characterize variability through time and across the region, followed by an application of these data to tests models of technological change in the region. First, I present an analysis of cordage, coiled basketry, and cordage manufacturing debris from the entire assemblage at Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, spanning 13,000 years of human prehistory. This study shows variability over time in the type of perishable artifacts constructed at the site and the ways cordage and basketry were manufactured and used, particularly in the late Holocene. Some of this variability indicates site occupants’ reactions to fluctuations in climate, but likely is also influenced by changing craft traditions throughout the Holocene. Second, I present an analysis of curated cordage and coiled basketry from nine additional cave and rockshelter sites in the Bonneville Basin temporally assigned to the late Holocene, within the last 4,400 years of the region’s prehistory. Comparing the technological organization of these artifacts using simple statistics indicates variability of site function across the region. This study provides further support for basketry craft reorganization in the late Holocene, but it also indicates a maintenance of netting manufacturing methods diachronically and regionally. This analysis also reinforces the value of reanalyzing curated collections. Comparing patterns over time with patterns across a culturally-shared region during the late Holocene provides a way to explore theoretical approaches to mechanisms of culture change in the region, as well as to test previous models developed to explain observed trends in behavior and demographics. Although all sites in this study are associated with flexible subsistence strategies including seed processing and small-game hunting, I propose that the variability in technological-stylistic traits in late Holocene basketry is a result of diverse populations of women marrying into a stable, craft-conservative population of men. This practice in the late Holocene is potentially reflective of increased contact with diverse populations of people on the foraging and farming spectrum of subsistence. This dissertation demonstrates the informative value of perishable artifacts in reconstructing complex subsistence practices as well as dynamic scales of identity in prehistoric populations.