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Occupancy and the Use of Household Space Among the Dukha.

Archaeologists commonly encounter the occupation surfaces of ephemeral prehistoric houses. Within those spaces, artifacts can exhibit considerable spatial structure raising the question of what that structure can tell us about human behavior. We explore a simple site-formation model in which househo...

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Published in:Ethnoarchaeology Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 1 - 16
Main Authors: Haas, Randall, Surovell, Todd, O’Brien, Matthew
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd Apr2018
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        19442890
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      dt: Apr2018
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      pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd
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        10.1080/19442890.2018.1440510
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        atl: Occupancy and the Use of Household Space Among the Dukha.
      aug:
        au:
          Haas, Randall
          Surovell, Todd
          O’Brien, Matthew
        affil:
          Department of Anthropology, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA
          Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA
          Department of Anthropology, California State University, Chico, CA, USA
      sug:
      keyword:
        Dukha
        houses
        lithics
        mobile societies
        Mongolia
        Occupancy
        spatial analysis
        Taiga
      ab: Archaeologists commonly encounter the occupation surfaces of ephemeral prehistoric houses. Within those spaces, artifacts can exhibit considerable spatial structure raising the question of what that structure can tell us about human behavior. We explore a simple site-formation model in which household <italic>occupancy</italic>, defined here as the average number of individuals who simultaneously occupy a house, positively predicts artifact dispersion. We confront the model with ethnographic observations on the use of space in 19 houses inhabited by Dukha reindeer herders of the Mongolian Taiga. The analysis shows that average occupancy predicts dispersion in the use of household space but that systemic noise, sampling error, and event mixing are likely to overwhelm the behavioral signal. Other factors may therefore be equally or more important in driving the spatial dispersion of household artifacts. The study further suggests an analytical framework for exploring relationships between behavior and archaeological structure using ethnoarchaeological data.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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          year: 2018
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