Date Thesis Awarded
5-2012
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Arts (BA)
Department
Anthropology
Advisor
Martin D. Gallivan
Committee Members
Michael Kelley
Neil L. Norman
Abstract
This materials characterization study of ceramics from an archaeological site in coastal Virginia is designed to produce information concerning Tidewater Algonquian exchange patterns during the Woodland Period (1000 BCE -- 1600 CE). X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF), which uses X-ray technology to determine the chemical make-up of a sample, allows the comparison of the elemental composition of ceramics from the Kiskiak site to the composition of ceramics from other sites and of clay sources throughout Virginia. Changes in the proportion of local to non-local ceramics over time provide evidence critical for evaluating which of two competing models most aptly describes exchange systems during the transition to agriculture and sedentism in the Chesapeake. This analysis links methods drawn from physics, chemistry, and geology to questions concerning Native social histories and is an example of archaeometric approaches rarely employed in the Chesapeake.
Recommended Citation
Brown, Alexandria Elizabeth, "Exchange Patterns in the Woodland-Period Chesapeake: An XRF Study" (2012). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 461.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/461
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Comments
Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.