ASM Occasional Electronic Papers No. 1: Homol'ovi IV

Chapter Ten:
Flaked Stone

E. Charles Adams

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A sample consisting of 1971 flaked stone artifacts from Homol'ovi IV was analyzed in order to understand the development of lithic technology during the site's occupation. This sample is compared to the Homol'ovi III flaked stone analysis by Lisa C. Young (Young 2001) and the Homol'ovi II flaked stone analysis (Lyons and Pitblado 1996) to provide a better context for the analysis of such a small assemblage. It is estimated that the 1971 artifacts represents approximately a 30% sample of the flaked stone collected during the 1989 field season. This compares to over 35,000 artifacts analyzed by Young from Homol'ovi III and nearly 14,000 artifacts from Homol'ovi II (Lyons and Pitblado 1996:table 11.1; Young 2001:table 10.2). In addition, the Homol'ovi IV sample is strongly skewed toward plaza contexts, which account for 79.8% of the analyzed sample (Tables 10.1 and 10.2). Only structure 301 contained more than 100 flaked stone artifacts and structure 201 was the only structure with more than 50 artifacts (Table 10.1). Consequently, discussions of lithic patterns comparing structures will be kept to a minimum. Given that sampling in the village was done randomly, discussion of village-wide trends can be effectively presented (Tables 10.1-10.3). Additionally, the 22 projectile points will be discussed in terms of local and regional patterns (Table 10.4 and 10.5).

Table 10.1 Distribution of material types by structure

	Structure
Material	0	2	4	5	201	301	404	TOTAL
Chert	768	8	24	19	39	107	4	969
Chalcedony	58	1		2	1	9		71
Quartzite	446	7	11	12	18	60	3	557
Igneous	13		1	3	4	8		29
Petrified Wood	223	1	3	6	6	35	1	275
Obsidian	7							7
Other	58		1	1		3		63
TOTAL	1573	17	40	43	68	222	8	1971

Table 10.2 Artifact type by structure

	Structure
Artifact Type	0	2	4	5	201	301	404	TOTAL
Edge-Damaged Piece	102	1	1	1		2		107
Scraper	11							11
Other Retouched Piece	48		4	1	1	10		64
Flake Core	21		1		1	4		27
Core	284		3	7	4	32	1	331
Chopper	13							13
Projectile Point	21					1		22
Biface	7	1						8
Drill	9							9
Wedge						1		1
Core/Retouched Piece	3							3
Whole Flake	185	2	3	11	7	31	1	240
Broken Flake	174	4	6	11	15	36	1	247
Split Flake	124		4	3	5	22	1	159
Flake Fragment	187	1	7	3	12	28	3	241
Other	23		1		1	6		31
Pecking Stone	46	2	1		7	7		63
Hammer Stone	41	3		1	3			48
Angular Debris	175	2	6	4	10	29		226
Burned Angular Debris	55	1	3		1	5		65
Hammerstone Spall	44			1	1	8	1	55
TOTAL	1573	17	40	43	68	222	8	1971

Table 10.3 Artifact type by material type

Artifact Type	Chert	Chalcedony	Quartzite	Igneous	Petrified Wood	Obsidian	Other	TOTAL
Edge-Damaged Flake	88	3	3		13			107
Scraper	8		2		1			11
Other Retouched Piece	48	1	8		6		1	64
Flake Core	18	1	6		2			27
Core	249		52		26		4	331
Chopper	3		10					13
Projectile Point	14	2			2	4		22
Biface	6		1		1			8
Drill	8				1			9
Wedge	1							1
Core / Retouched Piece	2					1		3
Whole Flake	98	12	73	6	41	1	9	240
Broken Flake	96	16	67	7	53	1	7	247
Split Flake	75	7	49		23		5	159
Flake Fragment	94	14	69	5	47		12	241
Other	11		12	2	4		2	31
Peckingstone	12		48	2			1	63
Hammerstone	7		35	1			5	48
Angular Debris	84	15	65	3	47		12	226
Angular Debris with Evidence of Burning	34		23	1	4		3	65
Hammerstone Spall	13		34	2	4		2	55
TOTAL	969	71	557	29	276	7	63	1971

Table 10.4 Distribution of projectile point types by structure

	Structure
Projectile Point Type	0	301	TOTAL
Undifferentiated	1		1
Triangular Flat	1		1
Side-notched flat	9		9
Side-notched Concave	2		2
Triangular Concave	5	1	6
Undifferentiated Ceramic Period	3		3
TOTAL	21	1	22

Table 10.5 Distribution of projectile point types by material type

	Material
Projectile Point Type	Chert	Obsidian	TOTAL
Undifferentiated	1		1
Triangular Flat	1		1
Side-notched flat	6	3	9
Side-notched concave	2		2
Triangular concave	6		6
Undifferentiated Ceramic Period	2	1	3
TOTAL	18	4	22

Methods of Analysis

Analysis of the Homol'ovi IV flaked stone assemblage was undertaken in two stages, just as with the analysis of flaked stone from other Homol'ovi sites. The initial stage of analysis is called inventory. Artifact type and raw material type are recorded for all artifacts during this stage. During this stage all artifacts are divided into core, complete flake, split flake, broken flake, flake fragment, debris, burned, and spall. The second stage of analysis is called in-depth analysis and includes recording a much larger suite of attributes for tools and edge-damaged artifacts that were included in the inventory stage of analysis.

Raw Material Categories

Tables 10.1 and 10.3 differentiate the assemblage by material category within structures and by artifact type. Of the 1971 flaked stone artifacts, almost half (49.1%) are chert. The next highest category at 28.3% is quartzite followed by petrified wood at 14.0%. Chalcedony and petrified wood trail at 3.6% and 0.4% respectively. The other category includes artifacts too burned to identify material type accurately. Chalcedony and petrified wood are subtypes of chert based on color, translucency, and patterning. Much of the chalcedony may have derived from petrified wood, but was too small to determine its origin.

The chert, quartzite, and possibly the petrified wood and chalcedony, were obtained locally. Natural cobbles of chert and quartzite, probably remnants from the Shinarump Formation (Kolbe 1991), cover the landscape in the region. Even today, the foot of the Homol'ovi IV butte is strewn with cobbles perfectly suitable for raw material. Petrified wood occurs naturally within 3 km of Homol'ovi IV, but much of it is not cryptocrystalline quality, which is typical in the Petrified Forest National Park 50 miles east of Homol'ovi IV. Because so much of the local petrified wood has been removed historically, it is uncertain if raw material sources for the Homol'ovi IV assemblage are local or imported from the east.

The igneous artifacts are probably from the gravels in and around the Little Colorado River derived either from volcanic fields north and south of Homol'ovi IV or from ancient gravels of the Shinarump Formation. The source of the obsidian is probably Government Mountain, south and west of the San Francisco Peaks, about 75 miles west of Homol'ovi IV. Sourcing of obsidian from Homol'ovi III revealed 96% came from Government Mountain (Harry 1989). The black, opaque character of the pieces at Homol'ovi IV are traits of this source. The fact that four of the seven obsidian artifacts are projectile points and a fifth is retouched suggests obsidian was imported to Homol'ovi IV as finished artifacts rather than as raw material. This is in contrast to the Homol'ovi III assemblage where 5.6% of the 35,000 artifacts are obsidian and the Homol'ovi II assemblage where 3.9% of 14,000 artifacts are obsidian, including debris and flake fragments. These frequencies and the distribution of obsidian in all the debitage categories suggests obsidian was imported as raw material and worked into tools at the respective sites. Obsidian was probably not obtained directly from the source, but was imported through exchange with Sinagua communities on Anderson Mesa (Bernardini and Brown 2004; Harry 1989).

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