SEAC 2011 Draft 10/30/11

An Examination of Correlations between Archaeofauna and "Elite" Ceramics

Carla S. Hadden

Introduction Bayou St. John (1BA21) in Orange Beach, AL, is a predominantly Late Woodland (Weeden Island) site situated at the edge of the Bayou St. John estuary. In 2004, a portion of the site was excavated by Dr. Gregory Waselkov of the University of South Alabama, Center for Archaeological Studies. The site was stripped to reveal hundreds of small, discrete features, which are interpreted as single depositional events. These features might approximate natural analytical units, representing snapshots of past human behaviors with minimal effects of spatiotemporal averaging. Using data from 13 of these features, I hoped to identify correlations between the ceramic, vertebrate, and mollusk assemblages that might shed light on the relationship between status and subsistence along the Weeden Island Gulf Coast. A sacred/secular division of ceramic types has been long-recognized amongst Weeden Island archaeological assemblages (Sears 1973; Kohler 1978; Milanich 1994:186; Milanich 1997; Russo et al. 2006). Elite or prestige pottery types have been defined Weeden Island Incised, Weeden Island Punctate, Weeden Island Red, and Weeden Island Zoned Red. Presumably, these types were available to elite-status individuals. These types are not restricted to mound or burial contexts, however, suggesting that any special functions they may have served were carried out in both sacred and secular locations. Utilitarian wares, consisting of plain-bodied or relatively crude designs (e.g., Weeden Island Plain, Wakulla Check Stamped, Carrabelle Punctate), were probably used for everyday cooking and storage. (Mortuary vessels, a third type of Weeden Island pottery, were not found in any of the analyzed features therefore will not be discussed further). An analogous model for a sacred/secular division of food resources might define elite diet on the basis of rarity, assuming again that elite individuals had access to scarce goods. According to this model, an elite diet might be composed of taxa that are least abundant in

nature, or least abundant in the archaeological record. If we accept this definition, then we might expect these presumably high-status foods to have a positive correlation with presumably highstatus pottery. Alternatively, if we accept that elite pottery was owned by elite individuals, taxa most closely correlated with elitewares might inform our concept of the elite diet. My goal was to test these models by testing for correlations between faunal and ceramic assemblages.

Methods I compiled a database of 13 Late Woodland features (Appendix 1) from the Bayou St. John site. For each feature, data on weights of the vertebrate, mollusk, and ceramic assemblage were recordeds. Initial vertebrate, mollusk, and ceramic analyses were conducted by multiple researchers among three institutions, and identifications were subsequently verified by the author. Vertebrate faunal remains larger than 3.175 mm were identified to the lowest possible taxonomic level based on morphological similarities to modern specimens in the zooarchaeological comparative collection housed at the Georgia Museum of Natural History (Orr 2007, 2009). Two additional vertebrate assemblages were identified by researchers at the University of Tennessee Knoxville (Baker and Klippel 2009). Because the total biomass decreases with each successive increase of trophic levels, the proportion of predators serves as a proxy for abundance in nature. Trophic levels (TLs) for all vertebrate taxa were determined from the literature (especially FishBase.org). For each feature, the weight of all taxa for which TL > 4 (predators) was summed. Taxa with low regional ubiquity (present in less than 30% of coastal Weeden Island sites, summarized by Orr [2009], were similarly summed by feature. Lastly, vertebrate data were quantified according to the categories: Total Vertebrate, Fish, Bird, Reptile, Total Mammal, and Deer. Molluskan fauna were identified at the Center for Archaeological Studies at the University of South Alabama (Stieber et al. 2009). Material larger than 25.4 mm were counted and weighed by taxon. Material smaller than 25.4 mm was visually scanned for taxonomically identifiable fragments and small individuals, and the remainder was quantified as mollusk. These data were entered in the database as Oyster and Total Mollusk, although non-mollusk invertebrates were present in the assemblage in low frequencies.

Ceramic analyses were conducted at the Center for Archaeological Studies and initially focused on potsherds larger than 12.7 mm, identifying decorative types (as well as rim and lip treatments for a subset of the assemblage) on the basis of well-established typologies (especially Willey 's [1949] classic, Archaeology of the Florida Gulf Coast). Weights were entered in the database for Total Pottery, Plain, Sherdlet (<12.7 mm), WI Incised, WI Punctate, WI Red, WI Zone Red, Wakulla Check Stamp, and Other, a catch-all "non-elite" decorative class. Data were also aggregated by feature for Total Elite (WI Incised, Punctate, Red, and Zoned Red) and Total Non-elite (Plain, Wakulla, and Other types). To address the issue of quality of ceramic vessels, the assemblage was additionally sorted according to subjective determinations of quality of ceramic body and execution of design, and weights of High Quality and Low Quality ceramics were recorded for each feature. Because of differences in sub-sampling methods employed by each of the various researchers, comparisons of relative rather than absolute weights were necessary: faunal categories were translated into proportions of total vertebrate or invertebrate fauna, accordingly, and ceramic categories were expressed as proportions of total pottery weight (including sherdlets). Spearmans rank correlation coefficient () is a non-parametric test of correlation based on the ranks of the observations, with values ranging from -1, a perfect negative monotonic correlation, to +1 , a perfect positive monotonic correlation. Variables with no monotonic correlation have 0. Because the Spearman correlation test is scale-independent, assumes only that the data were randomly sampled, and is less sensitive to outliers than parametric tests, this conservative approach should identify only very strong correlations. I conducted a total of 99 pair-wise Spearman correlation tests (Table 1) using the statistical software package R. In all tests, the null hypothesis was no correlation between variables. When statistically significant correlations (P-value .05) were identified, a linear regression model was fitted to the data and goodness of fit was assessed.

Results In total, approximately 2,900 grams of vertebrate faunal remains, 6,500 grams of mollusk remains, and 5,400 grams of pottery from thirteen discrete features were included in this analysis.

Three models for elite diet (high proportions of predators, low-ubiquity taxa, and deer) were tested against the null hypothesis of no monotonic correlation with proportion of elite pottery by weight. Although all three models showed a negative correlation with elite ceramics (Figure 1), none of the results were statistically significant thus the null hypothesis was accepted. Of the remaining 96 correlation tests, only three had statistically significant results (Figure 2). Total pottery (in grams) tends to decrease as proportion of fish increases (= -.57, Pvalue = .05). A linear regression model of total pottery as a function of proportion of fish accounts for approximately 37% of the variability in total pottery, but patterned increases in the fit of the model as proportion of fish increases suggests that variance is not equally distributed around along the regression line, an assumption of linear regression models. As such, a linear model does not accurately quantify the relationship between percent fish and total pottery. Percent oyster has a statistically significant positive monotonic correlation to percent elite ceramics (= .57, P-value= .04). A linear regression fitted to the data accounts for 51% of the variability of percent elite as a function of percent oyster. Visually, this appears to be a pretty good fit (Figure 2), however the variance increases along the x-axis suggesting the data may not satisfy the assumptions of a linear model. Lastly, percent oyster has a statistically significant positive monotonic correlation to percent WI Incised ceramics (= .59, P-value= .03). Approximately 48% of the variation in percent WI Incised is explained as a linear function of percent oyster. Again, the residuals appear to increase along the x-axis thus the goodness of fit is quite low.

Discussion and Conclusions Of a total of 99 tests of correlation, only three were statistically significant at =.05. Because the Spearman correlation test is non-parametric, it has reduced power relative to parametric tests. In other words, you are more likely to accept a null hypothesis which is false when using non-parametric tests. This is particularly true when either sample sizes or effect sizes (the strengths of the correlations) are small. Increasing the number of features included in the analysis would likely result in more and possibly stronger correlations. Attempting a parametric test on this particular dataset, however, would likely lead to spurious correlations. On the other hand, by choosing a very conservative analytical route one can be assured that the correlations that were revealed are both scientifically and statistically significant. In

regards to elite pottery and faunal remains, percent oyster is positively correlated to both percent WI Incised and percent elite. Since the majority of elite pottery is in fact WI Incised, the positive correlations in Figure 2 are essentially identical distributions, thus the only unequivocal correlation is that between oyster and WI Incised pottery. What does the correlation between oyster and WI Incised pottery mean? Because elite pottery types are found in both mound and village contexts throughout the culture area, Milanich (1994) suggested that activities using these vessels occurred in both locations. One possibility is that WI Incised ceramics were utilized during the preparation or consumption of ritual feasts, consisting of locally abundant, easy to collect, and easy to prepare foods: oysters. More generally, perhaps some WI Incised vessels were made to function as tools for collecting, processing, or serving oysters. Clearly human behavior is not a linear function of x and y, especially when the single best model accounted for only 50% of the variability within a single variable. As the database grows, I will be able to incorporate more parameters and more rigorous tests of relationships, which may reveal more and better patterns within the multiple interacting facets of human behavior.

Table 1. Summary of P-values of pair-wise Spearman correlation tests. Statistically significant correlations bolded with an asterisk (=.05). Bolded values (no asterisk) significant at =.10. Groupings Mean (g) Total Pottery (g) 415 Elite1 35 WI Incised 23 WI Punc 8 Nonelite2 362 Wakulla CS 149 WI Plain 180 High qual3 66 Low qual4 110

P-values from pair-wise correlation tests7 Total Fauna (g) Total Vert Fish Bird Reptile Mammal Deer High TL5 Low ubiq.6 Total Invert Oyster
1 3

732 225 194 <1 1 17 7 11 <1 507 169

.95 .49 .05 * .41 .10 .48 .88 .12 .93 .51 .62

.99 .74 .36 .73 .62 .11 .17 .50 .14 .74 .04*

.84 .34 .52 .41 .19 .09 .07 .52 .07 .34 .03*

0.59 .10 .21 .44 .13 .06 .15 .95 .36 .10 .78

.78 .81 .10 .52 .13 .09 .25 .88 .58 .81 .72

.65 .19 .11 .28 .12 .77 .42 .09 .70 .19 .25

.99 .58 .62 .16 .76 .12 .07 .98 .98 .58 .07

.18 .60 .94 .90 .79 .17 .28 .64 .40 .60 .29

.56 .95 .08 .48 .63 .13 .78 .85 .63 .95 .71

Elite = Weeden Island Incised + WI Punctate + WI Red + WI Zoned Red; 2 Non-elite = Wakulla Check Stamped + WI Plain + Other decorated High qual = Potsherds with fine ceramic body, finely executed design; 4 Low qual= Potsherds with coarse ceramic body, poorly executed design 5 High TL = All vertebrate fauna of trophic level > 4 ; 6 Low ubiq = All vertebrate fauna with 12-site ubiquity index <0.3 7 Except where noted otherwise, P-values based on percent of grouping out of its (Vertebrate, Invertebrate, or Ceramic) assemblage.

Figure 1. Results of Spearman correlation tests and linear regressions of percent elite pottery as a function of hypothesized high-status foods.

Figure 2. Statistically significant results of 99 Spearman correlation tests and linear regressions.

References Cited

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Willey, Gordon R. 1998 [1949] Archaeology of the Florida Gulf Coast. University Presses of Florida, Gainesville.