Comparative Archaeology Database, University of Pittsburgh
URL: http://www.cadb.pitt.edu
Email: cadb@pitt.edu

Mesitas Recent Period Household Dataset
Francisco E. Romano-Gómez

Chipped Stone Inventory

The data files CHIPPEDSTONE.TXT and CHIPPEDSTONE.XLS provide counts for chipped stone artifacts (by material and tool type) recovered during excavations at the Mesitas community. CHIPPEDSTONE.TXT is a comma delimited ASCII text file; CHIPPEDSTONE.XLS contains the same data in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. Each line in the ASCII represents one artifact (or several artifacts made of the same raw material that all come from the same excavation unit and level). There are 1571 lines, each with 24 variables separated by commas. The variables are listed in the following order:

1 Household number.
2 Excavation unit. The number of the excavation unit (grid square) that the artifact came from.
3 Level. The arbitrary stratigraphic level that the artifact came from:
A=0-10cm
B=10-20cm
C=20-30cm
D=30-40cm
4 Artifacts belong to a feature. 1 = yes.
5 Additional feature notes.
6 Artifact is made of obsidian. 1 = yes.
7 Artifact is made of chert. 1 = yes.
8 Artifact is made of slate. 1 = yes.
9 Artifact is made of quartz. 1 = yes.
10 Artifact is made of basalt. 1 = yes.
11 Artifact is made of andesite. 1 = yes.
12 Artifact is made of rhyolites. 1 = yes.
13 Artifact is made of chalcedony. 1 = yes.
14 Material the artifact is made of if none of the above.
15 Number of core fragments.
16 Number of scraper fragments.
17 Number of knife fragments.
18 Number of notched scraper fragments.
19 Number of drill fragments.
20 Number of spokeshave fragments.
21 Number of hammer fragments.
22 Number of multifunctional tool fragments.
23 Number of debitage fragments.
24 Number of adze fragments.

The first line of the ASCII text file, for example, looks like this:

HH1,001,A,,,,1,,,,,,,,,,1,,,,,,,

This means that the artifacts come from household 1, excavation unit 001, level A (0-10 cm). There is 1 knife fragment made of chert.

The last, or 1571st line of the ASCII text file is:

HH10,675,A,,,,,,,,1,,,,,,,,,,,,1,

This means that the artifacts come from household 10, excavation unit 675, level A (0-10 cm). There is 1 debitage fragment made of andesite.

Download the file CHIPPEDSTONE.TXT (53 KB) or the file CHIPPEDSTONE.XLS (179 KB).


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