Linking ethnoarchaeological interpretation and archaeological data: the sensitivity of spatial analytical methods to postdepositional disturbance

We examine the extent to which archaeological techniques of spatial analysis produced satisfactory results when applied to an ethnographically recorded hunter-gatherer site, and we explore the degree to which useful results can be obtained after simulated disturbance of the site. Yellen's ethnoarchaeological study of !Kung sites in Botswana was selected to provide the basis for this investigation, Yellen's data were selected because we were curious to test the validity of our quantitative methods of spatial analysis with ethnoarchaeological data. This chapter is a portion of a larger study in which we analyzed a series of Yellen's camps; here we present a synopsis of three components of our inquiry using his Camp 14. First is a quantitative spatial analysis of the material distributions recorded for Camp 14. Second we simulate the transformation of this ethnographic camp into three "archaeological sites.' Third, we analyze each simulated archaeological site using the same techniques we had used for analyzing the undisturbed ethnographic data, and we compare the results with those of the original analysis. -from Authors