ABSTRACT

This chapter attempts to develop the techniques for interpreting economic data from the analysis of the artifactual material of prehistoric societies. There are curiously high percentages for beaver and rodent incisors at Read and Indian Knoll, and an equally curious dearth of such items at the other sites, with the data for Barrett and Ward inadequate for reliable interpretation of the occurrence of incisors. One item of interest that was noted during the checking of the data on the associations of Marginella and Olivella is that none of them has been reported with adults. Data on disc-shell beads at Indian Knoll, the only site with adequate counts for age groups, differ somewhat from the preceding pattern, but again show that pre-adolescents were also receiving their share of these artifacts. All of the quantitative data on copper, large shell artifacts, and disc-shell beads point to the same obvious fact.