ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses the locations of all features and irtifacts on the preceramic living floors at Guila Naquitz. He considers the distributions of the much more numerous plant remains, animal bones, and flint debitage across those same living floors. But on a cave living floor, maguey quids are the expectorated refuse of a meal; a knot in plant fiber may represent the remains of a torn rabbit snare; and a discarded basket may be the wornout container in which Setaria seeds were winnowed. This reinforces conviction that activity areas on a living floor must be defined not on the basis of the functions for which the items were originally manufactured, but on the basis of the subsequent activities that got them left behind on the floor. Men and women also may have eaten at the same hearth in the cave, discarding their food debris in similar ways. Such communal activity could reduce the evidence for spatial partitioning.
