An ethnopalynological test of task-specific area analysis: Bay View Stable, Cataumet, Massachusetts

Abstract

Palynologists seeking evidence of patterns in human plant use among the pollen spectra of archaeological site floors operate on the assumption that the pollen of economic plants is deposited at the locations of undertakings involving these plants in quantities significantly exceeding the amounts of the same pollen types in the background pollen component. This assumption has never been questioned in the literature, even though it has not been tested. Researchers are, however, uncertain about the extent to which floor deposits of economic pollen are affected by later human activities. Pollen profiles from three functionally distinct bays in the cellar of a New England livestock barn that was actively used for at least 40 years were analyzed to examine economic pollen deposition and dispersal. The data from this test indicate that the pollen of economic plants is deposited in distinctive quantities where the plants were used and that these pollen deposits are not significantly diffused by subsequent human activity. The data also suggest that pollen concentrations per unit of matrix will assist in defining active surfaces within archaeological floor zones.