Abstracts Category : Other

Contextualizing ???Aqnipis: An Archaeological Approach to Identifying Basket Production Locales in South Central California

by Allison Hill

The organization of production for coiled baskets, or ???aqnipis as they have been called by the Chumash, is not well understood in California archaeology. In this context, organization refers to the scheduling and location of manufacture within the craft production system. In this thesis, I seek to determine if the stages of coiled basket manufacture can be observed in the archaeological record, and if so, to identify the distribution of production locales across the cultural landscape. To accomplish this, a predictive model for basket production organization in California hunter-gatherer groups was developed. As a means to evaluate the model, four distinct archaeological sites in the Emigdiano Chumash territory were analyzed to identify evidence for the different stages of coiled basket manufacture. The basket production assemblages at each site were contextualized within regional site use strategies to identify patterns of organization. Results suggest that evidence for basket production can be observed in the archaeological record. Interpreted through the lens of taskscape, it appears that women scheduled the different stages of basket production around primary subsistence tasks that occurred at different locations throughout the seasonal round, engaging in basket manufacture across the cultural landscape.Advisors/Committee Members: Des Lauriers, Matthew R (advisor), Costin, Cathy L (committee member).