Geological processes and site structure: Assessing integrity at a late Paleolithic open-air site in northern France

Abstract

The difficulty of reading the archaeological record of caves and rock shelters is becoming increasingly obvious to Paleolithic researchers. Although some open-air sites are thought to avoid such taphonomic complications, interpreting their archaeological record is less straight-forward than assumed. Postdepositional processes may obscure structure in configurations of features and artifacts. Recently developed techniques for the excavation and analysis of Paleolithic cave sites can be applied to open-air sites before spatial patterning is interpreted for inferences about prehistoric social organization. Analysis of the orientation of elongated artifacts on the occupation surface of the late Upper Paleolithic site of Verberie, France, is employed for evaluation of the integrity of site structure. Results indicate spatial structure largely undisturbed by geological processes. The lack of disturbance in the configuration of archaeological materials allows for a behavioral interpretation of those remains. The proposition that Verberie was a hunting campsite for initial carcass processing is supported. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.