Basketry, cordage, and perishable artifact manufacture at Bonneville Estates Rockshelter: Diachronic technological variation

Gendered Crafts in the Great Salt Lake Desert: A Comparative Analysis of Late Holocene Cordage and Coiled Basketry

“…Cordage potentially used for nets in this analysis and others (Connolly et al 2017) reveal a regional craft conformity in the material used, number of plies, and diameters, as well as technological-stylistic traits. When compared with a previous diachronic analysis of BER cordage, these trends were evidently maintained since the early Holocene (after ~10,500 cal BP; Coe 2021), potentially indicating a continuous local population of hunter-gatherers. The regional fine cordage craft conformity is contrasted with the relative diversity of basketry manufacturing styles.…”

“…A value of chaîne opératoire is its potential to inform on craft traditions and intersections between boundaries and economic and social scales of identity. Here, chaîne opératoire is a series of decision-making stages, including resource acquisition, preparation, construction, and use/repair (Coe 2021), which for perishable artifacts are reconstructed from observations by ethnobotanists, ethnographers, historians, and Indigenous artisans in the Desert West and California (Anderson 2005; Chamberlin 1911; Dean et al 2004; Dick-Bissonnette 2003; Farmer 2012; Fowler 2000; Fulkerson 1995; Kelly 1932; Rhode 2002; Steward 1938; Weltfish 1932; Wheat 1967). Because basketry and cordage are constructed additively, each component may reflect decisions made by artisans when creating an object, revealing cultural patterning.…”

“…These decisions are exhibited through technological-stylistic traits, associated with motor habits acquired through enculturation (Lechtman 1977; Lemonnier 1986; McBrinn 2008), and the manufacturing process ( chaîne opératoire ) of artifacts may be a distinguishing characteristic of social groups and learning processes, potentially informing on gender, rank, or familial identity. For the present study, defining an attribute that is essential to the utilitarian application of the artifact to subsistence and/or associated with decisions made within an enculturative context is a quantifiable way to integrate statistical measures to compare site function and craft traditions (Coe 2021).…”

“…In reality, the observed patterning likely reflects a combination of synchronic and diachronic behaviors. The lack of diachronic change in fine cordage potentially used for netting when compared regionally (Coe 2021) shows a conservativeness in how the tool was manufactured through the historic period (Fowler and Matley 1979; Malouf 1940). Netting's status as a gendered artifact class must also be considered as part of this restriction, as should the feminine-gendered status of basketry playing some part in the accepted diversity of basket manufacturing styles regionally and diachronically.…”

“…Netting's status as a gendered artifact class must also be considered as part of this restriction, as should the feminine-gendered status of basketry playing some part in the accepted diversity of basket manufacturing styles regionally and diachronically. There is likely contemporaneous variability in basketry manufacturing traits—such as work direction, work surface, and foundation types—as is observed in the well-dated BER assemblage (Coe 2021), and simultaneously, some shifts in the ways that baskets were made over time. Parching trays and nets are reported across the Desert West throughout the Holocene, and both tools are associated with a communal subsistence strategy.…”