Wickiup Site Structure: A Comparison of Aboriginal Wooden Features from the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau

My thesis will explore the site structure patterns of perishable aboriginal residential features, ie. wickiups. Site structure refers to the spatial organization of activities and their subsequent artifacts within a site and can be extremely useful in illuminating behaviors. Wickiups are temporary housing configurations likely used throughout much of prehistory, but today we are left with only a small remaining sample that has yet to disintegrate. This contemporary sample can be used as a proxy for older structures that no longer remain on the ground\u27s surface. My thesis will specifically target the patterns seen between nonperishable artifacts (ex. stone tools) left in the site, and perishable artifacts (ex. wood and brush structures). The relationship between these two has historically been difficult for anthropologists to analyze due to the lack of perishable items left in archaeological sites. My thesis will address this problem by refining the current body of knowledge regarding spatial relationships within sites and increasing the precision with which we can seek out archaeological sites