A Spatial Distribution Analysis of Lithic Artifacts from a Late Archaic-Middle Woodland Site, The County Home Site (33AT40), Athens County, Ohio

The Neolithic Revolution was a period of shifting economic behaviors from hunting and gathering to a growing emphasis on plant domesticate subsistence.The County Home site (33AT40) of the Hocking River Valley in southeast Ohio yielded data relating to behaviors associated with this transition as evidenced by archaeobotanical remains, structural features, and cooking features.The present functional analysis investigates the spatial distribution of lithic artifacts from the County Home site to understand behavioral trends correlated with increased sedentism and the temporal origins of intra-site organization.The study macroscopically analyzes 1,323 chipped stone and 161groundstone artifacts within their spatial, functional, and temporal contexts to distinguish work spaces.Previous work involving lithic artifacts emphasized their complementarity in confirming sedentary behavior, although not as a stand-alone indicator.Workspace zonation, as represented by lithic distribution, is found to be a precursor to sedentism in this specific microenvironment.