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CHRIS ROJEK

Culturel
Studies
W 4^' !.€

S H O R T I N T R O D U C T I O N S
Cultural Studies
Polity Short Introduction series

Published

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Michael Bury, Health and Illness
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Cultural Studies

Chris Rojek

polity
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For George and Sue Ritzer, benign hosts of the ‘McDonald’s House’ in
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 Contents

Culture Counts 1
The local and the global 2
Media genre and cultural representation 4
The meaning of culture 5
The culture of 'friendly fire' 7

Doing Cultural Studies 10

Doing Cultural Studies 1: The case of Reality TV 12
Doing Cultural Studies 2: The internet 18
Doing Cultural Studies 3: The mobile phone 21
Multiple modernities 22

Culture is Structured Like aLanguage 24

The imaginary 25
The 3 D's 27

Zeroing in on Culture 29
The origins of Cultural Studies 30
Postwar Cultural Studies 33
Culture is ordinary 37

The Four 'M om ents' in CulturalStudies 39

National-Popular (1956-84) 40
V III CONTENTS

Textual-Representational (1958-95) 48
Globalization/Post-Essentialism (1 9 8 0 -) 55
Governmentality/Policy (1 9 8 5 -) 61
Cultural Studies at the crossroads 66

6 Situating Yourself in Culture 69

Location 70
Embodiment 76
Emplacement 85
Context 92
M odernity and postm odernity 97

7 Cultural Distortion 101

Cultural representation, ideology and hegemony 103
Ideology 104
Cultures are not monolithic 105
Mechanical reproduction and aesthetic culture 106
Imaginary illusion and symbolic fiction 108
Lara Croft/cyborg culture 110

8 Neat Capitalism 115

The emergence of neat capitalism 119
The meaning of neat capitalism 122
Generation X and Y 126
The Body Shop 127
Apple 129
Neat capitalism; the basics 131

9 Neat Publishing 135

Cultural Studies and the anti-establishment 138
The Urbana-Champaign conferences 141
Routledge 143

10 Conclusion: The 'Long March' of the Cultural

Imaginary 151
The market solution 153
 CONTENTS IX

The state solution 154

Another culture 157

Notes 162
References 163
A uthor Index 169
Subject Index 171
 Culture Counts

Every human culture produces general narratives, some based upon

common experience, others upon the selective experience of an elite or
ruling class, expressed as binding and sometimes sacred truths, designed
to achieve solidarity and a shared sense of the past. For every human
society consists of individuals and groups positioned in relations of
unequal access to scarce economic, political, social and cultural resources.
Because of this, those who acquire dominance have developed alliances
and traditions designed to legitimate rule and, upon this basis, have
participated in threading together a web of common rights, justice, truth,
ideals, myths and traditions to protect and advance their interests. Like
all groups they are unable to fully control the consequences of their
actions, even though they typically behave in public as if the opposite is
the case. Strategies and designs that have been planned to enhance their
position often have unintended consequences that return to haunt them
in the course of time.
Since dominant groups are in relations of privilege over other groups,
it follows that their position is directly and indirectly subject to challenge
and contest. Groups that challenge authority develop their own cultures
of resistance and opposition. These are modified through interplay with
dominant groups. Through this perpetual interchange and elaboration
culture grows.
The inevitable consequence of these cultural, social, economic and
political struggles is the assignment of credence to the necessarily partial
views of the powerful in respect of the shared past and the common
interest. Why? Sir John Harrington’s (1561-1612) oft-quoted bon mot
deserves repeating here:
2 CULTURE COUNTS

Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason?

For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

In other words, the acquisition of cultural authority carries with it the

capacity to re-write history and redefine the nature of the present. But
cultural authority is seldom an open and shut case. Cultural interchange
produces unforeseen results and domination means that some groups are
disempowered and marginalized. However, domination and disempow-
erment are never absolute. Even the Muslim prisoners held by the Ameri­
cans at the Abu Ghraib camp, on what many expert international lawyers
regard to be dubious legal grounds, can protest and challenge authority.
One of the heartening lessons to be learned from doing Cultural Studies
is that dominant groups are not all-powerful. They are caught up in the
unintended, unanticipated consequences of intended cultural design like
everyone else. Of course, their capacity to influence these consequences
is typically greater than that of the average person or group. Nonetheless,
they are subject to limitations and constraints especially if their behav­
iour incites public censure or provokes condemnation.

The local and the global

In emphasizing the global reach of contemporary culture it is important

to not get carried away. Culture is always local as well as global.
National and global culture often rub against the conditions of life that
people experience, as it were, ‘on the ground’, in their own local spaces
and traditions. Resistance and opposition are the accessories of cultural
authority, for groups are always positioned differently in relation to
scarce resources and therefore develop various, contrasting traditions of
rights, justice and truth. For this reason they build many types of cultural
solidarity and conflicting ways of reading the past, and engage in fric­
tional ways of interpreting the world.
When it was made public that three of the suicide bombers who
attacked London in 2005 were British and the fourth was Anglo-
Jamaican, it triggered a fusillade of national and international debate.
Why would British Muslims want to murder and maim their own coun­
trymen? The answer, of course, is that the four men identified with a
form of radical Islam that made their nationality, where they lived, their
neighbours and their fellow workers, beside the point. The Arab satellite
broadcasting company A1 Jazeera TV aired a video ‘suicide note’ by the
alleged ringleader of the bombers, Mohammad Sadique Khan. Speaking
 CULTURE COUNTS 3

in a strong Yorkshire accent, the 30-year-old, former teaching assistant,

proactively justified the London bombs by referring to unparticularized
‘crimes against humanity’ perpetrated by Western governments in the
Arab region and the huge wealth of the West in comparison with the
relative poverty of the developing world. In attacking Londoners, Khan
and his fellow suicide bombers saw themselves as striking a blow against
Anglo-American imperialism in Iraq and Palestine. Their self-image was
of righteous religious warriors avenging the oppressed and marginalized
thousands of miles away in the Arabian subcontinent. Yet the constitu­
ency of Islamic people that supported the London suicide bombs is
dubious. Islamic leaders in Britain and other countries quoted from
passages in the Koran to condemn the bombers as criminals rather than
religious warriors.
The number of British Muslims who support the indiscriminate killing
of fellow civilians as a legitimate response to Anglo-American involve­
ment in the post-Saddam reconstruction of Iraq is infinitesimal. Why
then did Khan and his conspirators believe they were acting for either a
larger body of opinion or a greater good, which they hoped to render
manifest by dint of the explosives they triggered on three London under­
ground trains and a bus.^ What makes individuals and groups raised and
nurtured by a host national culture define themselves in diametric oppo­
sition to the values of that culture so that they are prepared to obliterate
themselves and others who have done no wrong against them and who
may, for all they know, share the outlook that they hold and aim to
promulgate?
Similar questions were raised earlier in the USA in the trials of the
Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols and the
Unabomber, Ted Kacynski. McVeigh had served with the American
military in the Gulf War; Kacynski was a former assistant Professor of
Mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley. Both saw them­
selves as American patriots and rejected the US government for, in their
view, having hoodwinked and betrayed the people. They seized on the
American doctrines of individualism and freedom of conscience to justify
kilhng and injuring fellow citizens. In McVeigh’s case, the main motiva­
tion was state spin, and the repression of the right to free speech for
right-wing groups. Kacynski operated with a more complex set of moti­
vations set out in his notorious 35,000-word U nabom ber M anifesto
pubhshed in 1995 in the N ew York Times and the Washington Post.
Here, in measured and rather compelling tones that would have not
disgraced many legitimate, established critics of contemporary culture,
Kacynski set out a condemnation of industrial civilization that centres
4 CULTURE COUNTS

upon its role in destroying the environment, fine-tuning conformity,

spreading misinformation, expanding surveillance powers, producing
ubiquitous sex and violence on television and assigning too much auton­
omy to multinational corporations.

Media genre and cultural representation

Our knowledge of these figures and the events associated with them is
transmitted to us through the media. The media isn’t just an impartial
relayer of news and information. It is a complex multi-corporate/state
network that codes and packages data for public consumption. Different
media organizations such as the BBC, CNN, Fox News, A1 Jazeera TV,
ABC, CBS, The Guardian, the N ew York Times, L e M onde, the Toronto
G lobe & Mail, the L os Angeles Times, the L ondon Evening Standard,
the N ew York Post and The Australian have distinctive styles of report­
ing and addressing audiences. Media genre is not just a question of
presentational style, it also includes questions of relevance, judgements
about the national and international significance of items and the cultural
and political agenda that informs these processes of selection. These
reflect not only national characteristics but also distinctive cultural tradi­
tions of journalism and broadcasting. To this extent, the news, just like
the companies that package and code it for us, is branded.
Among the best rationales for doing Cultural Studies is that it shows
why the human world is very often not what it seems to be and offers a
disciplined way of exposing how communication and representation
serve the interests behind power and manipulation. The common rights,
traditions and truths at our disposal often turn out to be illusions disguis­
ing powerful social interests and complex political devices designed to
achieve comphance. By critically examining them, we discover an intri­
cately staged version of our pooled traditions of truth and justice, and
what frequently turns out to be a mythical version of our shared past.
The metaphor of staging suggests that there is someone or something
behind the deception who wilfully engages in the craft of concealment
and fabrication. To be sure, there can be no doubt that the powerful
engage in systematic distortion to disguise the full range of their might
and the inner nature of their social, political and economic interests. It
would be rash and perverse to discount the formidable nature of their
power. Yet if it is right to describe them as puppeteers, history has a
habit of tying them up in their own strings. The interplay of culture
creates unplanned outcomes that condition the options for intentional
action for all.
 CULTURE COUNTS 5

Myth has certainly been used by the mighty to manipulate and control
ordinary people. But myths have also been developed by ordinary people
to give meaning to complex and bewildering events.
The 9/11 atrocity was so shocking and incompatible with the basic
tenets of Islam that some Muslims responded with the submission that
the CIA had concocted the attacks to throw Islam into disarray. The
devastating tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands in South East Asia
in December 2004 was explained by some conservatives as the punish­
ment of God for human waywardness. Myths have cultural origins and
they are typically elaborated in culture wars.
There are many ways in which this can be investigated in Cultural
Studies. We don’t need to start with abstract concepts like ‘ideology’,
‘hegemony’ or ‘interpellation’ to describe how cultural authority is
imposed; or ‘hybridity’, ‘encoding’ or ‘decoding’ to investigate how cul­
tural authority is contested. As we will see later, these concepts have
their place in the subject. But the root and branch of culture is about
how you and others around you are organized as persons. It is about
why one person believes that free university education is good, and
another insists that students must pay their way; or why Muslims gener­
ally tolerate arranged marriages, while Westerners typically deplore
them. Culture is about brass tacks. It influences our choice of friends,
sexual partners, diet, jobs, leisure activities and many other issues besides.
It explains much about how we live and how we die. Because we experi­
ence culture as individuals it is easy to imagine that our private world is
unique. But culture is public. It is the system of representation through
which we render ourselves unto ourselves and others, as ‘individuals’,
‘unique persons’ and ‘social agents’. By studying it we gain knowledge
of how even the most private experience is culturally enmeshed.

The meaning of culture

The term ‘culture’ derives from the Latin cultura. The original meaning
was agricultural, referring to the practice of tilling the soil, growing crops
and raising animals. Understandably, Cultural Studies has paid scant
attention to this obsolete meaning. Instead, it proceeds on the basis that
the term ‘culture’ today carries dual social meanings having to do with
urban-industrial forms of knowledge and power. Knowledge here is
understood as both concrete ideas about the meaning of culture and
technical ideas about how to communicate meanings to best effect.
Power refers to the unequal distribution of economic, cultural and politi­
cal resources in society, and the changing balance of influence and force
6 CULTURE COUNTS

attached to this state of affairs. Cuhural Studies insists upon conceptual­

izing culture as the intersection of force and resistance. There are many
shared ingredients of popular reality. But much of it is struggled over,
contested and opposed.
The first of the twin meanings in common currency today is evalua­
tive. It refers to culture as the cultivation of mind, taste, manners, artistic
accomplishments and the scientific and intellectual attainments of a
particular people. This meaning is hierarchical since it portrays culture
as the summit of achievement among a body of people. Of course, culture
is something that a social stratum, typically conceptualized as an elite,
or ruling class possesses. The non-elite, usually identified as the mass or
‘the people’, are acknowledged to create cultures of their own. But they
are generally assumed to be inferior, or secondary.
The second meaning is narrative. It refers to the bundle of beliefs,
myths, customs, practices, quirks and the general way of life that is
characteristic of a specific population. This is a descriptive approach to
culture that recounts the ordinary features of life that predominate
among a people. Anthropologists, historians and sociologists have had
the lion’s share in elaborating our understanding of the narrative content
and patterns of culture. But the contribution of Cultural Studies is
increasingly significant, especially through the use of how representation
frames popular reality and the multiple realities of culture revealed
through ethnography and other forms of qualitative research.
Expressed concisely. Cultural Studies has spent much of its history
dismantling the first meaning of culture while simultaneously elucidating
the role of knowledge and power in influencing the second. This sounds
hke a dry business. Yet, ironically, the birth of Cultural Studies was
attended by considerable notoriety. Why was this.^ Above all else, treat­
ing popular culture seriously impacted against the condescension of elite
groups, for the most rarefied of whom, the masses were held to be more
or less incapable of generating worthwhile cultural content or form. To
declare value in forms of resistance in schoohng, to study comics and
cartoon characters as signs of knowledge and power, or to treat media
panics over mugging as a barometrical reading of the crisis in the state
was akin to hurling a mixture of salt and pepper in the face of the estab­
lishment. Even those in the turreted elite of a more liberal ilk bridled at
the application of the term ‘culture’ to describe classroom trouble­
makers, adolescent female consumers of comics and, above all, convicted
young criminals. From their point of view these elements were the antith­
esis of culture, because they posed a threat to the peace of society. What
was needed for them was not understanding or tolerance but a hard.
 CULTURE COUNTS 7

no-nonsense policy consisting of clear rules of behaviour and zero

tolerance.
Notions of ‘peace’ and ‘common sense’ were of course viewed through
elite spectacles, but they were assumed to be universal and self-evident.
In arguing that elite values distorted and manipulated culture, Cultural
Studies was held in some quarters to be an activity bordering on
subversion.
But Cultural Studies actually went further than this. It submitted that
the content and form of culture is moulded by knowledge and power
and is the means not only of controlling and manipulating people, but
also for resisting inequality and domination. By relating questions of
culture to matters of political control and social leadership. Cultural
Studies therefore questioned the prevailing balance of power in society.
More particularly, the authority of elite groups and the relevance of their
characteristic knowledge and power were taken to task. The practice of
Cultural Studies made every received cultural tradition, set of assump­
tions and official explanation of social and cultural reality up for grabs.
Nothing could be treated as sacred or beyond discussion any more.
Indeed, one of the most powerful consequences of Cultural Studies is
that this emphasis upon demystification and deconstruction made every­
thing a legitimate subject for study. Traditional ideas that some cultural
issues were too ‘trivial’ to study were redefined by students of Cultural
Studies as a cause célèbre.

The culture of 'friendly fire'

Consider the case of Corporal Patrick D. Tillman, a member of the US

Army Rangers, who at 27 was killed in an Afghan ravine in April 2004
(see figure 1.1). After his death, Patrick was celebrated in the media as
an all-American hero. He enlisted following the 9/11 attacks, after
turning his back on a lucrative career as a defensive back in the American
National Football League. He was motivated by the example of his
grandfather who served at Pearl Harbor, and a conviction that his
country was imperilled by foreign foes. But on many fronts, the truth
was more complicated.
Initially his death was described as the result of a ‘fire-fight’. It was
not until the publication of the official inquiry, a year later, that the full
facts emerged. Tillman had been killed by ‘friendly fire’ in an act of ‘gross
negligence’, in the words of a US army investigator. He was the victim
of a collapse in ‘situational awareness’ that resulted in two groups of
8 CULTURE COUNTS

Fig. 1.1. Patrick Tillman © AP/EMPICS

American soldiers mistaking one another for the enemy, and discharging
their weapons against each other.
Tillman is an interesting modern American hero. An atheist, an anti­
war activist and an ally of the prominent left-wing critic Noam Chomsky
- he was scheduled to meet Chomsky on his return from Afghanistan - he
nonetheless volunteered to go to war in a cause about which he enter­
tained grave doubts. Perhaps his involvement in the world of American
sports exploited and developed a sort of knee-jerk nationalism in his
personality. Tillman would not be the first or last intelligent young critic
 CULTURE COUNTS 9

of American foreign policy to decide that in the end he was for his
country, right or wrong.
For students of Cultural Studies a number of fascinating questions are
suggested by this incident. What culture of masculinity created Patrick
Tillman? Flow was his close identification with the culture of national
interests engineered? In what ways did he handle his reservations about
the war during his time of service? How are ‘allies’ and ‘enemies’ cultur­
ally coded and recognized? What makes ‘situational awareness’ collapse?
Why did military officials seek to disguise the manner of his death? What
has the anti-war movement done to make an issue of the circ’umstances
of his death?
These questions belong to the sphere of cultural politics, and they are
legitimate, indeed one might say, necessary topics for Cultural Studies.
Why necessary? Because they reveal the public calculus behind ‘private’
choices, the complex intended and unintended forces that present a
truncated view of the past as binding and point to the motivations of
the cultural interests who try to tailor history to fit their own cloth. By
investigating these topics we have the chance of becoming better
acquainted with how meaning is presented and resisted in common
culture. In a word, we stand the chance of becoming better citizens.
Cultural Studies is frontally concerned with political issues. This is
inevitable because individuals and groups are positioned in a set of
unequal relationships with respect to scarce economic, social, cul­
tural and political resources. But there is more to the subject than a
political focus.
 Doing Cultural Studies

I submit that there are four interrelated components of Cultural Studies,

having to do with the observation of culture (genre), the manufacture of
culture (production), the exchange of culture (consumption) and the
contestation of culture (cultural politics). Let us examine them in more
detail.
1 Genre, or the patterning of cultural form and content. What types
of culture do people identify with recognition and belonging.^ How does
Goth culture represent itself? What devices do women’s magazines use
to attract readers? What are the characteristics of House and Techno
culture? How does American Pop Idol differ from its British equivalent?
In what ways do cultures of cuisine signify power and difference? What
do motor racing enthusiasts have in common? How do Chinese tourist
websites represent backpacker experience? How does Afro beat hip hop
differ from Afropean basement and pop? What are the main identifying
features of Eminem’s fan base? What are the characteristics of the gun
lobby in America? Questions of genre address the characteristics of cul­
tural form and content. They enable us to compare and contrast cultural
formations and construct cartographies of cultural difference.
2 Production has to do with the creation of cultural meaning and
the interests behind the presentation of cultural form and content. Why
are people like Patrick Tillman prepared to die for their country? In what
ways do multinationals apply branding to generate desire in consumer
culture? In what ways do the media fan popular consciousness of news
and culture? What cultural meanings are Vodafone, Adidas, Pepsi, Bryl-
creem. Police Sunglasses and Rage Computer and Video Games trying
 DOING CULTURAL STUDIES 11

to connect with consumers by employing David Beckham to endorse

their products? How has Apple Mac sought to use cultural references to
enlarge iPod market share? How do Manchester United or the Chicago
Bears recruit and unite fans? How does the state’s control of licensing
influence cultural behaviour? How do deviant subcultures emerge and
protect their privacy? The topic of production addresses the blueprint
and application of cultural meaning. It examines the means and ends
involved in traditions and projects of cultural reproduction.
3 Consumption refers to the various processes of how cultural mean­
ings are assimilated, by consumers. How are cultural texts exchanged?
What factors influence the assimilation of cultural meaning? What are
the cultural barriers that have to date prevented the e-book from taking
off in consumer culture? How is cultural form and content developed to
signify difference and opposition? What are the various cultural mean­
ings of sunglasses? How does tourist experience of Jamaica coincide with
and differ from the representations of travel brochures? What are the
cultural meanings of Beavis and Butthead or The Osbournes or The
Simpsons} How do audiences subvert cultures of authority? Questions
of reception focus upon the response of consumers to cultural commodi­
ties and meanings. They concentrate on the interface between cultural
production and exchange. They require us to consider the field of culture,
including the traditions and orientations that consumers bring to the
exchange process.
4 CulPol (Cultural politics) refers to how meaning is presented,
resisted and opposed through the process of cultural exchange. CulPol
confronts issues of values, difference, knowledge and power. How is
cultural form and content developed to signify difference and opposi­
tion? In what ways can brand culture be resisted? What should the
balance between access and excellence be in higher education? Why do
some human groups have greater influence over the media than others?
Upon what basis in 2005 did Larry Summers, the President of Harvard
University, claim that women possess a lower aptitude for engineering
and the natural sciences than men? What doctrinal objections did the
managers of Westminster Abbey have in mind in 2005 to refuse £100,000
for filming the Da Vinci C ode in the Abbey precincts? Why do many
traditional Americans oppose stem cell research? How has the anti­
smoking movement succeeded in decreasing levels of tolerance in the
West to smoking in public? In what ways do school subcultures challenge
the cultural order imposed by teachers? Cultural politics investigates how
we are differently situated in relation to scarce economic, social, political
and cultural resources and the struggles and alliances that arise from this.
12 DOING CULTURAL STUDIES

- Genre -

CulPol Production

' C onsum ption'

Fig. 2.1. Tiie sphere of Cultural Studies

It raises issues of cultural authority, distributive justice and

empowerment.
Cultural Studies then might be defined as the exploration of interre­
lationships between genre, production, consumption and cultural politics
(see figure 2.1).
Precisely because staged versions of history and the truth are intri­
cately constructed, revealing the forces that empower them is often
tricky. One good way of approaching these questions is by means of
comparative and historical analysis. Why? Two natural fallacies that
people often make in ordinary life are that their experience is universal
and that fundamental things have always been the same. By comparing
cultural, political and economic conditions in other societies with those
of our own (comparative analysis), and examining how people thought
and acted in other times (historical analysis), we stand the chance of
developing a perspective on what is common and what is unique. A
comparative-historical approach is one of the surest ways of avoiding
the errors of assuming that what is true of the locality which we inhabit
is true everywhere and that the fundamentals of life have always been
the same irrespective of society, culture and history. Moreover, it does
not require great technical expertise or ability to apply. Everyone can
imagine and readily research how conditions of culture vary between
countries and different historical times.

Doing Cultural Studies 1: the case of Reality TV

Although a comparative and historical perspective is a prerequisite, there

are several ways of doing Cultural Studies. The discipline is not like legal
studies, medicine or engineering in which a well-established tradition of
facts and positions must be interrogated, internalized and applied. On
the contrary, at the heart of Cultural Studies is the notion that facts are
 DOING CULTURAL STUDIES 13

not meaningful except in relation to other meanings. In other words, a

fact is not a thing but a representation. Its meaning derives from the
position it occupies in a field of communication. Moreover, these fields
are not inert. They change, often in rapid and unexpected ways. This
complicates the task of building a fixed, universal curriculum in Cultural
Studies.
Compared with traditional culture, modern culture is super-dynamic.
Genres come and go with tremendous speed. Take the example of Reality
TV. A decade ago Reality TV was unknown. Today programmes like
Big Brother, Survivor, The Osbournes and Celebrity C h ef have devel­
oped international followings. In the case of Ozzy Osbourne or a chef
such as Gordon Ramsay, their existing fame is magnified and reposi­
tioned. More interestingly, people plucked from the rank-and-file are
elevated, however temporarily, into stardom. The suspension of the
hierarchy between celebrity ascendance and the audience exposes ques­
tions about the nature of fame and the ‘docility’ of consumers. Reality
TV operates by staging improbable combinations of people in confined
situations and recording the results. What happens when you invite
someone to marry a millionaire on live TV? How do you respond as an
adopted child when you are faced by a bunch of men you have never
met before, one of whom is purported to be your natural father? What
happens when you mix an aggressive personality with passive ones in a
house share? Such television is enormously attractive to TV broadcasting
companies because it is cheap to produce yet has the capacity to generate
mass audiences in the ratings wars.
Most of us think that Reality TV is an entirely new genre. A compara­
tive and historical approach corrects this misconception. An interest in
using television to illuminate the rules of everyday life and educate the
public has been a long-standing feature of public broadcasting. In the
1960s, Candid Camera aired in the USA (fronted by Allen Funt) and a
cover version appeared in Britain (with Bob Monkhouse as presenter and
Jonathan Routh as lead prankster). The format was a Reality TV version
of everyday life disrupted by planned events organized by the producers
of the programmes. Funt and Routh inserted themselves into routine life
situations with the intention of overturning them. By breaking down the
conventions of behaviour in settings like shops, bus queues or highway
traffic, the presenters engineered exchanges in which the human condi­
tion was humorously, and often ironically, addressed. In the 1970s, a
cinéma vérité approach evolved in An American Family (directed by
Craig Gilbert, 1973) and the British version. The Family (directed by
Paul Watson, 1974). These programmes were produced as fly-on-the-
14 DOING CULTURAL STUDIES

wall documentaries about life in a ‘typical’ family, filmed over several

months, with disclosures edited to tell a story, often with a clear moral
message attached to each broadcast episode.
Today satellite broadcasting allows for a more varied and intense diet
of Reality TV because it permits sustained, live, unedited broadcasting.
This changes how we position ourselves in relation to broadcast data.
Two aspects to this point must be differentiated.
Firstly, because satellite transmission theoretically permits continuous
live broadcasts, it alters the rules of the genre of Reality TV. Shows like
An American Family and The Family were edited and produced as docu­
mentaries designed to have a pedagogic effect. By living with the Wilkins
family in the BBC’s series The Family, viewers were invited to make
practical, moral and strategic judgements about the behaviour displayed
on-screen and, by implication, to apply this to their own lives.
Conversely, today’s Reality TV operates in what John Corner (2002)
argues is a post-docum entary genre. That is, Reality TV presents ‘a slice
of life’ and is non-judgemental. Of course, the people who are being
filmed make judgements about each other’s behaviour. So do the audi­
ence watching at home. But these judgements are not part of the planned
production values of the programme. Yet Reality TV is not like ‘real’
life. This applies both on-screen and for the consumer. The players may
grow accustomed to the cameras but they are also aware of inhabiting
a goldfish bowl watched by millions; and the audience is conscious that
players are projecting behavioural traits and opinions to affect the voting
powers of the TV audience. The fact that judgements about the difference
between reality and illusion are constantly made in shows like Big
Brother and I ’m A Celebrity Get Me Out O f H ere raises the question
of the nature of Reality TV as a cultural genre. This brings me to my
second point.
To propose that Sharon Osbourne in The Osbournes or Johnny
Rotten and Peter Andre in Vm A C elebrity. . . Get Me Out O f Here,
Abi Titmuss in Celebrity L ove Island, or, for that matter, a participant
in Big Brother are acting ‘normally’ or ‘naturally’ on-screen is central to
the conventions of the broadcast, but a moment’s thought renders it
implausible. However ‘comfortable’ they may feel in front of the camera,
and regardless of the length of time that they are followed by its lens,
they are still conscious of performing ‘on-screen’ in order to achieve an
effect in the viewers watching at home. This dictates the pattern of
behaviour that viewers see. A greeting between two people on a city
street carries a different ‘note’ than a meeting between two who know
that they are being filmed for global television. If this is the case, it raises
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Figure 20. Stemmed Projectile Points
(1. Gary. 2-5. Unclassified)

There are no other main groupings but there were a number of 51

points about the same size that could not be readily classified
(Fig. 21;1-2). One in this group is very similar to the Hardin point
(Bell, 1960; 56, pl. 28) for it is beveled, serrated, and has the correct
shape but it is much smaller than the Hardin points usually are (Fig.
21;3). This is not thought to be a Hardin point but is perhaps in the
same general tradition. There are two relatively large points that are
somewhat similar to the Burkett points and these may have some
association with the main ones from the site (Fig. 21;6). One point
(Fig. 21;4) is comparable to the Motley (Bell, 1958; 62, 131) which
supposedly dates between 1300 and 200 B.C. A projectile point
similar in type to Snyder (Fig. 21;5) was missing from the collections
when they were restudied. Another point (Fig. 21;7) compares very
favorably with the Uvalde (Bell, 1960; 92, p. 146), which supposedly
dates somewhere between 4000 and 1000 B.C.

It is very probable that some of the early points were picked up by

the people making the sand tempered pottery. For that matter they
may have been picked up by the later occupants, the Mississippi
people. Certainly, it is felt that these cannot be used for dating the
early occupation on the site. There is no assurance, for example, that
the site was not used by people earlier than the time of the sand
tempered pottery. There is no evidence from stratification or
superposition from the excavations, that indicated more than two
occupations of the site.

The points that did not seem to have like members present were
placed in a general unclassified category and some of these have
been illustrated in case they might have some significance that would
aid in placing the early or the late components on the site.

Other Chipped Stone Artifacts

Chipped stone tools were relatively uncommon at Lawhorn and are

typified in Figure 22. Number 1 and 2 are unifacial thumb nail
scrapers. Number 3 is a reworked projectile point while numbers 4
and 5, are fine pointed drills or scrapers. Number 6 is a graver.
One large tool showed a good work polish and also indications that it
had been resharpened (Fig. 22;7). It was 7 cm. wide and 15.5 cm.
long. There were several flint fragments showing a high degree of
work polish which came from similar type tools.

Two chipped and polished celts were found. One of these was 3 cm.
wide in the center and 2.4 cm. at the bit. It was 7.5 cm. long but
broken so that the true length could only be estimated at perhaps 10
cm. This was a chisel type of tool. The second specimen was made
by removing large flakes over two faces to give a crude hand axe
type of specimen 8 cm. × 4.5 cm. × 2 cm. thick. Work polish was
evident on the highest portions of the surface.

Mortars and Pestles

There were five sandstone mortars found on this site, two of which
were surface finds and which measured respectively (1) 15 cm. in
diameter, 6.5 thick with a central depression of 1.5 cm. and (2) 7.5
cm. × 13 cm. × 6 cm. thick. The latter was utilized on both surfaces.
The first of these two specimens, made of red sandstone, was the
best of the mortars from this site (Fig. 23;2).

52
Figure 21. Projectile Points
(1-2. Unclassified. 3. Hardin-like. 4. Motley. 5. Snyders Notched. 6.
Burkett-like. 7. Uvalde)
 53

Figure 22. Chipped Stone Tools

(1-2. Thumbnail end scrapers. 3. Reworked projectile point scraper. 4-5.
Drills. 6. Graver. 7. Adz)

Associated with house 1 and located near the fire-basin were 54

two mortars. One of these was 20 × 15 × 8 cm. and had a
central depression of 2 cm. The reverse side was used as a
whetstone. The other mortar was much smaller, measuring 9 × 13 ×
4.5 cm., basin shaped on one side and bearing use marks of a crude
pestle on the other. Associated with these two mortars were six
stones showing wear as crude unmodified stone pestles (Fig. 23;1).
Feature 12, a fire basin, also had a mortar and pestle association. A
small mortar 8 × 10 × 5 cm. had five stone pestles with it. Four of
these stones showed considerable wear while the fifth was not used.

All of these mortars and pestles were basically unmodified field

stones or river pebbles which gradually received some alteration of
shape through use.

Stone Abraders and Whetstones

There were nine abraders, two of which are of particular interest.

One showed heavy use as an abrader on one side and three edges.
Much of this use was as a sharpener for small pointed objects. The
other side, while showing use as an abrader, was also cupped for
grinding purposes. Over much of the surface, powdered yellow ochre
had become impregnated into the porous sandstone. Another
specimen showed long wide grooves on two surfaces while another
had been ground flat. This portion of the stone was heavily
impregnated with red ochre. The other abrading stones were
unmodified pieces except for the miscellaneous grooves resulting
from use (Fig. 24;1, top).

Four asymmetrical whetstones were found in the general midden.

These were about 5 × 8 cm. by 1.5 cm. One of these was bitted at
one end much like a celt. Their use as whetstones was rather obvious
(Fig. 24;1, bottom).

Pottery and Clay Abraders

The use of potsherds for abrading is reported from the Mississippi

alluvial valley area as far south as Memphis. It is a very minor trait.
The occasional finds point up this usage as a stop-gap measure when
a good stone abrader was not immediately available. This is a thing
to be expected in the relatively stoneless alluvial valley. At the
Lawhorn site 16 sherd abraders have been found. These show the
same haphazard use over their surfaces as do the stone abraders.
Ten of them were from Neeley’s Ferry shell tempered sherds and six
were made from the sand tempered sherds. Two of the Neeley’s
Ferry abraders show only the narrow pointed type of abrading groove
while the other eight show the full length and width abrading slots
such as might have been used for arrow shaft straightening and
smoothing (Fig. 24;2, left). All of the sand tempered sherd abraders
show the pointed narrow type of groove none of which are large
enough to be used as shaft grinders (Fig. 24;2, right). In spite of the
fact that it appears that sand tempered and shell tempered sherds
represent two components with perhaps a considerable time span
between them, it seems most probable that this use of sherd
abraders is to be linked with the Mississippian component and that
the use of the earlier sand tempered sherds by the later people was
simply a convenience procedure. Two burned clay masses, of very
sandy clay, were also used as abraders. These were the pointed
narrow type.

55
Figure 23. Mortars and Pestles

56
Figure 24. Stone and Pottery Abraders and Stone Pipe
(1. Stone abraders, 2. Potsherd abraders, 3. Stone pipe)
 57

Anvilstones

Two anvilstones were found on the surface, one made from limestone
and the other from sandstone. Their opposing surfaces seemed to
have been used as grinders or pestles. Here again, there is multiple
usage of rough unmodified stones. They were seldom pecked or
ground to a shape, rather they were modified through use.

Hammerstones

Seven pebble hammerstones were found in the general excavations.

Most of them were either sandstone or chert and of nondescript
shape ranging in size from 4 to 8 cm. in diameter. Many of the
sandstone specimens showed use as grinding Stones as well as
hammerstones, again pointing up the multiple tool use of pebbles.
The chert pieces were not shaped, showing only the natural
weathered surfaces except where they had been used.

Groundstone Celts

Six fragments of celts were found, five of which were granite and one
hematite. The five granite specimens consisted of three bit ends and
two poll ends and the hematite specimen was only the central shaft
section. These celts were all small, probably not over 10 to 18 cm.
long. The bits were about 4.8 cm. wide with thickness averaging 2.5
cm. The poll ends were somewhat narrower than the bits but not
pronouncedly so.

Pipes

Only one pipe was found but it may be of considerable value for
interpretation of the relationship of the site to other areas. It was
picked up by Mr. Lawhorn when his plow turned over a burial. The
pipe is made of stone and has a non-functional stem projection
commonly seen on pipes from Spiro (Baerreis, 1957 p. 25). The bowl
is quite large and at right angles to the stem (Fig. 24;3). The bowl is
slightly elliptical in outline with both sides flattened on their lower
portions. The bottom of the bowl and the stem projection have also
been flattened while the functional portion of the stem is round in
cross section. This is about ⅓ longer than the depth of the bowl. The
projection is quite small. There is a crudely incised groove around the
stem.

58

Bone and Antler Artifacts

Bone tools were of common occurrence in the general midden of the

site and were also associated with house patterns 1 and 3. Six deer
ulna awls and three ulna awls from small animals (Fig. 25;1); ten
splinter awls (Fig. 25;4) and a single fish fin awl; a deer cannon bone
beamer (Fig. 25;2) and a deer scapula hoe (Fig. 25;3) make up most
of the inventory of bone tools. One deer mandible appeared to have
been utilized since a dull work polish is noticeable on it. The teeth are
fractured on one side as if broken off in the course of use.

Bone beads were found associated with house patterns and were
made from bird bones (Fig. 26;1 bottom). One measured 1.5 cm. and
another 1.3 × 1.5 cm. and a third .8 × 2.6 cm. A large bird bone had
been in the process of bead manufacture (Fig. 26;1, top). The bone
had been cut at each end then circled in two places with cuts that
hadn’t been completed.

Antler tips were utilized for various purposes. Specimens included two
barbed projectile points and one unfinished tip with a drilled base.
Twelve other tips were probably flaking tools.

Brickette and Daub

Brickette and daub were so scarce that many pieces were catalogued
as specimens. These present an interesting class of materials and
give aid far beyond their intrinsic worth in telling the Lawhorn story.
Once again this points up the value of saving everything found during
the course of field work.

There is no way of knowing how much of this material has been lost
as a result of erosion and the almost melting away of softer pieces in
the heavy rains of the passing centuries. Slightly over 100 pieces
which were eroded beyond identification were picked up during the
course of excavation. They represent either daub or broken clay
objects of unknown use. There were 103 pieces of daub, broken into
various sizes, which had been heavily impregnated with grass. Six of
these specimens show impressions of small poles which would have
been from 2 to 5 cm. in diameter (Fig. 26;2). The composition of the
fired material ranges from a sandy clay to a white ball clay with a
heavy sand admixture. It should be noted that the natural soils of the
Lawhorn site do not contain enough clay to fire into a brickette form.
Consequently such brickette as was found must be the result of clays
brought in from a distance.

Most specimens were rather soft and it is doubtful if they had ever
been used as heating stones. Many samples show some surface
smoothing as if they were portions of floors, firebasins or perhaps
house walls. It is presumed that if the daub was used on house walls,
the firing was accidental as the result of house burnings, that only a
minor portion of such daub would survive. However, judging from the
burned clay floors and fire basins found, it is evident that burned
clay, as such, fired well enough to withstand the erosion of time. A
higher percentage of wall daub should have been found if it had been
extensively used.
59
Figure 25. Bone Tools
(1. Ulna awls, 2. Beamer, 3. Deer scapula hoe, 4. Splinter awls)

60
Figure 26. Bone Beads and Burned Clay Daub
(1. Cut bone, a step in making beads, and bone beads. 2. Daub with
whole cane impressions and evidence of interweaving of canes)
There were twenty pieces of brickette flattened and smoothed 61
in such a way as to indicate that they were probably part of
house floors. They were smoothed on one side and grass
impregnated on the underside and throughout the body of the
specimen as the result of puddling the clay. They were made of a
sandy clay and ranged in size from 2 to 4 cm. in thickness. The
undersurface was irregular and showed no contact with a prepared
surface such as the cane mats of wall daub specimens would leave.

There were 163 pieces of fired clay objects showing considerable use
which were made of a poorly fired sandy clay. Four specimens were
tempered with crushed shell while one was clay tempered. Most of
the others contain some grass although many are without any
apparent tempering material. Use of these specimens is
undetermined. One specimen (FS 425) was a rectanguloid brickette
10 × 12.5 cm. and 2 cm. thick with a slightly rounded base (Fig.
27;3). This was found in a form fitting depression on the fired clay
floor of house 3. It shows considerable wear from use, especially on
the bottom. It, perhaps, was used for grinding seeds or rubbing
skins. The other clay objects are of different shapes, seemingly of
round cylindrical devices with flat bottoms and rounded edges. From
some of the better samples they appear to be about five inches in
diameter but the length or height could not be determined. They do
not show any appreciable wear. There was no evidence of excessive
firing and most of the specimens crumble easily. The latter may be
due to the sandy clay from which they were formed. It is suggested
that these were anvils or stretchers for use in skin work or other soft
materials such as textiles. They certainly were an important domestic
item.

There was one specimen with a central hole, apparently lengthwise,

which suggests that it was suspended, perhaps as a loom weight
(Fig. 27;1).

The clay objects occur in considerable numbers in all parts of the site
and throughout the deposit and constitute the biggest percentage of
all the brickette material from the site. In point of fact these items
are not broken bits of daub, such as are so common on Mississippian
sites, but are items of domestic importance in the material culture
assemblage, and must be so treated in the final analysis. They are
not accidental formations, such as building daub, but have been
precisely formed to a pattern. While many seemed to conform to a
cylindrical shape others did not. One specimen has a groove around it
but its position with reference to the complete object was not
apparent. One piece shows a coarse textile impression on one side
and a surface well smoothed on the other. It is not a potsherd.
Another piece shows the imprint of a finger apparently curled around
the clay—a very small finger—probably that of a child at play. One
piece looks as if it could have been a pottery trowel, but is a
questionable specimen.

Two of the broken clay objects have been secondarily used as

abraders for sharpening bone awls or similar pointed items. One
specimen (FS 217) is the stem of a pottery trowel, a standard item of
Mississippian groups. A complete modified conical object was
recovered from a nearby site and is a graphic representation of
another shape of these objects (Fig. 27;2).

62
Figure 27. Brickettes or Fired Clay Artifacts
(Brickette with central hole, 2. Semi-conical clay objects. 3.
Rectanguloid clay brickette)
It should be obvious from the above that much of the burned 63
clay material from Lawhorn is not truly daub but rather
fragmentary pieces of a multitude of domestic utility objects which
played an important part in the material culture of the people.

Shell Artifacts

Six beads were made from marine shell (Fig. 28;1). These were
small, being from 7 to 10 mm. in diameter and 10 to 16 mm. long.
One drilled mussel shell hoe or scraper was found in the general
digging and this is typical of the specimens commonly found on
Mississippian sites (Fig. 28;2).

Vegetal Remains

Carbonized food occurred in several instances. A few acorn hulls were

found in Feature 18, a nut shell in Feature 5, both fire basin and a
small number of corn cobs in the general midden excavation. The
corn cobs according to Nash, seem typical of the Eastern Complex
corn. They are all fragmentary but three specimens show a tapering
cob. The first of these had twelve rows of kernels spaced as pairs.
The cob was probably not over 6 cm. in length and had a diameter of
2 cm. some distance from the probable butt. Kernels measured about
4 mm. wide and 2 mm. thick. The second specimen had ten paired
rows of kernels and was 1.6 cm. in diameter. The third specimen had
been split longitudinally but indicated twelve paired rows of kernels.
The cob was 1.7 cm. in diameter. The largest kernels were 5 mm.
wide and 2.4 mm. thick (See Appendix B).
 FEATURES

Refuse Pits

Eight refuse pits were identified during the course of excavation. The
shapes varied from circular to oblong with considerable range in
depth. In most instances, however, the bottoms were flat, or nearly
so. The five examples of pits with a circular outline ranged from 1.2
feet to 3 feet in diameter and from 1 to 1.5 feet in depth. The three
oblong pits ranged from 2.5 to 3.8 feet wide, from 4 to 5 feet long,
and from 1.8 to 2.7 feet in depth. Two of the refuse pits were
associated with houses—one with House 1 and the other with House
3. These will be described as associations with these houses. Feature
13, a refuse pit, was unusual in that it contained a number of broken
vessels, bone awls, a drilled pottery disk and a considerable amount
of animal bone and potsherds. The vessels were all jars ranging in
size from small to large and were wide mouthed vessels. Most of
these jars had strap handles while the two largest were decorated
with crude incising on the shoulders and by a series of nodes
punched from the inside, below that. A large broken vessel in one of
the pits is shown in Figure 29.

64
Figure 28. Shell Ornaments and Tools
(1. Marine shell beads. 2. Perforated mussel shell scraper or hoe.)

Little more can be said of these pits except that they represent 65
a method of disposal of refuse but certainly not the standard
approach to this problem.
Ash Pits

There were a number of ash dumps which were always associated

with fireplaces. They were present in all three of the houses
excavated. One outstanding characteristic is the completeness of
combustion represented by the ashes. In no instance were small
charred pieces of wood found with the ash, a thing to be expected
unless the fire burned under forced draft or was carefully tended.
While the ash in the dumps could have been selectively collected so
that only the completely burned ash was thrown out, the same would
not be true of the ash found in every fireplace excavated. It is
suggested that this result would be normal only if low flame charcoal
fires were used and these nursed to produce the desired heat, with
red hot coals being buried in the ash to slow down their combustion
until such time as it was desired to rekindle a hotter fire. A further
consideration would be that only this type of fire would be relatively
safe inside a grass thatched house.

House 1 had three ash dumps, two of which were inside the house
and in close contact with the firebasin, and one outside the house.
These dumps tended to be rounded and about two feet in diameter.
In depth they ranged from .6 foot in the center but tapered away to
nothing at the outer edges. The single ash dump associated with
house 3 was similar in all respects.

Firebasins

The firebasins at Lawhorn are quite definite and well formed of

puddled clay and are good examples of those so common to
Mississippian sites of the area. Rebuilding was common, with new
construction leaving the remains of some portion of the old basin to
one side. Often this was a half-moon shaped affair that may have
continued in use. In all instances these basins were filled with a white
wood ash which showed complete combustion so that there were no
bits of unburned charcoal left in the ash. It may be that this bed of
ash was maintained in basins at all times and was used to bury hot
coals to hold the fire during periods of non-use. There were
numerous specimens found near the fire basins which added to the
impression of domestic hearth sites associated with whatever house
forms these people had. The most notable trait was the presence of
stone mortars and pestles near many of the basins. Drilled pottery
disks were also commonly found nearby. Bone awls were found on
one occasion.

House 1 had a fire basin two feet in diameter and without a raised
rim section. It was half filled with white to reddish wood ash without
any partially burned charred material left in it. The fire area in House
3 was not a puddled basin but rather a flat area on the floor where
continued fire building had hardened the ground underneath. The
House 2 basin was puddled but poorly made. In two of these
fireplaces small broken bowls were found half buried in the ash.
Another burned area was found in square 17R13 which also showed
use as a hearth site. Nearby was a circular refuse pit almost flat on
the bottom. Here, carbonized nut hulls were found.

66
Figure 29. A Large Broken Pottery Jar in a Refuse Area

In no instance were postmold patterns found in association 67

with the firebasins at this site nor, for that matter, were any
found in the entire excavation that could be thought of as forming a
pattern.

Feature 12 was a puddled clay fire basin with a rim section .1 foot
above the surrounding floor. The basin was circular in shape with a
diameter of 1.3 feet and a depth of .3 foot. It had been dug into
subsoil and so was associated with the early levels of the site. To one
side were two possible postmolds while nearby was a mortar and
several crude pestles. Two bone awls and a drilled pottery disk were
found close to the basin. Feature 14 was a similar fire basin but it
was in poor condition. It was found just above the subsoil in the
square just west of feature 12 and became the center point of an
extended trench excavation in an unsuccessful search for a postmold
wall pattern. The basin was filled with a white wood ash. Two shell
tempered sherds were found in this ash.

Feature 18, a firebasin, (Fig. 30) also built on subsoil, was of puddled
clay filled completely with wood ash. This ash did not contain any
specimen. There was a burned clay floor .1 foot below the rim of the
firebasin but this was not very extensive and in all probability only
surrounded the firebasin area. Once again, an extended trench
excavation was undertaken in a search for postmolds. The subsoil
was a light colored sand and such disturbances as tree roots and pits
were very clear. Indeed many of these tree roots were cross
sectioned in an attempt to locate postmolds. No postmolds of any
description were found.

Feature 5 was a large fired area with a heap of ashes extending

beyond the burned clay. The area was circular with a diameter of 1.6
feet and burned to a depth of .3 foot. Associated with this area was a
charred nut, either hickory or walnut, and a thin flat stone which had
been subjected to intense heat.

Feature 24 was very similar to feature 18 in that it, too, had been
rebuilt and enlarged. The rebuilt basin was oval in shape being two
feet long by 1.7 feet wide with an interior depth of .5 foot and a
thickness of burned clay wall of .1 foot. The combined length of the
basin was 3 feet with a half moon section of the original basin being
all that remained of it. The original basin was about 1.6 feet in
diameter. Both sections were filled with wood ash and apparently
continued in use.

Feature 25 was the remaining half of a puddled clay fire basin under
house 1. Whether the basin was circular or oval could not be
determined due to an ash pit that had been cut through it. The basin
was 1.6 feet in diameter with an interior depth of .6 foot and a clay
wall thickness of .1 foot. The pit was filled with white wood ash and a
few shell tempered sherds.
 68

Figure 30. Feature 18, a Firebasin of Unusual Shape

69
 HOUSES
The evidence for dwellings at Lawhorn rests on two burned
structures, house 1 and house 3, and a fire basin and associated floor
area adjacent to house 3. In the main, the evidence is as conclusive
as to shape, ground plan and superstructure as is most such
archaeological evidence from Mississippian sites. That no postmold
patterns were discernable during the entire four years of work at
Lawhorn must be taken at face value, especially when the cross
sectional data from house 3 is considered.

House 1

This house was built on top of subsoil and was rectangular in shape
(Fig. 31). The area of charred remains was ten feet by fifteen feet so
that the house itself must have been at least that large and probably
somewhat larger. Final excavation showed that no posts had been
placed in the ground to support the superstructure. The charred
material found on the floor indicated a house built of light poles, cane
and thatch.

There was no evidence of the use of daub on either walls or roof of

the building. The main support poles were about .2 foot in diameter
and poles half this size were interwoven to form a widely spread
lattice work. Cane was fastened on this, apparently in layers, but
there was no evidence as to whether this was woven or bound into
mat form. There was no split cane in evidence, only whole cane poles
(Fig. 32). Apparently the entire house was covered with thatch since
evidence of it was found over the whole charred area and overlying
the rest of the charred material. The house did not have a fired clay
floor. The floor was highly compacted, however. There was a central
firebasin made of puddled clay which was two feet in diameter, six
inches deep with the lip level with the floor. It was filled with a white
to reddish ash. To one side of the basin was a pile of ashes in which
the skeleton of an infant was found. Outside the house was a refuse
pit and another ash dump. Two mortars and six crude pestles were
found on the floor close to the fire basin. Bone awls, pottery disks
and bone beads were found on the floor. The list of specimens found
in association with this house is as follows: four drilled pottery disks,
three undrilled pottery disks, two projectile points, two bone awls,
three bone beads and one pottery vessel.

House 2

This house had been built on top of subsoil and apparently, it partially
underlay the northern portion of house 3 (Fig. 33 and 35). No new
information came to light here but the size and shape apparently
agreed with that of house 1. Here, the central section of the floor
was hard burned and had been puddled with a clay and grass
mixture before firing. Central to this floor area was an irregular and
poorly shaped fire basin which was filled with white wood ash.
Partially buried in this ash was a small broken shell tempered pottery
bowl (Fig. 34). A few pieces of charred logs were found lying just
above the floor of this house, but, they were too small and too few to
be diagnostic of superstructure. It is even possible that these few
pieces were from the house three conflagration.

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Figure 31. House Ground Plan Showing Charred Remains, Firebasin, Ash
Dumps and Refuse Pit

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Figure 32. Charred Cane Poles and Grass, Part of House 1, Overlying
Pottery Sherds

72