Non-Site Sampling in the Lower Cumberland River Valley, Kentucky

Abstract

The Lower Cumberland Archaeological Project was conceived as a means of undertaking sustained, systematic examination of small, transiently utilized sites associated with the Archaic occupation of extreme western Kentucky. In the summer of 1978 a stratified random-sampling exercise to collect data for more detailed studies was carried out along a small spring-fed tributary of the lower Cumberland River in Livingston County. Search strategies included conventional survey techniques within randomly selected 200 m quadrats paralleled by probabilistic subsampling of portions of each sample quadrat. Data were also collected on 26 attributes describing environmental conditions for each of the 47 quadrats included in the sample. Principal coordinates analyses are utilized to generalize relationships among the 47 quadrats over 3 strata of the sampling area. Some implications of subsampling as applied to archaeological sampling are considered. Regional subsampling is discussed as non-site archaeology, and cluster sample statistics are utilized in examining the data from the regional subsample. Estimates of the density of prehistoric materials over various environmental zones are obtained, and the effect of spatial aggregation of materials on estimates of probable error is briefly considered.