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Entomology: An Aid in Archaeological Studies1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2018

Samuel A. Graham*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Abstract

Sampling for insect remains was conducted at ruins under excavation at Wetherill Mesa during 1961 and 1962. The mesa-top samples were unproductive; the more-protected cliff dwellings offered better results. The fragile nature of insect remains requires special procedures in their separation and preservation from the samples of soil, adobe, mortar, fecal matter, and other material collected for study. Insect species were found that could have been pests in stored grain as well as in the farmlands. Other insects, chiefly beetles, were recovered that might be classified as household pests. Scavenger insects, mainly tenebrionids, scarab beetles, and flies, were associated with turkey roosts, pack-rat nests, fecal matter, and burials. Twenty-four specimens of human feces were studied; only one sample contained insect remains (grasshopper parts) that could have been ingested. Insect activity on timbers was observed. It is possible that the Indians felled trees and permitted bark beetles and borers to “work” on the trees, thus loosening the bark for easier stripping. Although this study was not as comprehensive as might have been hoped for, results indicate that entomological study should certainly be useful in archaeological investigations.

Type
3 The Natural Sciences
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1965 

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Footnotes

1

This is Contribution No. 20 of the Wetherill Mesa Archeological Project.

References

Farrar, M. D. and Flint, W. P. 1942 Control of Insects in Fourteen Thousand Corn Bins. Journal of Economic Entomology, Vol. 35, No. 5, pp. 615–19. Menasha.Google Scholar
Vogt, George B. 1960 Entomological Appraisal of Wetherill Mesa Archeological Excavations. Entomology Research Division, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Washington. Report to the Wetherill Mesa Archeological Project.Google Scholar