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Interestingly, recent excavations at the McClane Rockshelter, 5GF741, located in the <br />Roan Plateau, provided evidence that Middle Archaic McKean Complex groups were <br />creating structures within rockshelters by constructing brush and or pole walls around the <br />perimeter of the overhang – essentially making sheltered houses. The interior exhibited a <br />centrally located thermal feature, and lined and unlined storage pits. The evidence of these <br />houses occurred in the two lowest stratigraphic units, which contained three occupation <br />levels dating between ca. 4200-3000 BP. Winter occupation is surmised for these three <br />habitations (Conner et al. 2013b). <br />Thermal Features <br />A wide variety of features such as simple ash stains, basin hearths, rock-filled pits, <br />rock-lined pits, slab-lined pits, and fire-cracked rock concentrations occur throughout the <br />Archaic. Undoubtedly, most of these features were constructed for cooking food; however, <br />some without thermal characteristics may have also been used for storage. <br />Relatively little research has been devoted toward understanding the function of such <br />features. However, "archaeologists are beginning to do more with ethnographic descriptions <br />and with experimentation..." (Reed and Metcalf 1999:81, 82). For instance, Stiger <br />(1998:65) experimented with the heat-output of four feature types at the Tenderfoot site and <br />Francis (2000:5) went so far as to calculate the potential volume of camas and biscuitroot <br />that could be processed in a large cobble filled feature at 48SU1002 in the Upper Green <br />River Basin of Wyoming. Thompson and Pastor (1995:91) also experimented with volume <br />calculations for slab-lined features in southwest Wyoming and determined that the vast <br />majority ranged from 40 to 60 liters. This 40 to 60 liter subset contained features dating <br />from the Great Divide (7750-5600 BC) through the Uinta (1-1400 AD) phases. A second <br />cluster of features had calculated volumes ranging from 80-150 liters; the majority of these <br />featured dated to the Opal phase (5600-3400 BC). Two extremely large (268.6 and 285.6 <br />liters) were noted and both date to the Pine Spring phase (3400-1450 BC). <br />Features are also one aspect of technological organization used to look at temporal <br />changes. Reed and Metcalf (1999) organized 450 dated features, with origins in the <br />Northern Colorado Basin, into 500-year increments. Originally, there were more than 50 <br />descriptive labels for the 450 dated features. For the analysis, Reed and Metcalf decided on <br />seven basic categories: simple ash stains, simple hearths, basin hearths, rock-filled pits, <br />rock-lined pits, slab-lined pits, and fire-cracked rock features. Results from the analysis <br />indicate: <br />Simple stains and basin hearths appear earliest in time, and along with simple <br />hearths, are important in all time periods. Rock- and slab-lined pits attain <br />importance early in the Archaic, and also show increased frequency of use around <br />2000 to 2500 BC and again in the Formative era. Rock-filled features have generally <br />the same temporal distribution as rock- and slab-lined features. Features that are <br />primarily clusters of fire-cracked rock occur in the latter half of the prehistoric <br />record (Reed and Metcalf 1999:82). <br />28