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Survey and Excavation

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Radiocarbon dating - extensive chronology over 10,000 years BP. Coxcatlan Cave Site: identified corn cobs carbon dating to 5,000 BC ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Survey and Excavation


1
Survey and Excavation
  • How we find archaeological sites, and what we do
    with them

2
Archaeology as a field discipline
  • Need to do it to understand it
  • Popular image vs. reality
  • Field work vs. laboratory analysis
  • Field Schools
  • This summer Schoharie Valley field school, SUNY
    Albany NYS Museum

3
Archaeological Survey
  • Determined by research design
  • Sampling
  • Cant look/dig everywhere have to sample area
  • Sampling bias (some sampling strategies will
    differentially find some types of sites and not
    others)
  • Sampling Strategies
  • Judgmental (prior knowledge)
  • Random (no bias)
  • Systematic (patterned bias)
  • Haphazard (unknowable bias to be avoided)
  • Goals of Survey
  • Locate and map archaeological sites on the
    landscape
  • Sample the contents of sites to see if further
    investigation is warranted

4
Survey Techniques
  • Windshield survey
  • Surface survey
  • Shovel Test Survey
  • Auger survey
  • Crop marks
  • Satellite Imagery
  • Remote Sensing

5
Surface Survey
6
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7
Remote Sensing
Ground Penetrating Radar
8
Aerial Photography
9
Crop Marks
10
Satellite Images
11
Case StudyRichard MacNeish and the Tehuacan
Valley Survey
  • MacNeish major figure in American Archaeology
  • Major Question where and how was agriculture
    developed in New World?
  • Farming the most significant development in all
    of human history

12
MacNeishs Research Design
  • Problem where and when was corn (Zea mays)
    domesticated?
  • Background probably domesticated form of
    Teosinte, probably from Southern Mexico
  • Data Needs preserved early corn in
    archaeological context
  • Methodology Intensive survey of dry caves in
    Tehuacan Valley

13
Maize and Teosinte
14
Mexico
15
Results of Survey
  • Surveyed 575 square miles identified 450 sites
    over 12 cave systems
  • Radiocarbon dating - extensive chronology over
    10,000 years BP
  • Coxcatlan Cave Site identified corn cobs carbon
    dating to 5,000 BC
  • intermediate between Maize and Teosinte

16
Coxcatlan Cave, Tehuacan Valley
17
Excavation
  • Goals
  • Recover and record Archaeological Data
  • Maintain control of context association
  • Provenience 3-dimensional location of
    archaeological data
  • Horizontal vs. Vertical patterning (time vs.
    space)
  • Trade off Area vs. Depth
  • Sampling Conservation Ethic

18
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20
Context and Association
  • Key concepts in identifying archaeological
    patterning
  • Contextlocation and circumstances of
    archaeological data
  • Associationobjects within same context are
    associated
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