Anthro 2: Week 4: outline September 16 18, 2003

1
Anthro 2 Week 4 outlineSeptember 16 - 18, 2003

• The enigma of excavation as destruction
• Site-focused field research
• The process of excavation
• Recording context
• Some excavation rules and strategies
• Excavating archaeological architecture
• Developments since the 1960s
• Developments since the 1980s

106-116
2
The Practice of Archaeology in the Field

• Traditional (not New) Archaeology
• Searching for the archaeological record
• Surface walking, mapping
• Sub-surface geophysics
• Retrieval of Site Data stratigraphic context
• Surface collection
• Excavation, selective retrieval
• Analysis of the Archaeological Record
• Variability in time and space
• Environmental and Technological Reconstruction
• New (Processual) Archaeology (since 1960s)
• All of this PLUS
• The field research is explicitly problem oriented
  (theory-laden). In other words it is done in
  the context of a specific set of ideas,
  expectations and questions

30-33, 71
3
Excavation is

• What archaeologists do
• Enigmatically destructive
• Expensive
• Time-consuming
• Labor-intensive

4
Stratigraphy rules Excavation
106-107
9-
5
Baulks and square holes Yugoslavia
Control profile or cross-section

• Excavated holes need to be
• Square
• straight-sided
• excavated horizontally
• carefully recorded
• clean

Baulk
6
Gatecliff shelter, profiles
Drawing a profile at Gatecliff rock shelter, US
7
Excavation Strategies depend on

• Nature of site (settlement mound, burial mound,
  ditch, midden, pit, scatter, house)
• Problem to be solved (test, rescue, research)
• Time available
• Funding (labor force, time, personnel)
• Other requirements (must reach sterile, must
  conserve)

107-109
8
What kind of holes?

• trenches

1. Vertical control
Transect trench
box grid
108-109
9
What kind of holes?
2. Horizontal exposure

• Opovo

Çatalhoyük
Pincevent
108-109
10
What is the ultimate purpose of the excavation?
Research excavations
Opovo
Vinca
108-109
11
What is the ultimate purpose of the excavation?
Research and rescue
108-109
12
How to proceed? How to record?
Vinca
13
Building Horizon or House Life-Histories
Çatalhöyük, Turkey
Layer Cake
Ant Hill
14
The advantage of Building Horizons
James Mellaarts excavations at Çatalhöyük
15
The disadvantage of Building Horizons
16
Excavating House Life-Histories
North, excavation since 1996
South where Mellaart excavated
Çatalhöyük, Turkey
17
Building 3, Çatalhöyük
18
The North Area of Çatalhöyük
N
B1
B3
19
The North Area of Çatalhöyük
N
20
Recording stratigraphy at a micro-level
Building 3, the UC Berkeley (BACH) area
Using the Harris matrix to record the sequence
of depositional events (stratigraphy) at
Çatalhöyük
Do you want to know more about the Harris matrix?
21
The Harris Matrix of the NE corner of Building 3
22
Field Practice Since the 1960s

• Strategies to speed up efficiency of excavation
• Strategies to enable statistically meaningful
  samples
• Computers and Digital Devices to record enormous
  amounts of data
• Computers to manipulate data to make
  statistically meaningful statements

107-116
23
Traditional tools of excavation
24
Speeding up the dig
25
Increasing the detail of retrieval
Koster, Illinois, USA
111-114, 245 skip 112-113
Selevac, Yugoslavia
26
Sampling for Ecofacts
Botanicals, Phytoliths, and Micromorphology
Interpretive Center
Microexcavation
Botanicals and soil chemistry
27
Fighting over the roof
Dr. Christine Hastorf palaeoethnobotany
Dr. Frank Matero conservation
Dr. Bill Middleton soil chemistry
Dr. Arlene Rosen phytoliths
Dr. Wendy Matthews micromorphology
28
How much detail to collect and record?
3-D or 2-D piece-plotting the traditional way
111-114

• Grid size 1 x 1 m Opovo

29
Traditional recording by hand
30
Initial sorting and classification

• Sort by materials (bone, stone, building clay,
  ceramics

111-115, skip 112-113
81
31
Initial sorting and classification
Diagnostic potsherds
Undiagnostic (bulk) potsherds
111-115, skip 112-113
32
The need for sampling strategies
Plastic bags getting overwhelming at Selevac,
Yugoslavia
Studying architectural materials in Neolithic
sites in Yugoslavia
33
Field Practice Since the 1980s

• Speeding up mapping at all scales using the EDM,
  and now laser scanning and GPS and Remote sensing
  technology

74,78,84-86,89,
34
Field Practice Since the 1980s

• Digital technology that speeds up the input of
  the record into a digital format and increases
  the detail with which the excavation can be
  recorded

Digital photography and videography
35
Field Practice Since the 1980s

• Techniques to enable the field conservation and
  analysis of organic remains stable isotopes,
  DNA, ultrasound etc

66-67, 222,
Oetzi, 5000-year old guy from the Alps
36
Field Practice Since the 1980s

• Techniques to enable otherwise impossible
  excavation Underwater Archaeology

95-97
37
Where does the funding come from?

• Government funding agencies
• Non-profit funding agencies
• Cultural Resource Management contracts from
  government or corporate developers
• Private or Corporate donors

38
Who does the digging?
volunteers
Professors
Professional archaeologists
undergraduates
Grad students
Local people
The whole book
39

• Opportunities for excavation and employment
• Cultural Resources Management projects

John Holson, President of Pacific Legacy
85,88-90,
40
How do you learn the craft of digging? By
practice

• Field Schools
• Fort Ross, California
• Mayan prehistory, Honduras
• Catalhöyük and Goseck, Germany (media training)
• Research Apprentice in the field
• Volunteer (and pay)
• Israel
• Earthwatch
• UREP University Research Expeditions Program
• AIA List of Excavation Opportunities
• List outside Sandy Jones office, Kroeber Hall