Doing Fieldwork: Why Archaeologists Dig Square Holes

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Chapter 6

• Doing Fieldwork Why Archaeologists Dig Square
  Holes

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Outline

• ExcavationWhat Determines Preservation?
• Principles of Archaeological Excavation
• Precision Excavation
• Sifting the Evidence
• Cataloging the Finds
• Conclusion Archaeologys Conservation Ethic Dig
  Only What You Must

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Provenience

• An artifacts provenience is its location and
  context within a site.
• This is the most important thing about that
  artifact.
• The guiding rule in all excavation is to record
  context, and this means recording provenience of
  artifacts, features, and ecofacts.

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Excavation What Determines Preservation?

• The exact procedures in any excavation depend on
  several factors, beginning with the kind of
  materials that have survived the passage of time.
• Decomposition is carried out by microorganisms
  that require warmth, oxygen, and water to
  survive.

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The Excavators Toolkit

• 56 inch trowel
• Metal file
• 2- and 25-meter tape measure
• Work gloves
• Builders level and angle finder
• Compass
• Pencils and Sharpie pens
• Spoon, Nails

• Straight-edge ruler
• Torpedo level
• Root clippers
• Small wire cutters
• Empty film canisters
• Toilet paper (for wrapping delicate artifacts)
• Toothpicks (for temporarily marking artifact
  locations)

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How Archaeologists Dig

• Archaeologists excavate within horizontal
  excavation units in natural levels and arbitrary
  levels.
• Natural levels are the sites strata which are
  more or less homogeneous, visually separable from
  other levels by a change in texture, color, rock
  or organic content.
• Archaeologists prefer to excavate in natural
  levels wherever possible.

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How Archaeologists Dig

• Arbitrary levels are basic vertical subdivisions
  of an excavation square.
• They are used only when recognizable natural
  strata are lacking and when natural strata are
  more than 10cm.

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Arbitrary Levels Can Effect Artifacts From
Natural Strata

• The natural strataA, B, C, and Deach contain a
  particular kind of artifact.
• Each strata represents a unit of time.
• If excavated using arbitrary levels1, 2, 3, and
  4those levels would crosscut the strata.

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Sifting the Evidence

• Digging is just the beginning of excavation.
• No matter how carefully you excavate, it is
  impossible to see, map, and recover everything of
  archaeological interest.
• Sifters find things that hand excavation misses.

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Why Archaeologists Dig Square Holes

1. If pit sidewalls are kept straight and
   perpendicular, excavators can use the dirt to
   maintain horizontal control on the X and Y axes
   by measuring directly from the sidewalls.
2. If the excavator misses something, the sifting
   process can tie its provenience down to a
   particular level in a particular unita very
   small area of the site.

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Water-screening

• A sieving process in which deposit is placed in a
  screen and the matrix washed away with hoses.
• Essential where artifacts are expected to be
  small and/or difficult to find without washing.

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Flotation

• Using fluid suspension to recover burned plant
  remains and bone fragments.
• Based on the principle Dirt doesnt float, but
  carbonized plant remains do.
• Seemingly unimportant burnt seeds collected
  through flotation helped make the important
  discovery that Native Americans domesticated
  plants more than 4000 years ago.

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Quick Quiz
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• 1. The guiding rule in all excavation is to
  record context, and this means recording ________
  of artifacts, features, and ecofacts.

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Answer provenience

• The guiding rule in all excavation is to record
  context, and this means recording provenience of
  artifacts, features, and ecofacts.

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• 2. Archaeologists prefer to excavate in arbitrary
  levels wherever possible.
• True
• False

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Answer B. False

• Archaeologists prefer to excavate in natural
  levels wherever possible

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• 3. No matter how carefully you excavate, it is
  impossible to see, map, and recover everything of
  archaeological interest, _____ finds things that
  excavation misses.

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Answer sifting

• No matter how carefully you excavate, it is
  impossible to see, map, and recover everything of
  archaeological interest, sifting finds things
  that excavation misses.