Buried Civilizations of the Americas

4. The Formation of the Archaeological Record

• Reconstruction & Formation Processes
• The Archaeological Record: The physical remains available to archaeologists and their context.
• artifacts
• ecofacts natural items used by humans or resulting from human behavior
• architectural remains (residential or otherwise)
• context: location within a site in which an item is found and the archaeological materials found with it; essential to archaeological interpretation
• Stratigraphy, depositional layers, same as geology
• Principle of Superposition, later stuff is above earlier stuff
• Reconstruction - Relating past human behavior to the archaeological record; understanding what architecture and artifacts are associated with activities and what would remain
• Formation Processes link human activities, with the physical remains they leave, and the transformation (including removal, movement and decomposition) of these items from the time in which they are discarded (deposited) and the time they are found by archaeologists.
• Depositional processes link activities, contexts & deposition of trash
• Primary deposition: items that are deposited (lost or discarded) where they are used; often small, innocuous
• Secondary Deposition: intentionally discarded in a place other than where they are used; larger or obnoxious trash; may be moved more than once
• Pompeii premise: The generally unrealistic assumption that everything is found and found where it was used
• Post-depositional processes
• removal
• movement, e.g. by erosion, animals
• preservation: decomposition - organics, bone, ceramics, stone
• Archaeological Field Work
• Field work not mechanical, must always try to understand why did this get where we find it
• Excavation
• dig carefully in units and levels; screen most samples; keep everything except dirt and building stone=>curation crisis
• Classes of materials & their preservation
• architecture: slabs, daub, floor, stone, charcoal
• ceramic: cooking, storage, serving,
• ground stone: mano, metate, axes, palettes
• chipped stone: projectile points (arrow heads), knives, drills, utilized flakes
• faunal: debris, tools, burials
• floral: macro botanical, pollen
• Special: mineral, paint/ochre, crystals, clay
• human burials
• "ceremonial objects" - careful