The Archaeological Visibility of Storage: Delineating Storage from Trash Areas

1999 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Kent
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Southwestern United States ◽  
Kalahari Desert ◽  
Storage Behavior ◽  
Activity Areas

Despite the importance attributed to the study of storage behavior, little research has been conducted to determine whether it is even possible to distinguish storage áreas from refuse áreas. Archaeologists routinely separate storage pits from trash pits, but few have systematically investigated the defining characteristics of each. This study suggests that there is an archaeologically visible signature that can help researchers correctly interpret these loci. Research at occupied and recently abandoned camps among the now sedentary residents of Kutse in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana shows that refuse areas have a more homogeneous artifact inventory, regardless of the number of objects present. In contrast, non-trash activity areas at the same camps have a more heterogeneous, or diverse, inventory. The applicability and utility of this finding to the archaeological record is evaluated through the analysis of a Pueblo II Anasazi archaeological site from the southwestern United States. Patterns first recognized ethnoarchaeologically also appear to be recognizable in the archaeological record using the same methods. The results indicate that the statistical tests described here are applicable to distinguishing trash from other activity areas at archaeological sites.

Soil Genesis and Site-Formation Processes

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vance T. Holliday
Keyword(s):  
Soil Formation ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Site Formation ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Site Formation Processes ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Natural Formation ◽  
Pedogenic Processes

Pedogenic processes that produce or alter the soils associated with a landscape (buried or unburied) also modify the archaeological sites and other traces of human activity associated with that landscape and buried landscapes. The wide range of processes that form soils can profoundly affect the archaeological record. Pedogenesis, therefore, is an important component of the processes of archaeological site formation. Archaeological “site-formation processes” are those processes that modify artifacts and archaeological sites from the moment they were formed until they are uncovered by archaeologists (Stein, 2001b, pp. 37–38). Understanding formation processes is crucial in archaeology because archaeologists use the patterns of artifacts in the ground to infer behaviors. Formation processes identify patterns that are created by ancient behaviors and separate those patterns from the ones created by later cultural and natural processes (Stein, 2001b, p. 37). In his influential volume Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record, Schiffer (1987, p. 7) notes that archaeologists try to infer past behavior based on the archaeological record, but the record “must be handled with great care by the investigator seeking to infer past behaviors, for the evidence that survives has been changed in many ways by a variety of processes.” These processes introduce variability and ambiguity into the archaeological record. Schiffer (1987, p. 7) further distinguishes between cultural processes, in which the agency of transformation is human behavior, and noncultural processes, which stem from processes of the natural environment. Natural formation processes are many and varied and include plants, animals, wind, water, ice, and gravity, among others. Soil formation is also identified as an important process of site formation. Schiffer (1987) provides a comprehensive discussion of natural site-formation processes, which are summarized by Stein (2001b). Nash and Petraglia (1987) and Goldberg et al. (1993) also provide a number of case histories of natural formation processes identified at archaeological sites. Because soil formation represents the alteration of rock and sediment (chapter 1), pedogenic processes are important natural processes in the formation of archaeological sites. Other weathering processes that are significant in site formation can be grouped as “diagenetic alterations.”

Loom weights in Archaic South Italy and Sicily: Fice case studies

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 123-155
Author(s):  
Hedvig Landenius Enegren
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Experimental Archaeology ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Site Specificity ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
South Italy ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
Tool Technology

Textiles are perishables in the archaeological record unless specific environmental conditions are met. Fortunately, the textile tools used in their manufacture can provide a wealth of information and via experimental archaeology make visible to an extent what has been lost. The article presents and discusses the results obtained in a research project focused on textile tool technologies and identities in the context of settler and indigenous peoples, at select archaeological sites in South Italy and Sicily in the Archaic and Early Classical periods, with an emphasis on loom weights. Despite a common functional tool technology, the examined loom weights reveal an intriguing inter-site specificity, which, it is argued, is the result of hybrid expressions embedded in local traditions. Experimental archaeology testing is applied in the interpretation of the functional qualities of this common artefact.

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