The Brits were always way ahead in matters of stratigraphy, surfaces and soils.
Digging in arbitrary 10 cm spits has been less common in Britain than in the USA, I suspect.
Mortimer Wheeler had a lot of influence on the stratigraphic approach to digging. But the tradition goes way back beyond Wheeler.
Consider Droop's textbook of 1915:
ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATION
BY
J. P. DROOP, M.A.
Late Student of the British School at Athens
Cambridge: at the University Press
1915
page ix
"From the stress laid in the following pages upon stratification the reader might be excused for thinking that all sites have been stratified by past generations with a nice comprehension of the needs of the excavator. Unfortunately it is not so. Many sites show no strata and in many more the strata that once existed have been destroyed by rash digging for foundations or by other baleful activities, though ancient builders were not so criminal as their modern successors. But because where strata do not exist digging is easy, and because where strata do exist digging is most difficult and the results of digging most fruitful in knowledge, I believe that to be able to dig a stratified site well is to have attained to the highest and most remunerative skill in this particular work; therefore I make no apology for laying stress on the importance of stratification; its presence should always be assumed until the worst is known, for no scientific harm is done by the assumption a
nd much may be saved."
page 7-8
" General principles it is easy enough to state, but the matter is not so simple when it comes to the particular question, By what means are objects best found and made to yield up their story ? The answer comes in the form of another principle nearly as general as its predecessors. An excavation should be so conducted that it would be possible in theory to build up the site again with every object replaced exactly in its original position. For it is not until after excavation has disclosed fully what may be called the geological nature of the site, the original contours of the virgin soil, and the source and order of the subsequent accumulations, that reasoned conclusions can be formed as to the history of the objects found; and these conclusions cannot be formed, or at least cannot be formed with the same certainty, if the relations of the individual finds either with one another or with the geological conditions are not accurately known. Should the objects have been take
n out in a higgledy-piggledy manner no subsequent knowledge of the history of the accumulations will be of much avail, and instead of having evidence from stratification the student will be reduced to evidence from style."
Richard Wright
>
>Subject: Soils
> From: "paul.courtney2" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 23:41:17 +0100
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
>The great thing about learning to dig in Britain is the great a variety
>of geology and soils in a very small geographical area. I learnt a lot
>in my youth from digging on a wide variety of sites of different periods
>with very different soils.A pity I am now too rheumatic (the bad thing
>is our *** wet weather) to use some of the skills I picked up like being
>able to dig features entirely by feel- very useful on silt and clay
>soils. Once visited a site in a Roman fortress where they claimed it was
>sterile. I tried pointing out those shallow patches of 1-3 cms of dark
>soil where the subsidence in the top of massive post pits but they would
>have none of it.
>
>paul courtney
>
>Tim Thompson wrote:
>> I remember being "B"-mused and not a little "A"mused the first time I saw Schiffer's 'transformational grammar.' It still seems to me, as it did then, to be making a fetish of the obvious. Fairbanks quietly pointed out to his students (including me) that you had to document intrusion and in-situ soil changes (eluviation, gleying, etc.) in order to understand what had happened in the past. No elaborate hierarchical naming exercise was required -- mostly just common sense, and good drawing and photographic skills. This was when Schiffer was still an undergraduate, I believe.
>>
>> And, oh yes, my undergraduate program at Florida included a couple of excellent geology course including Geoological Stratigraphy. In graduate school at Catholic we took soil science courses and geomorphology (provide through the DC consortium). The need for the skills and insights obtained from our dirt- and rock-hopping academic cousins does seem to be so obvious that it is surprising to discover that they are not always required.
>>
>> But it's probably unfair to blame the excavators for their ignorance. Rather, their mentors were at fault and all should work to correct these deficiencies. No amount of behavioural, processual, post-processual or whatever, theory and class work will correct flawed data by excavators who don't fully understand the dirt.
>>
>> Tim Thompson
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------
>>
>>> Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:00:37 -0700
>>> From: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: HISTARCH Digest - 23 Aug 2007 to 24 Aug 2007 (#2007-24)
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>> There are 9 messages totalling 469 lines in this issue.
>>>
>>> Topics of the day:
>>>
>>> 1. recording evidence of post-depositional transformations (8)
>>> 2. post-dep & recording
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:20:22 +0200
>>> From: geoff carver
>>> Subject: recording evidence of post-depositional transformations
>>>
>>> usual apologies for x-posting, but i'm trying to guage how much =
>>> influence schiffer might have had on the discipline, and how =
>>> stratigraphy is now perceived...
>>> do people generally/systematically record evidence of possible =
>>> disturbance (roots, frost, rodent/worm holes, etc.; and if so, how?), or =
>>> just make a note in the site diary, or just discard anything that's =
>>> "obviously" intrusive (modern coins, etc.), or... what do they do?
>>> does anybody still "assume" that "artifacts contained within a given =
>>> stratum are more or less contemporary"?
>>>
>>>
>> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>>
>> There are many diffierent ways of recording, documenting,
>>
>>> curating, and, yes, interpreting archaeology site formation, transformation
>>> and the like. Michael Schiffer came up with a good pioneering methodology, but
>>> there are others to consider as well.
>>>
>>> Ron May
>>> Legacy 106, Inc.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at
>>> http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
|
