What Geoff posted was a rather generalized and relatively simple  
issue of recognition of later tree growth, rodent burrows and the  
like, all of which any competent excavator would note when digging  
and record accordingly. I do think that anyone who cannot recognize  
those in the field should not in fact be in the field. When it is a  
beginning digger whose lot it is to produce troweled surfaces for  
inspection by the Assistant Site Super, or the Site Super or the  
Director depending upon site size and personnel numbers, any  
competent excavator will recognize them and instruct the person in  
the said finer arts of stratigraphic recognition. Intrusions are  
noted by sight, feel, or sound. If one cannot see a soil difference,  
feel a difference or hear a difference, then in all probability  
they're missing entirely. Recognizing them is a sign of competence. I  
would note that we poor souls in VA have aeolian deposits as well as  
waterborne deposits wherein one operates by grain and artifact  
orientation. Even with our color coded laminated soils, some unwary  
folks have failed to operate stratigraphically to the detriment of  
the site and resultant interpretation.

But taking the extreme position only proves my point. Of course there  
are situations wherein intrusive elements cannot be recognized.  
Acidic soils will make short work of nearly any organic material,  
including entire tree root balls, leaving no visible trace. But,  
grain orientation will guide the skillful stratigrapher. Undoubtedly  
there are situations wherein a 1910 dime might end up in a Paleo  
strata entirely without recognition by anyone of the highest skill  
level (assuming non-human non-Loki causation), but these are the  
exceptions that prove the rule, as it were, not the norm. Geoff was  
asking about the more obvious stuff, not the extremes.

I am in agreement with Paul Courtney's post concerning the  "single  
context/harris matrix" summation of stratigraphic excavation from the  
British arena. After all, that's archaeology at its most basic:  
recognizing one discrete context and its stratigraphic relationship  
to any and all contexts that touch it. Recognizing and recording  
those relationships is the foundation of interpretation.

Lyle Browning


On Aug 24, 2007, at 10:49 AM, Timothy Scarlett wrote:

> I've always found C and N transforms to be part of stratigraphic  
> recording at every site I've worked.  I wouldn't jump to say that  
> the presence of intrusive artifacts in contexts is a sign of poor  
> work, Lyle.  Not everyone digs through those nicely color coded  
> laminated layers you have in Delaware and Virginia.  Working in  
> glacial till tumbled from frost heave (Schiffer's cryoturbation!)  
> or in desert sands mixed by winds (Schiffer's deflation and others)  
> even very good archaeologists can miss some transformations that  
> produce "intrusive" artifacts.
> Cheers,
> Tim
>
>
> Timothy Scarlett
> Assistant Professor of Archaeology
> Department of Social Sciences
> Michigan Technological University
> [log in to unmask]
> (906)487-2359 (office)
> (906)487-2468 (fax)
> ------------------------
>
>
> On Aug 24, 2007, at 10:19 AM, Lyle E. Browning wrote:
>
>> Full stratigraphic recording, preferably using a variant of the  
>> single context system is the only scientific way to record strata.  
>> If there are later elements in an earlier strata, then the  
>> excavator hasn't done a competent job of excavation as these  
>> should have been discerned in the field and recorded there as  
>> intrusive. Site diaries, how quaint. Check for more modern and  
>> robust systems that allow for direct recording of intrusives and  
>> other oddities directly. As for the how, profiles at 1:10 are more  
>> than adequate to show rodent holes as well as tree actions.  
>> Discarding later artifacts is highly unethical because it merely  
>> is the evidence of said incompetence.
>>
>> That later stuff just might also be the key to understanding  
>> hitherto unrecognized phases of site occupation. I remember all  
>> too well finding Anglo-Saxon pottery in a supposedly Romano- 
>> British ditch that was sealed by a third century Romano-British  
>> barn. We were doing a 10% sample of the ditches on the Romano- 
>> British farmstead and had a few AS shards. We checked the  
>> profiles, they were fine. We excavated a check section and had  
>> more. At that point, we went back to basics and surface cleaned  
>> the entire ditch and discovered that the AS folks had re-used the  
>> RB ditches, leaving a few short stretches for entrances, which,  
>> Murphy being ever present, was where we'd cut some of our  
>> sections. RB shards were there in droves while the AS shards were  
>> in very low numbers. That later intrusive stuff was the real key  
>> to understanding of the AS takeover of the site in the appropriate  
>> 5-6th Century context. Had we waited until post-excavation, we'd  
>> never had been able to work it out properly.
>>
>> Lyle Browning, RPA
>>
>> On Aug 24, 2007, at 8:20 AM, geoff carver wrote:
>>
>>> 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"?