In a message dated 8/25/2007 7:11:57 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

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.



Most of the archaeology sites in southern California defy stratigraphic  
"logic," according to soil geologists because the sites did not build by aeolian  
deposition. Although some water-transport deposition did occur (erosional, 
sheet  flow, minor hydraulic transport) and some wind-blown, many sites were 
simply  dug-in to a depth which people felt comfortable. Repeated digging-in of 
house  floors, cooking and heating features, and burial of offal resulted in  
concentrations of artifacts, fire altered artifacts, and manuports at those  
formerly comfortable depths. Yet other natural forces cause surface artifacts to  
migrate in the soils, such as seasonal soil cracking, churning of soils by  
animals, tree and root intrusions that pushed or drew items to considerable  
depth. Much of these deposits are not detectable by soil color, density  
compaction, sound, root matting, etc. and many archaeologists excavate in  arbitrary 
levels because the cannot see these subtle changes. Soil color also  drops in 
this same manner. Believe me, California archaeology can be a  challenge.
 
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.



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