Geoff:
Why stop with phosphates? If you are dealing with a domestic site, all the
chemical elements can be useful.
We used phosphates in a suite of soil chemical tests on the Bloomsbury site
in Delaware to great advantage.
Actually, we did two soil chemical surveys. At the beginning, we took
samples on a ten-foot grid over the whole two or three acres of the site.
This gave a good overall picture of the activity areas on the site.
To save money, we used the local agricultural soil lab and the elements
they normally test. As it turned out, all these elements had something to
say about human use of the site. The agricultural chemical tests are a good
choice, since the farmers are looking for chemical elements that relate to
life functions, and so are we.
Our second survey was a detailed examination of the site core after the
features had been excavated and all the topsoil had been removed and
sifted. We sampled every thirty inches on a grid, taking our samples below
the plowzone, and the resulting site maps were fantastic. They are in the
report, which is "in press" at the Delaware Department of Transportation.
Here are three pertinent references which will provide bibliography that
will start you on your journey down that great conga line of archaeological
soil chemical citations.
Walker, Rick
1992 Phosphate survey, in Oxbow Mnograph 18
Dennis Pogue
1988, Anthrosols and the analysis of archaeological sites in a plowed
context, in Northeast Historical Archaeology 17
Bintliff, Davies, Gaffney, Snodgrass and Waters
1992, in Oxbow Monograph 18
Ned Heite
_____ Say what? What was that you called her?
___(_____) Baby is a LAND ROVER!
|Baby the\
|1969 Land\__===_ As a matter of fact, I have just
| ___Rover ___|o now returned from the funeral of
|_/ . \______/ . || last fellow who called Baby a J**p
________\_/________\_/_______________________________________
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