Linda Derry schrieb:
> Ned Heite wrote:
> >
> > That doesn't alter the fact that archaeology's single most important tool
> > is the artifact.
>
>
> Personally, I think the single most important tool archaeologists have is
> stratigraphy (context). All those pesky artifacts just keep getting in the
> way, eat up a lot of time, money and storage space!
hear hear! wasting all that time, picking the damned things up, putting them in
a bag, writing a number on 'em and all - i'd rather be swinging a pick, pushing
my wheelbarrow, eyeing the babes...
(just kidding.... well,
> not entirely. I really do think many archaeologists let artifacts
> overshadow the importance of stratigraphy and the story it tells. After all
> "pot hunters" and treasure hunters are usually pretty knowledgeable about
> artifact identification.) Sorry,
> Ned, I resisted the first time you said this, but reading it twice was more
> than a good old dirt archaeologist could bear.
>
> And before everyone jumps on me, I agree whole-heartedly that we need to
> sort out these artifact questions and that we all need a great deal of
> artifact familiarity to do even an adequate job, but I just couldn't let
> that platitude about Omni-potent artifacts go unchallenged.
>
the MoLAS (museum of London archaeological service) view: tag 'em, bag 'em, send
'em away lest ye be misled in your interpretation and thus biasing your
documentation -
german education seems to consist solely of memorizing typologies; so
long as i know if i've got baroque or medieval, i'm happy: have too much other
work to do supervising the unskilled masses they give us as pit slaves - let
someone else with time and nothing better to do decide if this type is the year
1420 variety or 1430: it doesn't have any effect on the work i'm doing in the
field; plus i'd rather like to think that all finds are equally important, not
just the prestige items the museum can photograph, publish and put on display
for the great unwashed who would rather see egyptian mummies than their own
local historical past (big exhibit opening tonight in the landesmuseum for
archaeology of saxony: how many museums have mummies, vs how many have saxon
archaeology?)
geoff carver
http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/
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