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Selected text from The Archaeology Coursebook-Pt6
[These posts are excepts from The Archaeology Coursebook by Jim Grant, Sam Gorin and Neil Fleming. This is an introductory text book which should prove useful in writing about archeologocal methods for stargate fic.]
We'll leave 'key concepts' for a bit, and go back to excavation methods...
(Note: Excerpts from the complete text)
Excavation-Part Six:Box-grid and Quadrant Systems, Planum Excavation
Box-grid and Quadrant Systems
These sit in an intermediate position between trenches and area excavation attempting to offer archaeologists the better aspects of each by giving access to both the horizontal view and the vertical cut simultaneously.
The box-grid system owes its origins to the work of Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the first half of the twentieth century. He would set out a grid of square ‘boxes’ to be excavated with baulks left in between them. This resulted in a dig resembling a patchwork quilt. An advantage was the chance to record four sections for every ‘box’. Removal of spoil was also easier as baulks provided barrow runs. However, the whole layout of a site was not revealed until the baulks were finally removed. Important relationships between features or structures would not be understood while digging, which might depend on such an understanding, was progressing.
The system was costly of time and manpower and its popularity short-lived though it is still possible to see some excavations where a pattern of trial trenching that clearly owes something to this earlier method is used.
The chance discovery in 1993 of a human shin bone in a quarry by Mark Roberts led him to initiate the most famous recent example of box-grid excavation. The ongoing excavations have revealed much about the lifestyle and environment of Homo Heidelbergensis, one of the earliest of our ancestors to reach Britain. The bone enabled scientists to suggest that these hominids were large and heavily built like a modern sprinter. Cut marks on two human teeth found nearby showed that they used their teeth to hold meat while they cut it. The geology revealed that the site had been a beach backed by chalk cliffs. A spring at the foot of the cliffs fed a small fresh water pool that attracted animals. In and around the pool were scatters of animal bones and flint tools including 450 well made hand axes and hammer stones (for removing marrow from bone). Many of the bones had cut marks from the tools and even fragments of flint in a knife cut.
Box sections enabled precise cross referencing of the freshwater sediments laid down by the stream. Chalk ensured excellent preservation and enabled scatters of flint and bones to be studied where they had fallen. Some of the silts were so fine grained that individual episodes could be recorded and in one case it was possible to tell from waste flakes how the flint knapper was sitting.
The ‘quadrant system’ is a similar approach that is still in common usage. It is particularly relevant in the case of sites that are approxi¬mately circular in nature, such as round barrows, although a smaller scale version of this method is often employed on hearths, pits or even postholes. The feature is cut into four quarters by lines intersecting at the middle and opposing quadrants are excavated first. It is possible after only removing half the remains to see patterns of features in plan (which if they show common elements suggest that they continue under the undug areas) and to totally record the vertical profile of the site in two directions.
Figure 2.10 A pit which has been quartered in order to give four internal section profiles
Figure 2.11 A quadrant excavation of a mound demonstrated at the Quest Project
Planum Excavation
On most sites features can be identified once a surface has been cleared and trowelled. However, if a site lacks clear stratification and generally comprises soil rather than stones or building materials, the identification of contexts can present problems. In this case an alternative approach is to ‘plane’ off a pre¬determined thickness of deposit across the whole site, plan and photograph the revealed surface and then repeat the process. In effect slices are removed across the site to reveal and record a series of images much the same as an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) body scan provides cut-through views of the human body for doctors.
One application of this method is the excavation of grave fills where ground conditions have adversely affected the survival of the burial and/or any associated objects. The painstaking excavation of cave deposits at Creswell Crags took the planum method one step further by also dividing the deposits vertically so as to create small cubes of cave earth for precision in recording ecofacts and artefacts.
We'll leave 'key concepts' for a bit, and go back to excavation methods...
(Note: Excerpts from the complete text)
Excavation-Part Six:Box-grid and Quadrant Systems, Planum Excavation
Box-grid and Quadrant Systems
These sit in an intermediate position between trenches and area excavation attempting to offer archaeologists the better aspects of each by giving access to both the horizontal view and the vertical cut simultaneously.
The box-grid system owes its origins to the work of Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the first half of the twentieth century. He would set out a grid of square ‘boxes’ to be excavated with baulks left in between them. This resulted in a dig resembling a patchwork quilt. An advantage was the chance to record four sections for every ‘box’. Removal of spoil was also easier as baulks provided barrow runs. However, the whole layout of a site was not revealed until the baulks were finally removed. Important relationships between features or structures would not be understood while digging, which might depend on such an understanding, was progressing.
The system was costly of time and manpower and its popularity short-lived though it is still possible to see some excavations where a pattern of trial trenching that clearly owes something to this earlier method is used.
The chance discovery in 1993 of a human shin bone in a quarry by Mark Roberts led him to initiate the most famous recent example of box-grid excavation. The ongoing excavations have revealed much about the lifestyle and environment of Homo Heidelbergensis, one of the earliest of our ancestors to reach Britain. The bone enabled scientists to suggest that these hominids were large and heavily built like a modern sprinter. Cut marks on two human teeth found nearby showed that they used their teeth to hold meat while they cut it. The geology revealed that the site had been a beach backed by chalk cliffs. A spring at the foot of the cliffs fed a small fresh water pool that attracted animals. In and around the pool were scatters of animal bones and flint tools including 450 well made hand axes and hammer stones (for removing marrow from bone). Many of the bones had cut marks from the tools and even fragments of flint in a knife cut.
Box sections enabled precise cross referencing of the freshwater sediments laid down by the stream. Chalk ensured excellent preservation and enabled scatters of flint and bones to be studied where they had fallen. Some of the silts were so fine grained that individual episodes could be recorded and in one case it was possible to tell from waste flakes how the flint knapper was sitting.
The ‘quadrant system’ is a similar approach that is still in common usage. It is particularly relevant in the case of sites that are approxi¬mately circular in nature, such as round barrows, although a smaller scale version of this method is often employed on hearths, pits or even postholes. The feature is cut into four quarters by lines intersecting at the middle and opposing quadrants are excavated first. It is possible after only removing half the remains to see patterns of features in plan (which if they show common elements suggest that they continue under the undug areas) and to totally record the vertical profile of the site in two directions.
Figure 2.10 A pit which has been quartered in order to give four internal section profiles
Figure 2.11 A quadrant excavation of a mound demonstrated at the Quest Project
Planum Excavation
On most sites features can be identified once a surface has been cleared and trowelled. However, if a site lacks clear stratification and generally comprises soil rather than stones or building materials, the identification of contexts can present problems. In this case an alternative approach is to ‘plane’ off a pre¬determined thickness of deposit across the whole site, plan and photograph the revealed surface and then repeat the process. In effect slices are removed across the site to reveal and record a series of images much the same as an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) body scan provides cut-through views of the human body for doctors.
One application of this method is the excavation of grave fills where ground conditions have adversely affected the survival of the burial and/or any associated objects. The painstaking excavation of cave deposits at Creswell Crags took the planum method one step further by also dividing the deposits vertically so as to create small cubes of cave earth for precision in recording ecofacts and artefacts.