Field Note Collaborations for Week Five

Video One:

Welcome to the Week 5 lab. This week you will learn how archaeologists collect and analyze

artifacts. The first thing we need to do is define some of the terms that archaeologists use.

Terms:

The first term you should know is artifact. An artifact is a movable object that has been

manufactured or modified by humans. Examples of artifacts would be stone tools, pieces of

pottery, coins, or jewelry.

Another term commonly used by archaeologists is feature.

A feature is a non-portable object resulting from human technology. Examples of features

would include such things as roads, remains of architecture, a cooking hearth, or any other thing

that cannot be moved without losing its physical integrity.

A midden is a trash deposit resulting from human activity.

Ecofacts are plant and animal remains found at archaeological sites.

And finally, an excavation, which is a form of controlled digging that is used to provide the

recording of the provenience of an artifact in three dimensions.

So now let’s talk about how artifacts are collected. This is often done by conducting surface

collections. This is where an archaeologist or a group of archaeologists walk across the surface

of a site and collect artifacts lying on the surface of the ground. Artifacts collected during

surface collections are put into small plastic, paper, or cloth bags which are labeled with

information such as the date, the site name, the person who collected them, and the exact

location of where they were found. The other common way to find artifacts is through

excavations. The archaeologist will dig a square or rectangular unit in the ground, in levels, and

again all of the collected artifacts found will be placed into artifact bags and labeled, this time

with the addition of which level the artifacts were found, documenting the three dimensional

location of the artifact in the excavation unit. It is important to document what is found in each

level, because generally the farther down you dig, the older the artifacts will be (unless the soil

was disturbed in some way).

The reason it is so important to document the physical location of an artifact is to give it context.

This means that the archaeologist can look at an individual artifact for analysis, or they can look

at the same artifact in context with other artifacts. Now why would that be important? Let me

give you an example. If I were working at a site, and I found a single glass bottle, I could

perhaps hypothesize that this was an object used to hold some type of liquid. But what if I were

to find that same bottle in context with a hundred other bottles just like it, located next to a big

fire pit? Then I might hypothesize something else – perhaps there was a bottle blowing activity

taking place at this location.

Video 2: Next, let’s talk about analysis. The first level of analysis is looking at the form and function of

the artifact. What is it made of? Where did the materials used to make it come from? How old

is it? For example, we can find the age of organic materials by using radiocarbon dating.

At a site that I worked at in Mexico, we found a large number of ceramic shards and animal

bones in one of our excavation units. This excavation unit was located alongside one of the

larger structures at the site, and a surface collection on top of the structure revealed a large

number of fancy pottery shards. That’s why we chose to excavate at that structure. The large

number of animal bones and pottery shards seem to indicate some type of feasting activity

occurred there. I sent some of the animal bones (which included deer, peccary, dog and

crocodile) to a radiocarbon lab, and the dates we got back indicated that the material was

deposited about 1700 years ago. We also know that the pottery shards found adjacent to the

animal bones would have been deposited at the same time, even though we were unable to

radiocarbon date pottery. So context is important.

So what can we tell about people by looking at their trash? What can we tell about the social,

economic, and political practices of the people who lived at a site? What do you think people

can tell about you by looking at where you live? Do you think they could figure out something

about your economic status? Or your social status? How do you think they would be able to do

that?

Video 3: Archaeologists would do much the same thing when they look at artifacts found in context with

other artifacts, ecofacts and features. For example, if you were to look at a large mansion in

Beverly Hills, what might you hypothesize about the people who live there? What criteria are

you using to make that determination? The size of the house? The location? The landscaping?

Electronic gates?

What if you were to look at a small house in Detroit? What would you hypothesize about the

people who live there? Just looking at the outside of a home can give you a lot of information,

but what about the items found inside the home? Or inside their trash? If we were to look inside

the trash of the house in Beverly Hills, we might find some empty bottles of very expensive

wine. We might also find receipts for expensive jewelry, or an empty jar of expensive perfume.

If we were to look at the trash of the small house, would we likely find the same items? We

might see some of the same items in both – disposable diapers, old magazines, empty food

containers. But when you put all of these things in context, it gives us a better picture of who

lives in those houses. I want you to think about this as you do the lab exercise for this week.

This week’s garbology worksheet gives you a list of trash found in an excavation, and the

location of where the trash was found. Please take a look at all of the trash on the list, and think

about each piece both individually and then in context with the rest of the trash and location it

was found. You will use this information to answer the lab questions. Above images of homes

go into video 3.

Have fun digging in the trash!