Field archaeology is the study of surface features of archaeological sites (Crawford 1960: 36). It is concerned not only with the location of sites for excavation, but with their distributions and relationships in time and space. A sequence of field monuments in an area can be difficult to reconstruct, as the information necessary for dating of sites may be not be obtainable from interpretation of surface features alone. The landscape, on which human activities may leave visible traces, is palimpsestic (ibid: 51) : human activity may erase previous traces, or merely add to them. Superposition of remains, resulting from the continued occupation of a particular location, may not necessarily leave visible traces, and if it does, the traces may represent an accumulation of activities, or the remains of only the most recent. A landscape may include sites representing human occupation at different times in the past.
The survival of traces of activity as archaeological surface features depends on the extent to which natural features of the landscape are permanently modified. The recognition of these traces depends on the ability of the field archaeologist to interpret the landscape. The geographical context of archaeological sites is the present-day landscape, but study of the site necessitates consideration both of this context and also of environmental features obtaining at the time the site was occupied. Reconstruction and interpretation of both landscape and site are necessary: the site, once the human activity leading to its recognition by the field archaeologist has ceased, is subject to the same agents of change as the landscape.
The interpretation of archaeological sites rests chiefly on excavation. Once a type of site has been examined throughly by excavation, the resulting interpretations may be transferred to other similar, but unexcavated sites. Such inferences can be very specific, or quite general. Frequently the surface form of a site gives little indication of whether predictable or exceptional features will be found on excavation-- Chapter One.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217678 |
| Date | January 1970 |
| Creators | Kennedy, Jean, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Otago. Department of Anthropology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://policy01.otago.ac.nz/policies/FMPro?-db=policies.fm&-format=viewpolicy.html&-lay=viewpolicy&-sortfield=Title&Type=Academic&-recid=33025&-find), Copyright Jean Kennedy |
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