Location, Location, Location: the Construction and Preservation of Roman Burial Mounds in the Dutch River Delta (original) (raw)
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Archaeological remains in soil context
Proceedings from the 6th Scientific Conference Methodology and Archaeometry, 2020
The majority of archaeological contexts are located within the soil, therefore processes of soil formation and soil geo-morphology play an important role in their formation history. These processes have important implications for the ways of observing and recording as well as understanding and interpreting these contexts. In order to demonstrate their implications a theoretical overview of only a few of those processes which seem most important for archaeology is given in this paper. This is accompanied by hypothetical profile depictions based on the presented theory in order to illustrate in a simplified manner some possible outcomes of the discussed processes reworking the archaeological record. The overview focusses on the difference between sediments and soil horizons and on processes of horizonation, bioturbation and additions or removals of material to or from the soil surface. It demonstrates that the principles of archaeological stratigraphy cannot be universally applied to sites altered by these processes. There the observed layers and contexts may not be the result of depositional events, be it anthropogenic or natural, to which these principles apply. Instead, they may be the result of in situ transformations of original contexts by long-term soil processes. In such cases, the principles of archaeological stratigraphy cannot be applied and the concept of stratigraphic contexts must be replaced with the concept of archaeological remains in soil context. The discussions of processes and accompanying hypothetical depictions in this paper should prove useful to archaeologists in the evaluation of such contexts and in thinking about how they may have been formed. However, the actual formation processes which resulted in the observed archaeological soil context can only be deciphered through interdisciplinary scientific research.
Book Review: Archaeological sediments and soils: Analysis, interpretation and management
Geoarchaeology, 1998
There are few books that focus specifically on archaeological sediments and soils and even fewer that clearly make the distinction between the two. This edited volume is the final publication for the 1989 Tenth Anniversary Conference Proceedings of the Association for Environmental Archaeology. The papers exemplify the distinguished interdisciplinary history originating at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, focusing on the geology, sedimentology, and pedology of archaeological sites. The conceptualization and identification of lithostratigraphic, chronostratigraphic, and biostratigraphic units, at a variety of scales, is an essential foundation of geoarchaeology and a significant theme throughout this collection. Most of the papers concentrate on the appropriate application of analytical techniques in the context of archaeological stratigraphy and the kinds of data these techniques produce. The majority of the sites used to illustrate these methods and approaches understandably are found in the UK.
This report describes soil micromorphological and field characteristics of profiles from the Parknabinnia Neolithic court tomb, County Clare, Ireland, and discusses how they relate to the history of the monument, its locality and the region. The tomb is located on a junction of two soil profile types, both overlying the Lower Carboniferous limestone pavement of the Burren. Despite the presence of a thick covering of soil inside the tomb before excavation, a rendzina on limestone, the typical modern soil profile for the area, is present under much of the tomb. Where the site overlies a slight hollow, however, a red clay-rich deposit is found overlain by a clayey brown earth profile. The latter appears to have derived from a localised occurrence or survival of more shale-rich or mixed limestone/shale breccia, as described for soils immediately to the south of the area (Moles & Moles 2002), although its relationship to those soils cannot be verified without further study. The hollow profile shows a change in chemistry and/or aeration with depth, with mollusc-rich and slightly calcareous organic topsoil overlying a moist parent material rich in oxidised iron and clay. The presence of this deeper profile could be taken to support general models that soils were thicker in this landscape in ancient times. One caveat, however, is that recent geoarchaeological work in other limestone areas (French et al. 2001), suggests that even by the Neolithic period theorised thicker soils may have existed only in locations where glacial/periglacial deposits survived, and/or where topography allowed deeper soil accumulation (e.g. in hollows). This could mean that surviving thick profiles represent only small fragments of the later prehistoric landscape, i.e. that any major extensive change in soil type occurred well before Neolithic monuments were constructed. It seems reasonable to assume that both soils discussed here have been relatively protected from subsequent major land use changes (they have not seen later deforestation, ploughing or significant grazing), due to their location underneath the tomb. The presence of a rendzina soil in those parts of Chamber 1 that do not fall over a hollow, adjacent to a thicker clay-rich profile over that hollow, highlights the importance of catenary position, especially topographic factors, in pedogenesis. The rendzina contains microscopic indicators of a potential clay-rich ancestral profile, but it is hard to explain how the rest of this profile was 'lost' after protection by tomb construction, especially since it survived and developed over the adjacent hollow. If there was a pedogenetic, possibly culturally induced, change from thicker soils to thinner ones across the Burren in general, the evidence from this site suggests that this happened well before the construction of this monument. This has major implications for models suggesting that shallow soil profile development on the Burren dates to the Neolithic period or later. Alternately and/or additionally, extensive soil 'degradation' postulated to relate to later prehistoric cultural land use may need to be rethought along more site-specific lines. More extensive, detailed and localised investigation into ancient soil types and possible erosion patterns is greatly needed, along with reassessment of models of how ancient settlement and land use are linked to these soil changes.