Critical approaches to fieldwork : contemporary and historical archaeological practice

257 Pages·2001·2.402 MB·English

by  Gavin Lucas

Chapter 2
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3111 In Critical Approaches to Fieldwork Gavin Lucas provides a fundamental
4 examination of the historical and conceptual framework within which
5 archaeology is practised today. Drawing on the development of the disci-
6 pline since the nineteenth century, the relation between theoretical
7 paradigms and everyday archaeological practice is critically explored.
8 This work takes as its starting point the role of fieldwork and how this
9 has changed over the past 150 years. The author argues against progressive
20111 accounts of fieldwork and instead places it in its broader intellectual context.
1 From this, a number of key structural changes are identified in archaeo-
2 logical practice which correlate interestingly with the emergence of
3 sub-divisions within the discipline, such as finds specialisms, area/period
4 research and theoretical/methodological specialities. It is argued that such
5 structural divisions within archaeology have major theoretical consequences
6 which need to be addressed. This work contributes greatly to this emerging
7 discussion.
8 In providing a much-needed historical and critical evaluation of current
9 practice in archaeology, this book opens up a topic of debate which affects
30111 all archaeologists, whatev er their particular interests. This will be essential
1 reading for all current and future archaeologists.
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3 Gavin Lucas is currently working for the Cambridge Archaeological Unit
4 involved in directing excavation and post-excavation programmes.
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Chapter 2
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2 Contemporary and historical
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archaeological practice
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Gavin Lucas
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8 U T LE
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23 Taylor&Francis Group
44111 London and New York
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3 First published 2001 by Routledge
4 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
5 Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
6 by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
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20111 © 2001 Gavin Lucas
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
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reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
3 mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
4 including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
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the publishers.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
7 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
9 Lucas, Gavin, 1965-
30111 Critical approaches to fie ldwork : contemporary and historical
archaeological practice /
1
Gavin Lucas.
2 p. cm.
3 Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Archaeology. 2. Archaeology—field work. I. Title.
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5 CC75 .L78 2000
6 930.1—dc21
00-032213
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8 ISBN 0–415–23534–0 (pbk)
9 ISBN 0–415–23533–2 (hbk)
ISBN 0-203-13225-4 Master e-book ISBN
40111
ISBN 0-203-18003-8 (Glassbook Format)
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Chapter 2
1111 Contents
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3111 List of figures vi
4 List of tables vii
5 Acknowledgements viii
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1 Introduction: archaeology and the field 1
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2 Finding the past 18
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3 Splitting objects 64
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4 The measure of culture 107
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5 Eventful contexts 146
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6 Conclusion: material archaeologies 200
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30111 Notes 215
1 References 216
2 Index 242
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Chapter 2
1111 Figures
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3 1 Excavation of Wor Barrow by Pitt Rivers 21
4 2 Wheeler’s section at the Roman fort of Segontium 37
5 3 Wheeler’s box-trench excavation at Maiden Castle 40
6 4 Kenyon’s correlation table of archaeological layers 42
7 5 Wheeler’s section from Brahmagiri, India 46
8 6 Modern open-area excavation in Cambridgeshire, England 53
9 7 Harris matrix 59
20111 8 Graph showing rise in specialist reporting in a sample of
1 major British site reports 66
2 9 Pitt Rivers’ chart of the evolution of Australasian weaponry 72
3 10 Montelius’ typology of Bronze Age artefacts 77
4 11 Cluster analysis dendrogram of obsidian points 99
5 12 Chart of principal design changes on English domestic
6 clock dials (1620–1860) 101
7 13 Mortillet’s chart of French periodisation 110
8 14 Childe’s chart of Danubian culture groups 112
9 15 North American culture classification schemes 117
30111 16 Visibility of stratigra phic/soil interfaces according to
1 different electro-magnetic wavelengths 156
2 17 Harris matrix (a) and alternative graphic representation of
3 site temporality (b), based on a sequence at Çatalhöyük,
4 Turkey) 164
5 18 Objects as contexts: pottery refits at the Romano-British
6 site of Haddenham 166
7 19 Objects as contexts: half-sectioned Bronze Age cremation urn 169
8 20 Excavation at a Viking farmstead in Iceland in 1908 (a)
9 and 1995 (b) 203
40111 21 Late nineteenth-century advertisement for gas brackets 207
1 22 Wheeler’s and Bersu’s section drawings 209
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Chapter 2
1111 Tables
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3111 1 Discourse and the field 13
4 2 Ratio of generic to specific finds categorisations by period in
5 major British site reports 70
6 3 Hargrave’s artefact taxonomy 81
7 4 Pairwise table of hypothetical pottery assemblage 97
8 5 Mortillet’s and Childe’s schema of the partition of culture 113
9 6 Models of artefact cycle and the archaeological process
20111 compared 150
1 7 Levels of archaeological data as proposed by the Frere and
2 Cunliffe report 213
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Chapter 2
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3 This book first took form in 1997 and has since been modified quite substan-
4 tially due to the helpful advice of a number of people. In particular, its
5 direction and coherence has benefited immeasurably through this feedback.
6 I would like to thank many people for their help and support: Ian Hodder
7 who read various drafts and provided much support, particularly in the
8 initial stages of writing; my friends and colleagues in Cambridge and from
9 Çatalhöyük (1996–7), among whom I had the best possible environment
20111 to learn what it means to do archaeology; and in particular those who read
1 and commented on various drafts or parts of this book – Craig Cessford,
2 Adrian Chadwick, Jenny Bredenberg, Victor Buchli, Chris Evans, Carolyn
3 Hamilton, Mark Knight, Lesley McFadyen and Roddy Regan. My thanks
4 also go to Vicki Peters at Routledge for pushing the book through with
5 encouragement and sound advice, and to Polly Osborn for taking it through
6 its final stages; and finally to Randy McGuire, Bob Preucel and two anony-
7 mous readers for providing much needed criticism and comment.
8 Several figures in this book have been drawn from other publications
9 and I would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce them:
30111 Academic Press Ltd (F igure 7), Institute of Archaeology (UCL) (Figures
1 14 and 16), Orion Publishing Group (Figure 4), Oxford University Press
2 (Figure 5), the Prehistoric Society (Figure 22), Salisbury and South Wiltshire
3 Museum (Figure 1) and the Society of Antiquaries (Figures 3 and 22). In
4 addition, I would like to thank the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum
5 for providing the photograph reproduced as Figure 1, the National Monu-
6 ments Record for supplying the photograph in Figure 3 and Fornleifastofnun
7 Íslands for providing the photographs used in Figure 20.
8 This book is dedicated to my mother and late father.
9 Gavin Lucas
40111 Cambridge
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Chapter 1
1111 Introduction
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3 Archaeology and the field
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3111 Not so long ago I was working on a small trial excavation in the village
4 of Castor in eastern England; it involved cutting a narrow trench into a
5 beautiful old orchard garden backing on to a churchyard in order to find
6 evidence for a Roman palace which once occupied almost the whole village.
7 In the end, we did find the remains of Roman buildings on a terrace, as
8 well as a great deal of subsequent occupation which ceased sometime in
9 the twelfth or thirteenth century when the area became part of the church-
20111 yard. The process of excavation involved using a machine to strip off the
1 garden soil, followed by hand digging with mattocks, spades, shovels and
2 trowels. In the process, we sought to identify separate deposits marked by
3 differences in their composition, deposits such as slopewash, floor layers,
4 pit fills, walls and so on. Each of these was described on separate record
5 sheets accompanied by measured drawings to scale, and identified by a
6 unique number; any artefacts or other remains such as animal bones or
7 shells were bagged and labelled according to the deposit they came from.
8 Critical to the whole process was understanding both what any deposit
9 represented and what its relationship was to other deposits, i.e. earlier, later
30111 or contemporary.
1 After excavation, all the finds and records were taken back, put in order
2 and checked through; the different finds – the pottery, the animal bones,
3 the coins, etc. – were sent for study to different specialists, each of whom
4 analysed the material in certain ways and produced a report. For example,
5 the ceramicist sorted out all the sherds into different types of vessel based
6 on their fabric and form, quantified this information and at the end was
7 able to say what kind of vessels were represented from the site, what period
8 they dated from, and where they were made. On this site, most of the
9 pottery came from local kilns, but some came from other places such as
40111 France, and most could be dated to the latter part of the Roman period.
1 This and the other specialist information was then integrated with the
2 records made on site to produce a narrative which aimed to establish the
3 sequence and nature of events which left their trace under that old orchard
44111 garden about 1,500 years ago.