Archaeological Investigation

Martin Carver is an archaeologist who has worked in ten countries and had four careers: 14 years as an army officer, 13 years as a freelance excavator, 22 years as a university professor and 16 years, so far, as an archaeological researcher, writer and editor. He has undertaken projects in England, in the West Midlands and Sutton Hoo, in north-east Scotland at Portmahomack, and in France, Italy and Algeria for their government agencies. From 2003 to 2012, he was editor of Antiquity, which publishes archaeological theories and discoveries from all over the world. Here he created a special section on methods and an online supplement that carries notices of new projects (Project Gallery). He was the first secretary of the Institute of Field Archaeologist (now the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists), and is a fellow of the Societies of Antiquaries of London and Scotland, a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute and a Fellow of the British Academy. Madeleine Hummler was educated at the Universities of Basel, Birmingham and Oxford, where she completed her DPhil on the Iron Age archaeology of the Rhône valley. She has excavated widely in Switzerland, Britain, France, northern Italy and Sicily, directing fieldwork in Britain, Provence and Lombardy and training generations of students to excavate, survey and record over four decades. Mastering four languages and a trained teacher of modern languages, she has translated and edited numerous archaeological publications, including for Antiquity and the European Journal of Archaeology, and reviewed hundreds of books when Reviews Editor at Antiquity (2005–2012). She is a fellow of the Societies of Antiquaries of London.

List of illustrations

Acknowledgements and picture credits

Preface

Preface to the second edition

The authors

PART 1: Principles

How archaeological fieldwork relates to theory and the society in which it is practised. The demands of research, the needs of conservation and the rights of stakeholders – and how these can be reconciled.

Chapter 1: The Stuff

A prodigious variety

How sites form

Digging them up

Let’s speak archaeology

Mega-macro-micro-nano

In sum…

Briefing

Chapter 2: Approaches

What do we want from fieldwork?

Empirical to reflexive: four approaches

Value-led archaeology

Field Research Procedure

In sum…

Briefing

Chapter 3: Field Research Procedure – a framework

A value-led project: Sutton Hoo

The recent campaign

Stage 1 Reconnaissance

Stage 2 Evaluation

Stage 3 Project Design

Stage 4 Implementation

Stage 5 Analyses and syntheses

Stage 6 Publication and the public

The future

Reflections

Briefing

PART 2: In the Field

Here we review techniques and their applications for three principal types of field operation.

Chapter 4: Landscape Survey

First day in the field

Methods: Using maps, from the air, on the surface

Applications: Inventory surveys, mitigation surveys, research surveys, environments (historic and natural), survey by samples

In sum…

Briefing

Chapter 5: Site Survey

Definitions

Methods: In the archives, from the air, on the ground (topography and surface collection), geophysical mapping, georadar, geochemical methods, strata testing (cores pits and trenches)

Applications: In the countryside, a basket of site surveys in Sicily, urban sites, graveyards, battlefields and gardens, studying standing buildings

In sum….

Briefing

Chapter 6: Excavation

First day on a dig

On method: three ways of dissecting strata, contexts, features and structures, the excavation site as a laboratory

On procedure: Recovery levels A–E

Recovering the unseen: Recovery level F (taking away, nano investigations)

Recording: Rationales of recording, recording in action, components of records (contexts, features, structures, horizons, sections and profiles), finds, notebooks and videos, an integrated recording system

The course of an excavation

In sum…

Briefing

PART 3: WRITING UP

This section shows how the records gathered in the field are studied and reported to researchers, to clients and to the public.

Chapter 7: Analysis

Preliminary tasks: inventory, assessment and design

The analytical programme: assemblage, space, chronology

Designing the analytical itinerary

An example

In sum…

Briefing

Chapter 8: Assemblage

Retrieval

Programmes of Analysis

Artefacts: fabric, form, style

Ecodata: bioarchaeological material: Human remains: SI, aDNA; Animals; Plants and plant-related remains; Organic Residues and Proteomics; Soils

Interpretation of archaeological assemblages: in settlements and cemeteries

In sum…

Briefing

Chapter 9: Space

Scales of space

Spatial patterns from excavation: mapping objects, contexts, features and structures; finding patterns in burial; finding buildings; Inside buildings

Spatial patterns from site survey: mapping settlements

Spatial patterns in the landscape

In sum….

Briefing

Chapter 10: Chronology

The business of chronology

Typological dating of artefacts

Direct dating of objects

Direct dating of contexts

Relative ordering of contexts

Using objects to date contexts

Ordering assemblages

Using stratification, assemblage and radiocarbon together

Feature sequences

Chronology of sites: dating buildings; rural sites; urban sites

Context seriation: assemblages and stratification working together

Convergent chronologies

In sum…..

Briefing

Chapter 11: Synthesis

Why write?

The case for synthesis

Site models

Towards synthesis

Ethnography

Experiment: artefacts; a building; a ship

The validation of syntheses

Joined-up synthesis: science and humanities in tandem

In sum…

Chapter 12: Publication

Eight ways of telling it: who pays and why?

Archives and Field Records

Field Reports

Client Reports

Reporting research: preparing a research report

Books for the wider public (including students)

Presenting sites to the public

Museums and websites

Ephemeral output: the press, TV, social media

Archaeologists communicate.

The Future of Publication

Briefing

PART 4 Design

This part studies project design as the principal driver of archaeological investigations and how the concept has created a vivid and varied repertoire of career opportunities.

Chapter 13: Challenges

Extensive investigations – The Ruby Pipeline Nevada, Olympic Dam South Australia, Loango coast Congo, Green Sahara, Canadian ice patches and calibou.

Intensive investigations- Digging deep - Paleolithic Urals, Klithi cave. Digging mounds- Carlston Annis mound, Wijnaldum-Tjitsma terp. On the flat - Yeavering, Bylany. Underneath towns - York Minster, Managing Urban Archaeology (Ove Arup), Crossrail, Grand Arcade in Cambridge.

Underwater investigations- wrecks: Yassīada. Drowned settlements: Charavines, Atlit Yam, Splashcos.

An integrated challenge: – the underground carpark of the Zurich Opera house.

Reflections

Briefing

Chapter 14: Designing Projects

Introduction - a rationale for design

Field Research Procedure and its Design Stages

Evaluation in town and country

The research agenda

Predicting the archaeology

The Social context

Contents of a Project Design

Submission and assessment

Reflections

Briefing

Chapter 15: Our profession and its future

The basis for a profession

Deregulated archaeology: values, responsibilities, rewards

The Research Cycle

The Heritage Cycle

Professional prospects – the way in

A global agenda? – the SDGs

The Creative Spirit

Briefing

References

Index