brainstorming, take 3 (or so)

[thanate]

Ask me your dumb questions about archaeology!

(I'll even answer them. But what I really want to know is what people who don't know about archaeology don't understand. Since I learned all the terminology in about the first month I was working in the field, and have forgotten what the basic questions are.)

---and in other news, I (knock on wood) never have to go back to the nasty site again. I just get to go in to the horribly dusty lab and get blacklung...

Comments

[kittymaru.livejournal.com]

Where are all the booby traps?

Sorry, but I had to ask. I really don't have a good question though. My one archaeology experience probably killed the really good/silly/fun ones out of me.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Oh, we don't get to the traps until later. :)

But, you have a concept of what some of it is about. You might have spent the whole summer typing pottery, but you probably know what a soil stratum is and possibly even not to point gouge with a trowel.

[leimon-malakoi.livejournal.com]

what is "point gauge with a trowel"?
my oly experiancce with archaeology is those documentories that show a unch of ropes around big holes in the ground and something interesting in them.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

So you're digging, right, in little bits at once because you don't want to miss it if the soil changes, with one of those flat triangular trowels that the rest of the world thinks are used for laying bricks, and you get bored with only taking off little bits of soil at once, and so you dig the point in and bring up a big chunk of dirt, leaving an unsightly hole in your nice flat soil surface. (you can also side gouge, if you prefer) In the academic world, that's generally considered a bad thing.

In CRM, there's a bit more freedom to balance time efficiency vs what's actually valuable as results, and you can get away with a bit more butchery of the dirt.

Sure you don't have any more good super-basic questions? You know, you go by a site where there are people digging, and all you've seen is Indiana Jones. What have you always wanted to ask?