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Adventures in the great debate: Historics or Pre-historics
First off - Bias disclaimer: I prefer historic archaeology.
Okay, today when my crew was just about finished our transects, Amber found a piece of historic ceramic, or pottery. Like this mug it had manganese glaze on one side and a cream slip on the other, a design which is usually pretty old. The crew chief hemmed and hawed about recording it, how it was probably just trash and historic ceramics are scattered everywhere. In the end he decided to bring it back to the lab, but not to change our probability model, instead just putting in a judgmental or two.
Then Megan found a point. Suddenly everything was different. We changed probability models. We collected all the surface scatter (most of which was historic in nature.) In short, we did a thorough recording of a site. I'm a little annoyed.
I do realize that many of the historic ceramics are still produced in roughly the same way today, and that it is more difficult to conclusively date them. While you know that a point is prehistoric unless there is someone purposefully perpetuating a hoax. But, how will we know until we look fully at the site. Yes whiteware can fit in range of 200+ years, but how can you know which side of that range the piece you found is on, unless you look for other diagnostics. After we were able to do the surface collection, we did find a piece with maker's mark, so the lab can have the final say.
Also, the "it's just trash" view annoys me. As archaeologists, trash is what we look at. People, for the most part, don't allow their well functioning possessions to be buried in the backyard. When we find ceramics or whatever around a housing site (which according to the crew chief is an acceptable historic scatter) we are looking at the trash the house's occupants threw out the back door before the land fill was invented. Also, the pre-historian's beloved flakes are also trash. They're the refuse left over when a stone tool was made. That's trash. Also, all the points abandoned halfway through because they split in some weird way? Trash. Yet, they're deemed to be oh, so exciting.
The again maybe I'm bitter. My view of pre-historics: "It's a rock, a nicely shaped rock, but still, a rock." At least, the area will now have a proper chance at being recorded.
Okay, today when my crew was just about finished our transects, Amber found a piece of historic ceramic, or pottery. Like this mug it had manganese glaze on one side and a cream slip on the other, a design which is usually pretty old. The crew chief hemmed and hawed about recording it, how it was probably just trash and historic ceramics are scattered everywhere. In the end he decided to bring it back to the lab, but not to change our probability model, instead just putting in a judgmental or two.
Then Megan found a point. Suddenly everything was different. We changed probability models. We collected all the surface scatter (most of which was historic in nature.) In short, we did a thorough recording of a site. I'm a little annoyed.
I do realize that many of the historic ceramics are still produced in roughly the same way today, and that it is more difficult to conclusively date them. While you know that a point is prehistoric unless there is someone purposefully perpetuating a hoax. But, how will we know until we look fully at the site. Yes whiteware can fit in range of 200+ years, but how can you know which side of that range the piece you found is on, unless you look for other diagnostics. After we were able to do the surface collection, we did find a piece with maker's mark, so the lab can have the final say.
Also, the "it's just trash" view annoys me. As archaeologists, trash is what we look at. People, for the most part, don't allow their well functioning possessions to be buried in the backyard. When we find ceramics or whatever around a housing site (which according to the crew chief is an acceptable historic scatter) we are looking at the trash the house's occupants threw out the back door before the land fill was invented. Also, the pre-historian's beloved flakes are also trash. They're the refuse left over when a stone tool was made. That's trash. Also, all the points abandoned halfway through because they split in some weird way? Trash. Yet, they're deemed to be oh, so exciting.
The again maybe I'm bitter. My view of pre-historics: "It's a rock, a nicely shaped rock, but still, a rock." At least, the area will now have a proper chance at being recorded.
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And house scatter is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than field scatter. Field scatter is one thing; after it's been chewed up by the spreader and left over five acres is one thing, but scatter right by (like within a 100 feet) a house? That can be really freaking diagnostic.
And amen on flakes as trash. beh.
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The scatter was in a field, but not a plowed feild. And while there wasn't a standing house, there was a shed and a couple of large trees that were different from the surrounding planted pine, so it's likely that there was a house at one point.
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Also. The whole view of everyone in this company of "Oh, crap, you just found something. *moan* Now we have to do so much extra work, blah blah blah i'm lazy so i'm just gonna throw it out" is really getting olllllld. Sure there are differences between white trash midden/plowed out of context artifacts/30 cm below surface with in tact strata.
But seriously.
Are you here to save the pipelines money?
Are you here because you're an archaeologist?
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Also I would love to work on a project that involved looking for dead people, but alas...
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