Texas Archeology or Archaeology

The STAA field school

by R. Edward Moore

Field work in archeology has three basic parts; surveying, digging and the lab.

The first part of the survey takes place in libraries, in offices and here on the internet. Before an archeologist ever goes to a site he or she researches everything that can be found about the site. The archeologist looks for archeology reports on all the other sites in the region. The archeologist researches all the history of the region around the site. The archeologist also researches the geography of the area, and looks up what kind of plants and animals live there.

I am using pictures from the STAA 2000 field school. Thanks to the landowner, Dr, Steve Black and all the STAA people!!!!! I am also including a few pictures from other surveys.

This is a picture of the land forms found near the STAA 2000 field school. The field school was held on a ranch somewhere near Junction Texas.

You are looking at a creek bed with limestone bedrock and cliffs. This is very rugged country. The creek is dry now, this picture was taken during a drought, but in ancient times it had water in it all the time. The people in the back are a survey team. The survey team finds sites by walking over the land. Once a site is found as much information about it as can be had from materials on the surface is recorded. Survey teams do not dig sites. They might come back and dig small test pits. Sites are located on larger regional maps using standard coordinate systems. Sites are then reported to the Texas State Historical Commission for official registration. Each site is given an identification number.

Here I am ready to survey. This picture is from a National Park Service survey I worked on at the Pecos National Monument in New Mexico.

Not all archeologists are men. Here is my boss from the Pecos Survey, Gen Head. Gen is one of the smartest and most practical archeologists I have ever worked with.

The Dig.

This is the part of archeology most people think of. Digging is really only one part of finding and recording a site.

The person below is surveying a site for the dig. Sites are carefully mapped with surveying instruments before they are dug. Surveying instruments are also used to lay out a grid on the site.

This grid is usually made up of one meter squares (good math exercise here). A meter is a metric unit of length. A meter is about 1 yard long.

Once a grid is laid out each square in the grid is called a unit. Each unit has a number. This number is determined by where it is in the grid. The usual custom is to start at the southwest corner of the site and go north and east from that corner. A unit is X number of squares north of the corner and X number east of the corner. This is called northing and easting. So a square, or unit, is said to have a northing and an easting.

Next units are chosen to dig. Archeologist almost never dig up an entire site. (give reasons why here). The biggest reason is manpower and time. (elaborate). Here is a unit being dug.

See the white strings that make squares? Those show where the grid is. Each of those is a 1 meter square and each square is a unit. By putting up the strings the archeologists can keep track of what is in each hole that is dug. Notice how these people are digging. No shovels here. They are using small trowels to carefully remove a little bit of dirt at a time. This is so they do not damage anything they might find. Look close and you can see this hole has several levels. They are digging down 10 centimeters at one time and then stopping. Each 10 centimeters dug is called a level. When they find something they leave it in place till they can carefully record exactly where is was found in the hole. More on this later. If it is a small artifact they remove it and put it in bag. This bag is labeled with the unit number and the level. The bag is taken to the lab at the end of the day. More on the lab later.

They are taking the dirt from each level and sweeping it into the dust pan you can see and then putting all the dirt in the white bucket. The bucket of dirt is carried to a screen.

You can see the screen table in the background. It has orange legs.

All the dirt from each level is filtered through a screen. This way small artifacts that might have been missed by the people digging can be found. The screener is looking for things like bits of bone, pieces of broken pottery, pieces of flint, anything that might have been made by man, used by man, or modified by man. When he finds anything it is put in the bag with the rest of the stuff from that unit and level.

Here they are putting something they found in the bag. You can see the labeling on the bag.

Along with the bag the archeologists keep records of what was found and where along with a lot of other data about the unit. Usually one person, the crew chief, writes down everything as they find it. This paperwork goes along with the bags of things they find to the lab.

Often they find bigger things in the hole like rocks. These are left in place and usually not removed. Things like this are called features.

You can see the big rocks here, but look at those smaller ones. Do they form any kind of a pattern? Could they be the scattered remains of a fire pit? Or maybe they are just rocks. That is what a archeologist has to decide. That is why they leave these in place as long as they can. They want to see if they have a relationship with the other rocks and artifacts.

Now lets go to the lab.

TO THE LAB ===>

This material is copyrighted by R Edward Moore, Texarch Associates, 2000. It may not be copied or reproduced without prior permision.