ANTH 240 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Taphonomy
13 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
Context of an artefact consists of its immediate matrix, its provenience, and its association with other artefacts. But all sites are affected by formation processes. The study of these processes is called taphonomy (laws of burials) How to people affect what survives at a site: behaviour of the people who originally formed the site: acquisition, manufacture or processing, use or consumption, disposal/discard, human destruction of the site: intentional, political destruction, construction, agriculture, looting. Artefacts may be preserved at any of these stages: excavation. How does nature affect what happen to these artefacts. In the previous example, these may be divided into two types: geological (weathering, decay, erosion), biological (dogs, burrowers) Under what conditions do different types of materials (inorganic, organic) Inorganic materials generally survive better than organic materials. Inorganic materials: stone pottery/ceramics and other fired clay, metals gold, silver, lead, copper, iron.
