Classical Studies 2500A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Historical Archaeology, Dendrochronology, Signify

• School: Western University
• Department: Classical Studies
• Course: Classical Studies 2500A/B
• Professor: Beth Greene

Document Summary

This can mean the study of the levels . Human action creates these layers over periods of time: analyzing these strata allows archaeologists to reconstruct human actions of the past and to determine a relative understanding of one level to another. Layers of soil and debris of human occupation build up on top of each other for a few reasons. Human action is the most common on sites of continued human use: groups in succession bury, knock down, renovate, and reuse their own past structures and settlement systems. This causes a continual accumulation of soil, floor levels, and foundations all with their own distinct material culture left behind by the occupants in these strata. The layers built up on a tell site when the same site is reused by successive human groups. Walls, pits, floors, and debris all remain in their stratigraphic sequence for archaeologists to find. Relative dating: determined by ordering artefacts, what comes before and after, typology.