Introduction to Archaeology, Period 5

[the-ascended.livejournal.com]

Daniel's looking quite excited today.

"Now, hopefully you've all brought in your artifact examples," he said. "I want you to look at what you've each found, and discuss them.

Now, who wants to go first?"

Comments

Re: Discuss artifacts

[strongestgirl.livejournal.com]

"The existence of a cemetery outside the Roman fort at Brougham, some 20 miles south of the western end of Hadrian's Wall in England, had long been known from finds of tombstones. So when it was announced that the modern highway that ran through it was to be straightened, excavations were planned. According to what I read, this was in 1966, a time when archaeological concerns were of little importance to road builders and archaeologists were poorly funded. Work started unexpectedly in early 1967, before it was scheduled to begin, and under very difficult circumstances a small team of government-sponsored excavators saved what they could--digging more than 300 deposits, including cremation burials, the foundations of at least two large monumental tombs, and a number of what they thought were robbed graves. Detailed recording had to be sacrificed for speed, and some burials were destroyed before they could be recorded fully; part of the adjacent settlement was lost because, as one archaeologist noted at the time, 'the machines were working vigorously at this stage.'

Study of the discoveries began immediately, but the scholar in charge died before finishing her analysis. Incomplete records and lack of funding brought efforts to finish the work in the 1980s to a halt. What was accomplished did, however, reveal the importance of the artifacts--which include Britain's best collection of third-century A.D. glass vessels, like this one..."

Pippi shows a glass jar (http://www.archaeology.org/image.php?page=0505/abstracts/jpegs/letter2.jpeg)

"Funding was provided for a group to go back to the site last year, and that's all I know about what is happening there now."

Re: Discuss artifacts

[strongestgirl.livejournal.com]

"In the 4th week of the dig at Hierakonpolis in Egypt, they found what appeared to be beads on a string, or at least preserved in their origonal order in the corner of a tomb that they thought had been plundered. When the photographer asked the workers to clean up the site a little to get a good shot of the discovery they realised that this was more than just a string of beads as each brush stroke revealed more of the iridescent disk-shaped medallion around which the beads had been wound."

Pippi shows a picture of the shell disk-shaped medallion (http://www.archaeology.org/interactive/hierakonpolis/thumbnails/medallion.gif)

"The actual string that held the tiny beads, which were less than 1mm in diameter, had long since disintegrated, so keeping the assemblage in place was delicate work. After full photography and mapping, they took up segments of beads, of which there were about 1,000, in groups of ten beads at a time, foil wrapped and numbered so that they could be restrung in the exact pattern."

Pippi shows a picture of more beads (http://www.archaeology.org/image.php?page=interactive/hierakonpolis/jpegs/beads5.jpeg)

Examination of the shell disk by a... archaeozoologist" Pippi stumbles over that word. "...showed that it was made from the shell of the local freshwater mollusk Spathopsis rubens, that had been carefully cut out, smoothed down and then pierced by drilling. Since prehistory, unmodified shells of this bivalve have also been used as scoops or containers to hold cosmetics."

Pippi holds up a final picture of the restrung amulet and beads (http://www.archaeology.org/interactive/hierakonpolis/thumbnails/restrung.gif)

"As you can see, it's very pretty."

Re: Discuss artifacts

[strongestgirl.livejournal.com]

"There was also some interesting things that Hierakonpolis and Windover had in common... But that was involving people bits. And I wasn't sure if people bits counted as an 'artifact'."