Geoarchaeology:Artefacts

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Artefacts and Archaeological Materials in Geoarchaeology
Understanding the depositional and taphonomic relationships beween archaeological materials and artefacts and the soils or sediments that form their context is a fundamental principle of geoarchaeology. The surrounding soils and sediments contain an archive of information regarding the depositional and post-depositional history of the artefact.

Study of the soil environment can:
 * Aid interpretation of the source and deposition of the artefacts.
 * Help determine whether artefacts are in a primary depositional context or whether they have been reworked.
 * Provide information on the decay and degradation processes affecting artefacts and help predict areas where preservation might be expected to be poor and where it might be better, for example, the use of X-radiography and GIS (Matthiesen et al., 2004) has been used to examine the deterioration of iron objects in waterlogged environments to assess the timescale of deterioration.

The application of earths cience techniques directly to archaeological materials and artefacts can also help to provide information about:
 * The source of the materials used in their manufacture, for example the source of clay used in pottery manufacture (e.g. Vaughn and Neff, 2004; Martineau et al., 2007) or chert for chert tools (e.g. Lyons et al., 2003).
 * The processes of their manufacture,
 * Trade patterns (e.g. Hughes et al, 1998)
 * The use of artefacts and archaeological materials, for example the chemical analysis of floor layers may help to elucidate space use and activity (e.g. Terry et al, 2004; Matthews, 2005).

Case study
Examples of the study of archaeological materials in geoarchaeology include:
 * Bronze Age cairn at Carneddau, Powys, Wales – investigation of old ground surface and cremation fills through complementary phosphate and magnetic susceptibility analyses.