Tutorial:PH Preservation

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pH, preservation and soil processes
The following tables show the potential for preservation in different soil types (Table 1) and the preferential conditions for preservation (Table 2).

Table 1: Soil types and preservation of artefacts and ecofacts, based on Goldberg and Macphail (2006).

Table 2: Preferential conditions soil conditions (pH, drainage and oxidation) for preservation of different archaeological material. Based on English Heritage (2002).

Likelihood of survival refers to moderately acid, moderately drained soil conditions. * poorly resistant - rarely survive; ** moderately resistant; *** highly resistant - usually survive.

NB. all materials are susceptible to physical damage in the ploughzone