Geoff CARVER
Archaeology adopted a static model of stratigraphy from geology. This was done partly for the prestige gained through association with Sir Charles Lyell and his concepts of “uniformitarianism.” Although evidence for the effects of formation processes and post-depositional transformations upon the artifactual assemblage have long been recognised, they were often overlooked; largely – it seems – because they could not be documented using traditional recording technology (i.e. reducing complex 3D forms to the 2D planes of drawings and photos).
Conversely, attempts to rectify this situation by developing a synthetic theory of archaeological stratigraphy – one which reconciles geological theory with pedological reality – were doomed to fail without concomitant advances in recording technologies.
This paper provides an overview of a synthetic theory of archaeological stratigraphy and a number of relatively simple methods (using minimal advances on existing digital technologies, i.e. point clouds, digital photography and spatial statistics) necessary for its implementation. It focuses primarily on methods for recording and defining unclear context boundaries, partly through the use of a multi-dimensional AIS which rationalises the archaeological use of GIS.
Methods are also outlined for recording evidence of depositional processes and post-depositional transformations within context volumes (i.e. not just the context surfaces [interfaces] usually recorded), and for post-excavation analytical simulation of these processes.