Artifacts

by Ewen, Charles R.

• ISBN13: 9780759100220
• ISBN10: 0759100225
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-16
• Publisher: AltaMira Press

Summary

How can you ensure that you are learning everything your artifacts have to teach you? Ewen explores a variety of methods and techniques used to prepare, protect, and analyze artifacts once they are in the lab. In brief, user-friendly sections, he outlines the basic principles of identification, classification, quantification, data manipulation, and analysis. Students will find that Ewen's suggestions point out fruitful areas of analysis, yet do not dictate the researcher's approach. Examples drawn from 16th century Spanish sites in the Americas introduce students to the hows and whys of archaeological lab work. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Author Biography

Charles R. Ewen received his B.A. at the University of Minnesota (1978), M.A. at Florida State (1983), and Ph.D. at the University of Florida (1987). After graduation, he codirected excavations at the Governor Martin site (the site of Hernando de Soto's first winter encampment) for the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research. The next stop was Arkansas, where he was an assistant professor and director of the Arkansas Archeological Survey's Sponsored Research Program. He joined the faculty of East Carolina University (ECU) in 1994, where he is a professor in the Anthropology Department. He also serves as director of the Phelps Archaeology Lab on the ECU campus. His research interests include archaeological method and theory, cultural resource management, and historical archaeology, specifically the Contact and Colonial periods. Like most archaeologists, however, circumstances have led him to work on nearly every kind of site, from prehistoric villages to Civil War fortifications and twentieth-century homesteads. He has established a research program in eastern North Carolina, conducting projects at Tryon Palace Historic Sites and Gardens, Hope Plantation, Historic Edenton, and the Newbold-White house.

Table of Contents

Series Editors' Foreword	vii
Acknowledgments	xi
Part I Introduction	1	(16)
1 Introduction	3	(2)
2 The Material Assemblage	5	(6)
Artifacts
Ecofacts
Context
Range of Material Included
Prehistoric
3 Artifacts and Archaeological Theory	11	(6)
Culture History
Processual
Postprocessual Cultural Resource Management
Conclusion
Part II Preparing for Analysis	17	(24)
4 Excavating Artifacts	19	(4)
Recording Context
Collecting
5 Processing	23	(6)
Artifact Check-in
Cleaning
Rough Sorting
6 Cataloging	29	(6)
Accessioning
Inventory
Labeling
7 Further Preparation	35	(6)
Reconstruction and Cross-mending
Conservation Photography
Part III Analysis	41	(78)
8 Materials Analysis	43	(24)
Lithics
Ceramics
Metal
Glass
Organic Artifacts
9 Classification	67	(22)
Objectives
Emic versus Etic
Classification Schemes Quantification
Databases
Card Catalogs Electronic Data
10 Data Manipulation	89	(18)
Objectives
Statistical Analyses
Patterning Dating
Spatial Analyses
Replication
11 Specialized Analyses	107	(10)
Chronometric Dating
Faunal
Floral Petrography
Bioarchaeology
12 Curation	117	(2)
Artifacts
Project Records
Part IV Final Thoughts	119	(12)
13 Conclusion	121	(10)
Future Directions
Conclusion
References	131	(10)
Index	141	(6)
About the Author and Series Editors	147