So where’s the rest of it, then? Some thoughts on the nature of archaeological evidence Clive Orton, UCL Institute of Archaeology

Some problems of archaeological evidence There are (at least) three aspects of archaeological evidence which make it particularly problematic (and interesting): –it is usually broken and incomplete, –it is usually ‘transformed’, –it may not be related to an ‘event’ of interest. We’ll look at each in turn.

Brokenness Archaeologists deal with other people’s rubbish, which almost by definition is broken by the time that it reaches them.

Completeness Broken objects are rarely found in a complete state. This picture shows the exception, not the rule. Hence the title of this talk.

The quantification problem So how can we say how much material (or how many objects) do we have? If we count fragments, are they independent? (the ‘smashed pots’ paradox). This led to me research on quantification of broken objects (but not for today).

Beneficial spin-offs Sometimes we can take advantage of observed patterns in brokenness and completeness, but not often. One such example is the Roman pottery from Devil’s Ditch, Boxgrove, near Chichester. This is unusual; mostly brokenness and completeness are just a complication.

Broken pots from Boxgrove Roman pottery from fill layers of a large ditch at Boxgrove were quantified and catalogued. They are here listed from the lowest layer (155) to the highest layer (30). You can see that the pottery is less broken and more complete in the lower layers (155– 191) than in the higher layers.

Data Contextsherdsevesbrokennesscompleteness

Interpretation We interpret this to mean that there are differences in the brokenness and completeness of the pottery between the upper and lower layers. the archaeological interpretation was that the ditch had been re-cut, disturbing the pottery and breaking it further; this more broken pottery was later re-deposited in the upper layers.

No ‘Pompeii premise’ Archaeological data rarely fit the ‘Pompeii premise’. i.e. that things are found where they were left. Instead, we have terms like: –‘life assemblage’: things as they were ‘then’ –‘death assemblage’: things as they are in the ground –‘retrieved assemblage’: what archaeologists actually find.

Transformations Schiffer has coined the term ‘transformations’ for those processes that intervene between the archaeological past and the present state. He divides them into C- (cultural) transforms and N- (non-cultural) transforms. They can be envisaged as a series of ‘sampling’ events.

Envisaging transformations Can we ‘unpick’ our way back through these transformations, from the retrieved assemblage to the life assemblage?

Sampling as a metaphor? Can we use sampling theory to find our way back through these processes? It’s fraught with difficulties, rather like stratified sampling when we don’t know the relative samplings fractions (or even the strata?) It’s easy to misinterpret.

Example from Winchester A catalogue of medieval artefacts from Winchester shows the numbers of several types of artefacts, from the 10 th to 17 th century. century10 th 11 th 12 th 13 th 14 th 15 th 16 th shoes all artefacts What does this tell us about the use of shoes in medieval Winchester?

Example from sieving Sieving soil for animal bones is common practice, but can lead to diverse results.

So what can we say? Can we estimate the size of a life assemblage? –Only if we know the sampling fraction. Can we estimate the composition of a l.a.? –Only if we assume equal sampling fractions. Can we compare the compositions of two l.a.? –Only if we can assume comparative relative sfs in each. Should we look for ‘invariants’ ?

Relevance Does our evidence actually relate to something that we want to know about? This is a particular issue for scientific dating techniques (e.g. radiocarbon). Typically, we want to date a human action (an ‘event’), What we have is evidence of a physical point in time (e.g. death of an organism).

Example from dendrochronology We are studying a standing building or an archaeological structure. What we want is the date of construction. What we get are the felling dates of trees (if we are lucky), or dates earlier than these. And this assumes that the timbers are all contemporary; some might be re-used or repairs.

Timbers from a waterfront

Example from radiocarbon The ‘event’ might be an action such as the digging of a ditch or a pit. The evidence, a C14 date, dates the death of part of an organism (tree, animal, etc.). How does this relate to the ‘event’? The death must be earlier than the event, but by how much?

Residuality This is just one aspect of a broader archaeological problem, residuality. This is the ‘upward’ movement of buried archaeological material due to: –Human activity (e.g. pit-digging) –Animal activity (e.g. burrows) –‘natural’ activity (e.g. floods).

Conclusion All this has related to low-level, building- block type of evidence, which might be considered boring, even trivial, compared to higher-level, interpretative, evidence. But unless we can get this level ‘right’ (or at least as right as we can), what hope have we for the higher-level structures?