Environmental reconstruction - Fundamentals of the Physical Environment - page 568

(a)

Core Arrowhead Knife

(b)

Scraper Piercers Axe

Figure 23.5 Selection of typical Neolithic flint tools,
approximately to scale.

humans found shelter, fresh water and prey concentra-
tions but where regular sediment influx provided burial.
In due course, earthworks such as burial mounds and
embankments, and buildings, sealed the previous land
surface, whilst excavations replicated natural sedimentary
basins. Defensive ditches, canals and artificial ponds
accumulated sediments laced with evidence of the tools
of excavation and biostratigraphy of increasing human
occupation in the form of crop pollen, pollutants, etc.
( Plate 23.7 ).
Material becomes archaeo-sediment by chance, through
accidental loss, or deliberate discard by its owner, as litter
occurs on modern streets. Other material may be buried
deliberately, in the case of kitchen middens ,modern
landfill sites and time capsules - or even preserved
through mummification, pottery urn or coffin burials in
the case of human corpses. This distinction between
expedient (chance) and curative waste is unique to
geoarchaeology, reflecting human behavioural and
social attributes which either complicate or facilitate
reconstruction. Is modern behaviour a useful analogue for
past individuals or societies? What will future societies
make of us and our lifestyles, based on the contents of
contemporary landfill sites? General waste will be 'sifted'
by decomposition, biasing long-term remains towards
metal, stone and other bionondegradables; many objects
retain their form whilst others are crushed. Waste
segregation before burial, for recycling purposes, however,
changes the bias through removal of cans, bottles
and plastic containers. Similarly, the roaming lifestyle
of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers and relatively swift
decomposition of skins, wooden poles and thatch used for

(c)

Plate 23.7 (a) The henge monument of early Neolithic age
at Avebury, Wiltshire, with its outer earth bank surrounding a
deep ditch and inner ring of large sarsen stones. (b)
Archaeological excavations in the ditch, c. AD 1910. The
original ditch floor lies up to 8 m below its modern soil and
grass-covered surface (centre right). (c) Stratigraphic diagram
showing human artifacts and other datable materials caught
up in the infilling layers of the past c.5,000 years.
Photos: (a) Ken Addison; (b) and (c) © National Trust and Alexander Keiller
Museum, Avebury