The fourth day of excavation

This is the fourth day of excavations. My unit is a 2m×2m square which contains two features. There are so many artifacts in the middle one. Most of them are lithics, though some bones and pottery sherds are also present. From the tempers, surface treatment and decoration of the pottery sherds, I think the feature is from the Middle Woodland period. We will continue to dig down in 10cm arbitrary levels tommorow.

After several days of work, I have found American archaeological field work to be very careful. They pay so much attention to every detail and artifact. Archaeologists do all archaeological field work by themselves, so they are familiar with every feature and artifact. This is very good for archaeological research. Archaeological excavation is the base of archaeology, so recording everything clearly and thoroughly is the most important thing. There are detailed forms we must complete for every feature, artifact and flot samples. They do very well at recording.

There are some differences between American and Chinese excavation methods. The biggest difference is that most Chinese archaeologists use stratigraphy to inform their excavation methods while American archaeologists use arbitrary levels. If archaeologists are familiar with local soil, the stratigraphic way is more advantageous. If not, archaeologists may make some mistakes. The arbitrary methods of excavation helps to avoid the chance of making mistakes. They record everything about the procedure of excavation,then record the profile of the excavation at the end.

I should learn some good methods here.