The notion of bulldozer archaeology is so shocking largely because the classic image of archaeologists at work is one of painstaking care, precision and slowness: the earth delicately probed with hand-held trowels, soil gently cleaned from each find with brushes, every stage of the excavation carefully recorded with notes, drawings and photography. As an arena of human activity an archaeological dig would seem to be conceptually closer to an operating theatre than to a construction or demolition site. Yet large-scale as well as small-scale operations have their place in archaeology, and the carefully planned archaeological use of mechanized earth moving techniques, including bulldozing, is an established and accepted practice.
It's largely critical of Abu El-Haj. It provides a plausible explanation of the whole bulldozer controversy, which seemed kinda hinky to me from the start, being a 3rd-party report in the first place. Harrington provides this quote by David Usshiskin on the origin of the Bulldozer Incident:
I believe the use of a JCB to determine the line of the rock-cut Iron Age moat was justified. It was essential to establish the size of the Iron Age enclosure in order to understand properly the site … A JCB with a long arm working delicately under archaeological supervision was the right solution: it can do useful work without damaging ancient remains, and I believe that this was the case here.
I think I mentioned in previous posts on this that large earth-moving equipment is not unknown archaeologically, though not often used for obvious reasons. It could feasibly start an urban legend of heinous archaeologists ripping up valuable archaeological remains. But, you know, that's the danger when you throw out "I heard from someone that. . . ." as part of an academic treatise.
8 comments:
I'm not an archaeologist, but it seems to me that chasing a line or boundary can be done with smartly spaced sample plugs(?).
If these archaeologists are going to justify using an earth moving machine to save time and labor, then they mock their own warnings of the historical (geological) records lost to amateur archaeologists and, to a lesser degree, collecters.
If they can't do it it right, and that would be extracting the max info with the least permanent loss (by current standards) then they should leave it to other contemporaries or even future archaeologists to do.
(I would have thought this a joke if I hadn't seen similar stories in the past.)
Mikem,
It's a big planet covered by a tremendos amount of dirt.
The judicious use mechanized earth-moving equipmen, almost always after site surveys and test holes have been dug, and always wiith extreme care and constant monitoring to make certain that the earth contains nothing unexpected, is standard practice in archaeology.
I do thak your point that in future there may be better techniques in the future. that is why it is also standard practice to leave some parts of a site untouched.
"It's a big planet covered by a tremendos amount of dirt."
I'm open to correction by the experts, but isn't all that dirt the canvas on which mankind has written its history for archaeologists to discover? Isn't that dirt precisely what preserves the record? It's not "in the way". Its careful interpretation is the goal itself. Without it there is no Archaeology to study.
I'm sure it is tempting for an archaeologist who is interested in one era to just tear through and lose forever the record of an earlier era, but I would hope that such technique would be greatly frowned upon by the community.
It just seems hypocritical for archaeologists, especially, to be using such gross methods.
Allow me to wade back in.
Backhoes and such see very limited use. Generally, they're only used in two situations:
1) To see what the stratigraphy is like before digging. This is usually only done where one has no idea what sort of remains you're working with. Technically, one could sink several 1- or 2-meter pits, excavate carefully, screen everything, etc. OTOH, in the real world, that can take several weeks and use a lot of people with little guarantee you'll find anything worthwhile (though obviously that "worthwhile" part is loaded). It would be a real bummer to gather 10-15 people, equipment, travel expenses, etc. only to find your cultural horizon is 6 cm deep. And unlikely anyone would give you the money to do it anyway.
Most of the time, the trench is dug at a peripheral location or somewhere that you think won't contain the major occupations.
2) Getting through overlying sediments to get at the interesting stuff. Now, this is where you can really argue about plowing through "significant" remains. BUT, what is usually being plowed through is not intact deposits of ancient origin (though at various times in our history, that was no doubt done), but either relatively modern junk or ancient material that is heavily disturbed.
Example: Many Egyptian sites are covered with a variable thickness of sebakh which is the junk left over after farmers dig out the sediment, sift out the organics-rich soil portion, and dump the rest. It's FULL of artifacts. But it's analytically probably useless no matter what the current technology is; like reconstructing a cow from a truckload of hamburger. So it's often just removed quickly until intact deposits are located.
This can get dicey, of course, which I think everyone will admit and hinges on what we determine can be usefully analyzed. It's not exact, and in the future we'll no doubt be able to run a device over the ground and see in minute detail everything below the surface and be able to analyze it all we want without moving a spec of dirt. But, you know, if we wait for that, everyone's out of a job. And that doesn't even apply to mitigation work, which probably sees more of this kind of thing than elsewhere.
I appreciate the explanation of the rationalizations used to justify using such devices.
To be frank, I just don't imagine earth moving equipment being called in and used so carefully. If it was going to be used in such a minimal fashion as is described, then I wouldn't think that the cost would be justified.
But this is a battle for archaeologists to fight. I'm not one. In fact, I think that strip mining is OK as long as the land is re-covered. And so on. I also don't think that landowners should be extremely limited as to what they do with their land, as is the case here near the Chesapeake Bay. I guess I got a misleading picture from reading the Koster site book (fantastic) about how carefully archaeologists work to extract the most info from a site.
If archaeologists think it's OK, then it's OK. But I bet we don't see any archaeologists calling in National Geo photographers on the days the earthmovers are operating.
I know of a few digs where bulldozers were used to clear surface soil - they have their uses, but should be used with care. In countries like Greece, archaeologists are not so interested in the upper Ottoman and Frankish layers ... so they are often just taken off. The obviouis example of a site being bulldozed would be the New Acropolis Museum site.
When I was working in Italy, I saw earth moving equipment used to our advantage and to our detriment.
Roman sites are generally covered with a layer called "Crollo" which is the remains of walls and other architectural features which have collapsed over time. Other times whole buildings have been filled in and turned into fields.
Heavy machinery is invaluable in removing the Crollo, and getting down to the archaeological layers.
However, I've also seen the misuse of this as the once ripped out all strata in a building leaving the empty walls.
I agree that there is a certain myopia among archaeologists (of which some are strangely proud) that only certain strata are interesting. Such as those who would ripout Early medieval to get the late antique.
Typically, using the heavy equipment is brought in to focus on a specific set of data from the site in order to answer a specific set of research questions. This usually only pleases the archaeologists running the show and others, with different research questions, are often displeased. OTOH, heavy equipment is usually a last resort sort of move, typically for optimizing the limited time and funding to a specific set of questions. Typically, the site is already in front of a bulldozer and at that point any data is better than no data.
mikem mentioned "smartly spaced sample plugs" which I assume refer to some sort of (hand) excavation unit. This sort of sample misses stuff, plain and simple. The sample gained from bulldozers also miss data, but in a different way. No project can afford a 100% sample (as much as we'd love it) and sometimes the sample provided by heavy equipment provides the most meaningful data required (e.g. site layout of hearths and houses -- damn near impossible to get a good understanding of with hand-excavated sampling).
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