In Archaeology

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 and archeological stratification a cut or truncation is a context

Archaeological context

In archaeology, not only the context of a discovery is a significant fact, but the formation of the context is as well. An archaeological context is an event in time which has been preserved in the archaeological record. The cutting of a pit or ditch in the past is a context, whilst the material...

 that represents a moment in time when other archaeological deposits were removed for the creation of some feature

Feature (archaeology)

Feature in archaeology and especially excavation has several different but allied meanings. A feature is a collection of one or more contexts representing some human non-portable activity that generally has a vertical characteristic to it in relation to site stratigraphy. Examples of features are...

 such as a ditch or pit. In laymans terms a cut can be thought of a hole that was dug in the past, though cut also applies to other parts of the archaeological record

Archaeological record

The archaeological record is the body of physical evidence about the past. It is one of the most basic concepts in archaeology, the academic discipline concerned with documenting and interpreting the archaeological record....

 such as horizontal truncations like terraced ground. A cut context is sometimes referred to as a "negative context" as opposed to a "positive context". The term denotes that a cut has removed material from the archaeological record or natural

Archaeological natural

Natural in archaeology is a term to denote a horizon in the stratigraphic record representing the point before which there is no anthropogenic activity on site and the archaeological record ends. Natural is often the underlying geological makeup of the site and is formed by geological processes...

 at the time of its creation as opposed to a positive context which adds material to the archaeological record. A cut has zero thickness and no material properties of its own and is defined by the limits of other contexts. Cuts are seen in the record by virtue of the difference between the material it was cut through and the material that back fills it. This difference is seen as an "edge" by the archaeologists on site. This is shown in the picture above (Fig 1.), where a half sectioned

Archaeological section

In archaeology a section is a view in part of the archaeological sequence showing it in the vertical plane, as a cross section, and thereby illustrating its profile and stratigraphy. This may make it easier to view and interpret as it developed over time....

 Saxon pit has had half its backfill

Fill (archaeology)

In archaeology fills are contexts representing material that has accumulated or has been deposited into a cut feature such as ditch or pit of some kind...

 removed and we can clearly see a difference between the ground the pit was cut into and the material originally filling the pit . Sometimes these differences are not clear and an archaeologist must rely on experience and insight to discover cuts.

Re-cuts

Re-cuts are cuts made within the confines or near confines of other cuts, often to regain the function of the original cut or harvest material from the original fill. Re-cuts are considered quite valuable as a source of information because they can shed insight on function and attitude over time. An example of re-cutting would be a roadside ditch being re-cut and emptied of silt and detritus as a form of maintenance. Conversely, a roadside ditch that is never re-cut gives a certain impression about the attitude towards the investment in infrastructure the road represents. Re-cuts by their nature are hard to discern because the re-cut can truncate the original cut in part and be completely with in the confines of the original fill in other parts. They can even be absent from the record. Cutting is the reason why not all past activity on a site leaves traces of its existence in the sequence

Sequence (archaeological)

The archaeological sequence or sequence for short, on a specific archaeological site can be defined on two levels of rigour.# Normally it is adequate to equate it to archaeological record. However, the two terms are not exactly interchangeable...

Hypothetical ditch re-cuts shown in section

Fig 2 shows how a ditch re-cut with at least two re-cuts may appear when viewed in section

Archaeological section

In archaeology a section is a view in part of the archaeological sequence showing it in the vertical plane, as a cross section, and thereby illustrating its profile and stratigraphy. This may make it easier to view and interpret as it developed over time....

. It is possible that numerous other re-cuts took place and were truncated out of the archaeological record

Archaeological record

The archaeological record is the body of physical evidence about the past. It is one of the most basic concepts in archaeology, the academic discipline concerned with documenting and interpreting the archaeological record....

 by one or more of the re-cuts that has survived.

See also

• Single context recording
  Single context recording
  Single context recording was initially developed by Ed Harris and Patrick Ottaway in 1976, from a suggestion by Lawrence Keene. It was further developed by the Department of Urban Archaeology from where it was then exported, in the mid 1980s by Pete Clarke to the Scottish Urban Archaeological...
  
  
• Harris matrix
  Harris matrix
  The Harris matrix is a tool used to depict the temporal succession of archaeological contexts and thus the sequence of deposition on a 'dry land' archaeological site. The matrix reflects the relative position and stratigraphic contacts of observable stratigraphic units, or contexts. The Matrix was...
  
  
• Archaeological plan
  Archaeological plan
  An archaeological plan in an archaeological excavation, is a drawn record of features in the horizontal plane.- Overview :Archaeological plan can either take the form of...
  
  
• Archaeological association
  Archaeological association
  Association in archaeology has more than one meaning and is confusing to the layman. Archaeology has been critiqued as a soft science with a somewhat poor standardization of terms.-Finds and objects:...
  
  
• Relationship (archaeology)
  Relationship (archaeology)
  An archaeological relationship is the position in space and by implication, in time, of an object or context with respect to another. This is determined, not by linear measurement but by determining the sequence of their deposition - which arrived before the other...
  
  
• Archaeological context
  Archaeological context
  In archaeology, not only the context of a discovery is a significant fact, but the formation of the context is as well. An archaeological context is an event in time which has been preserved in the archaeological record. The cutting of a pit or ditch in the past is a context, whilst the material...
  
  
• Archaeological section
  Archaeological section
  In archaeology a section is a view in part of the archaeological sequence showing it in the vertical plane, as a cross section, and thereby illustrating its profile and stratigraphy. This may make it easier to view and interpret as it developed over time....
  
  
• Feature (archaeology)
  Feature (archaeology)
  Feature in archaeology and especially excavation has several different but allied meanings. A feature is a collection of one or more contexts representing some human non-portable activity that generally has a vertical characteristic to it in relation to site stratigraphy. Examples of features are...
  
  
• Fill (archaeology)
  Fill (archaeology)
  In archaeology fills are contexts representing material that has accumulated or has been deposited into a cut feature such as ditch or pit of some kind...
  
  
• Alignment (archaeology)
  Alignment (archaeology)
  An alignment in archaeology is a secondary or circumstantial form of evidence used to associate features such as postholes by virtue of their physical relationships rather than stratigraphic ones...