Urban archaeology
Encyclopedia
Urban archaeology is a sub discipline of archaeology specialising in the material past of town
s and cities where long-term human habitation has often left a rich record of the past.
Humans produce waste. Large concentrations of humans produce large concentrations of waste. Faeces, kitchen waste, broken objects etc. all need to be disposed of. Small numbers of people can dispose of their waste locally without encouraging vermin
or endangering their health. Once people began to live together in large numbers, around five thousand years ago, such methods began to become impractical. Material would be brought into the these new settlements but would rarely be taken out again.
Up until the nineteenth century when organised rubbish disposal became widespread in urban areas people invariably threw their waste from their windows or buried it in their gardens. If their houses fell down, a common enough occurrence when planning laws were non-existent, owners would pick out what they could reuse, stamp down the remains and rebuild on the old site.
The effect of this is that even a moderately sized settlement of any antiquity is built on top of a heap of refuse and demolished buildings and is therefore raised up from its original height on a plateau of archaeology. This is most apparent in the tel
sites of the Near East
where towns that have been occupied for thousands of years are raised up many metres above the surrounding landscape.
In walled towns such as those in medieval Europe
the effect of the encircling defences was to hold in the waste so that it could not slip outwards, magnifying the effect.
dating back to the original foundation and telling the story of its history. The City of London
for example, sits on a tel which preserves a layer of dark material attributed to the burning of the city by Boudica
in AD 60.
The dense stratigraphy of such cities posed problems for the archaeologists who first excavated them. Earlier excavations were generally limited to rural areas, or towns which had been long abandoned. Open area excavation was feasible as there was plenty of space and the archaeology could often be exposed just in plan. In working cities however, space for excavation is usually limited to the size of the open plot and one layer of archaeology needs to be excavated before the next one can be exposed.
Issues such as this had appeared before, at Pompeii
or at multiphase rural sites but the move towards the investigation of cities, which began in Europe following the Second World War when bomb damage left areas open for investigation, meant that there was a necessity in finding a new method of excavating.
. The practice involves drawing each feature individually in plan and then relating its position to the site grid rather than planning large areas at once. Each drawing is made on a square piece of translucent film representing a 25 square metre grid square. The site is excavated down to the first significant layer of archaeology and features excavated and recorded as normal but also planned as single contexts. The site is then reduced to the next layer of archaeology and the process begins again. The excavation and recording can continue until natural deposits are reached. A small, deep trench known as a sondage is often excavated at first to provide a view of the entire stratigraphy at once and give an indication of the quantity of material to be excavated.
Once the work is finished, the square sheets can be overlaid onto one another to provide a picture of the site. By identifying which features cut others and using information from dateable artefact
s and ecofacts an archaeologist can isolate various phases of activity and show how the use of the site developed of periods of hundreds or even thousands of years. Context record sheets produced by the individual excavators provide further information on each context's nature and relationship with its neighbours. Such interpretation would be impossible using open area excavation where numerous overall site plans would soon seem inflexible.
Town
A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...
s and cities where long-term human habitation has often left a rich record of the past.
Humans produce waste. Large concentrations of humans produce large concentrations of waste. Faeces, kitchen waste, broken objects etc. all need to be disposed of. Small numbers of people can dispose of their waste locally without encouraging vermin
Vermin
Vermin is a term applied to various animal species regarded by some as pests or nuisances and especially to those associated with the carrying of disease. Since the term is defined in relation to human activities, which species are included will vary from area to area and even person to person...
or endangering their health. Once people began to live together in large numbers, around five thousand years ago, such methods began to become impractical. Material would be brought into the these new settlements but would rarely be taken out again.
Up until the nineteenth century when organised rubbish disposal became widespread in urban areas people invariably threw their waste from their windows or buried it in their gardens. If their houses fell down, a common enough occurrence when planning laws were non-existent, owners would pick out what they could reuse, stamp down the remains and rebuild on the old site.
The effect of this is that even a moderately sized settlement of any antiquity is built on top of a heap of refuse and demolished buildings and is therefore raised up from its original height on a plateau of archaeology. This is most apparent in the tel
Tell
A tell or tel, is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a flat top and sloping sides.-Archaeology:A tell is a hill created by different civilizations living and...
sites of the Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
where towns that have been occupied for thousands of years are raised up many metres above the surrounding landscape.
In walled towns such as those in medieval Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
the effect of the encircling defences was to hold in the waste so that it could not slip outwards, magnifying the effect.
Historic development
Archaeological excavation within historic cities therefore often produces a thick stratigraphyStratification (archeology)
Stratification is a paramount and base concept in archaeology, especially in the course of excavation. It is largely based on the Law of Superposition...
dating back to the original foundation and telling the story of its history. The City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
for example, sits on a tel which preserves a layer of dark material attributed to the burning of the city by Boudica
Boudica
Boudica , also known as Boadicea and known in Welsh as "Buddug" was queen of the British Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire....
in AD 60.
The dense stratigraphy of such cities posed problems for the archaeologists who first excavated them. Earlier excavations were generally limited to rural areas, or towns which had been long abandoned. Open area excavation was feasible as there was plenty of space and the archaeology could often be exposed just in plan. In working cities however, space for excavation is usually limited to the size of the open plot and one layer of archaeology needs to be excavated before the next one can be exposed.
Issues such as this had appeared before, at Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
or at multiphase rural sites but the move towards the investigation of cities, which began in Europe following the Second World War when bomb damage left areas open for investigation, meant that there was a necessity in finding a new method of excavating.
Methods
The resulting solution revolved around the method of single context recordingSingle 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...
. The practice involves drawing each feature individually in plan and then relating its position to the site grid rather than planning large areas at once. Each drawing is made on a square piece of translucent film representing a 25 square metre grid square. The site is excavated down to the first significant layer of archaeology and features excavated and recorded as normal but also planned as single contexts. The site is then reduced to the next layer of archaeology and the process begins again. The excavation and recording can continue until natural deposits are reached. A small, deep trench known as a sondage is often excavated at first to provide a view of the entire stratigraphy at once and give an indication of the quantity of material to be excavated.
Once the work is finished, the square sheets can be overlaid onto one another to provide a picture of the site. By identifying which features cut others and using information from dateable artefact
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
s and ecofacts an archaeologist can isolate various phases of activity and show how the use of the site developed of periods of hundreds or even thousands of years. Context record sheets produced by the individual excavators provide further information on each context's nature and relationship with its neighbours. Such interpretation would be impossible using open area excavation where numerous overall site plans would soon seem inflexible.
See also
- Archaeological field surveyArchaeological field surveyArchaeological field survey is the method by which archaeologists search for archaeological sites and collect information about the location, distribution and organization of past human cultures across a large area...
- Archaeological contextArchaeological contextIn 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 planArchaeological planAn 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...
- Single context recordingSingle context recordingSingle 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 matrixHarris matrixThe 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...
- Excavation