Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T17:01:19.982Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Analytical excavation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Nicholas Reynolds  and
John Barber
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Antiquity in 1957, in the midst of an ‘Evolution Number’, published a bold article by Professor Richard Atkinson on ‘Worms and weathering’. Often quoted since, but all too little absorbed, its message at the time was clear: ‘All of us recognize . . . that a site consists of a sequence of deposits, some formed deliberately and usually rapidly by man, and others more slowly by nature; and that some of the processes of formation, such as erosion and filling by the plough, are still continuing today. But there seems to be a widespread assumption (though it is difficult to be sure of this, since such things are seldom discussed) that once a constituent layer of a site has been formed, and sealed by another layer above it, it becomes immediately fossilized . . .’ Professor Atkinson spoke of his own post-Darwinian observations as ‘shots in the dark’, which ‘may not always be very accurate; but at least they serve to wake sleepers from their beds’.

Type
Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 58 , Issue 223 , July 1984 , pp. 95 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alcock, L. 1978. Excavation and publication: some comments, Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., CIX (1977–8), 1–6.Google Scholar
Atkinson, R. J. C. 1956. Stonehenge (Harmondsworth).Google Scholar
Atkinson, R. J. C. 1957. Worms and weathering, Antiquity, XXXI, 219–33.Google Scholar
Barber, J. 1981. Excavations on Iona, 1979, Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., CXI, 282–380.Google Scholar
Barclay, G. Forthcoming. The excavation of the round barrow and henge at North Mains, Strathallan, Perthshire, Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot.Google Scholar
Barker, P. 1970. Some aspects of the excavation of timber buildings, World Archaeology, 1, 220–35.Google Scholar
Barker, P. 1977. Techniques of archaeological excavation (London).Google Scholar
Barrett, J. C. & Stevenson, J. B.. 1982. Preface, Scottish Archaeological Review, Vol. 1, part 2.Google Scholar
Bruce-Mitford, R. L. S. 1979. The Sutton Hoo ship-burial: inflections after thirty years, University of York Medieval Monograph series, 2.Google Scholar
Burl, A. 1979. Rings of stone (London).Google Scholar
Carver, M. O. H., Donaghey, S. & Sumpter, A. B.. 1978. Riverside structures and a well in Skeldergate and buildings in Bishophill, The archaeology of York: The Colonia, Vol. 4/1 (London).Google Scholar
Clarke, G. 1936. The timber monument at Arminghall and its affinities, Proc. Prehist. Soc, n.s. II, 1–51.Google Scholar
Evans, J. G. 1972. Land snails in archaeology (London & New York).Google Scholar
Evison, V. I. 1979. The body in the ship at Sutton Hoo, Anglo-Saxon Studies, 1, British Archaeological Reports, 72.Google Scholar
Fairhurst, H. & Taylor, D. B.. 1971. A hut-circle settlement at Kilphedir, Sutherland, Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., CIII (1970–1), 65–99.Google Scholar
Glasbergen, W. 1954. Barrow excavations in the Eight Beatitudes, Palaeohistoria, 2, 1–134.Google Scholar
Hirst, S. 1976. Recording on excavation: the written record, ‘Rescue’ publication no. 7 (Hertford).Google Scholar
Hope-Taylor, B. 1977. Yeavering (London).Google Scholar
Jefferies, J. S. 1977. Excavation records, Directorate of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings, Occasional Papers no. 1.Google Scholar
Keiller, A. & Piggott, S.. 1936. The recent excavations at Avebury, Antiquity, X, 417–27.Google Scholar
Lambrick, G. & Robinson, M.. 1979. Iron Age and Roman riverside settlements at Farmoor, Oxfordshire, Oxfordshire Archaeology Unit report 2, CBA research report 32.Google Scholar
Limbrey, S. 1975. Soil science and archaeology (London, New York, San Francisco).Google Scholar
Mcluhan, M. & Fiore, Q.. 1967. The medium is the message (Harmondsworth).Google Scholar
Manchester, K. 1980. Digging up people, Rescue News, 22 June 1980, 7.Google Scholar
O’kelly, M. J. 1951. Some soil problems in archaeological excavations, JCAHS, LVI, 29–44.Google Scholar
Olsen, O. 1980. Rabies archaeologorum, Antiquity, LIV, 15–20.Google Scholar
Phillips, C. W. 1940. The Sutton Hoo ship burial: 1. The excavation,. Antiquity, XIV, 6–27.Google Scholar
Rahtz, P. 1980. Dilemma of rescue versus research, Times Higher Educational Supplement, 4 January 1980.Google Scholar
Rahtz, P., Dickinson, T. & Watts, L. (eds.). 1980. Anglo-Saxon cemeteries 1979, British Archaeological Reports, 82.Google Scholar
Reynolds, N. 1976. The structure of Anglo-Saxon graves, Antiquity, L, 140–4.Google Scholar
Smith, C. (ed) 1979. Fisheruick, British Archaeological Reports, 61.Google Scholar
Statham, I. 1977. Earth surface sediment transport (Oxford).Google Scholar