Archaeology Vocabulary

Archaeology Vocabulary

Prepared by the Monticello Department of Archaeology

(Asterisks indicate sources for definitions)

Archaeology: study of past cultures through the systematic excavation and analysis of material remain. (The study of dinosaurs is called paleontology).

Artifact: Any portable object used, modified, or made by humans, such as tools, ceramics, glass, etc.*

Assemblage: collection of artifacts either from a specific area, related to a specific cultural component, or sharing certain physical attributes.

Context: The position and associations of an artifact, feature, or archaeological find in space and time. Noting where the artifact was found and what was around it assists archaeologists in determining chronology and interpreting function and significance. Loss of context strips an artifact of meaning and makes it more difficult (sometimes, impossible) to determine function.

Feature: A non-portable artifact, such as hearths, post holes, cellars, etc.*

Geoarchaeology: study of archaeological soils and site formation processes.

Mean Ceramic Date (MCD): An estimate of the average date for a period over which ceramics are deposited. It is computed as the weighted average of the manufacturing dates for identifiable ceramic types present in a deposit.**

Munsell Colors: Standardized color charts used by archaeologists to record the color(s) of different sediments during excavation.

Plowzone: Layer of sediment that was created through one or more plowing episodes. Normally a mixture of natural soils including topsoil and subsoil.

Relative Frequency: How many of a given artifact are found proportional to the total number of artifacts or a type of artifact. Similar to a percentage.

Schnitting: Also known as “shovel shaving,” this is the practice of removing sediment from a quadrat with a shovel in a horizontal fashion. It can be thought of as peeling back small layers of sediment at a time.

Seriation: A relative dating method that compares groups of artifacts from different sites with one another and places them in chronological order.

Shovel Test Pit: small test excavation used in archaeological surveys to evaluate artifact density and determine the vertical and horizontal dimensions of sites

Site: A site is a spatial cluster of artifacts or other physical traces of past human activity and the surrounding sedimentary matrix. **

Stratigraphy: The study of layers in the earth; the analysis in the vertical, time dimension, of a series of layers in the horizontal, space dimension. It is often used as a relative dating technique to assess the temporal sequence of artifact and sediment deposition at a site.*

Subsoil: The natural, undisturbed soil generated through natural weathering of a parent material (bedrock). At Monticello, this is typically red or reddish-orange clay.

Test Unit: area of standard size in which soils are excavated systematically by natural strata and/or arbitrary levels. A group of continuous test units is referred to as an excavation block. At Monticello we use the term quadrat to refer to our 5’x5’ units.

TPQ: The terminus post quem of an artifact assemblage – literally the latest date after which it was deposited. The traditional estimate of the TPQ is the latest (or maximum) starting manufacturing date among all the artifacts comprising that artifact assemblage. Example: a coin dated 1932 has a tpq of 1932 because it could not have been created or deposited prior to that year.**

Definition Sources

*Renfrew, Colin and Paul Bahn. Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000.

**daacs.org Glossary http://www.daacs.org/about-the-database/glossary