How to Reduce the Boxes in your Laboratory and Produce Good Research: Archaeobotanical Analyses and Rehabilitated Collections

Summary

We have all heard the adage that "one hour in the field equals ten in the lab".  It is proof of this saying that nearly every archaeological laboratory boasts an impressive collection of meticulously collected soil samples. Nearly every complex archaeological excavation has the potential to yield hundreds or even thousands of liters of carefully collected sediment, despite the excavator’s knowledge that the mass majority will never be analyzed. Archaeobotanists can find great research value in these underappreciated backlogs. In my paper I argue and offer evidence that in each of these collections there lie the potential for valid avenues of research.  As a case study I offer some of my own research completed in 2012 on botanical samples collected from two sites excavated in the early 1990s.  While working with these collections did present significant challenges, few were insurmountable and even fewer were directly related to their age.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• No Longer Forgotten: Successful Academic Research Drawn from Rehabilitated Collections   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 565