A Simulation Approach to Developing Field Standards in Spatial Data Acquisition

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Developing Paleolithic Excavation Methods for the Twenty-First Century" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Piece-plotting, or point proveniencing, is a common practice in field archaeology. These data are important for intrasite spatial analysis and evaluating site formation processes. More detailed data collection requires more time and effort, leading to different decisions about size cutoffs between projects. Factors like excavator experience and sedimentary context may also affect overall sampling resolution. From one perspective, this is an optimization problem: how can information gained from fieldwork be maximized, while minimizing the substantial time and financial costs of fieldwork? From another perspective, the problem is duty of care: how can we best represent the original spatial distribution of archaeological materials even as we disrupt those relationships through excavation? Here, we evaluate the influence of different standards (e.g., size cutoffs) on the ability to identify patterning in point provenienced data. We use process-based simulations of data recovery from densely stratified Paleolithic rockshelter sites to calculate (1) the (time and funding) costs associated with plotting finds at different levels of resolution and (2) the changes to data outcomes resulting from different levels of resolution. Findings from the simulations are then discussed in terms of constraints faced by research teams and the imperative to document the record as carefully as possible.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Developing Paleolithic Excavation Methods for the Twenty-First Century   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37369.0