Author Question: While the vertical excavation strategy at Gatecliff was designed to clarify chronology, the ... (Read 114 times)

go.lag · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

While the vertical excavation strategy at Gatecliff was designed to clarify chronology, the horizontal excavation strategy was designed to

a. expose living floors.
b. reinforce the artifact typologies in use at the time.
c. clarify the site's stratigraphy.
d. establish the chronology on a larger scale.
e. identify the geological composition of the stratigraphy.

Question 2

Why do archaeologists use a datum point rather than simply measuring from the ground surface?

a. The datum point provides a universal reference point that can be used across any archaeological site, allowing archaeologists to easily compare data between excavations.
b. While vertical provenience could easily be measured from the ground surface, obtaining accurate horizontal provenience would be much more difficult without a datum point.
c. The ground surface does not have the same elevation consistently across a site, while a datum point provides a fixed reference.
d. Use of a datum point is an archaeological tradition established in the early 20th century; while it serves no useful purpose, it is an example of how outdated excavation methodology is still embedded in archaeology today.
e. Archaeologists like to use moveable reference points.