ABSTRACT
I met Christine Hastorf in 1986 when we were both at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. She is an archeologist, and had been on an excavation project in Peru in 1982. One of her specialities is the use of botanical remains as evidence of social behavior in ancient sites. Because botanical remains deteriorate over time, only burnt seeds tend to survive to be studied. Typically a bag of dirt would be dug at specific points in the site being studied. The dirt would be placed in water, so the soil would fall to the bottom, while the burnt seeds would float on top. These would be skimmed off, packaged, and sent to a laboratory for species identification. Christine’s question was how she could persuade her fellow archeologists that the botanical evidence she was finding would add to their understanding of the social issues of the site.
