ABSTRACT
Archaeologists use the objects that are found underground or underwater to supplement and expand what can be learned about the past through documentary evidence. The primary interest of an archaeologist is how numismatic artifacts work as part of the material culture of a larger society or one or more communities. Chinese coins up to two thousand years old have been found in archaeological sites in California. Coins, especially those marked with an absolute date, can be powerful tools for site dating. This chapter discusses the Predictive models concerning where numismatic materials can be expected to be found have to be adjusted to account for this fact. Numismatic materials are often found in the context of a marketplace, for example, and it would be described as found in a context where it was probably used as money. Or we can describe a silver or dollar gold recovered from under the door frame of a house as found in a "ritual context".
