ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the practice of excavation and the use of stratigraphy have influenced the way archaeologists think about time. It expresses that archaeologists sometimes conceptualise the past as being not behind themselves but as under their feet, and that time tends to run vertically from bottom to top. This way of conceptualising time contrasts with how non-academics, other scholars and archaeologists from other societies, particularly Japan, think about time. The concept of time depth suggests a connection between temporal and spatial properties, namely past and depth. This connection between time and space corresponds to what has been described in cognitive linguistics as metaphorical mapping. The literature has systematically described two ways of conceptualising time: Ego Reference Point and Time Reference Point conceptual mappings. As agentive happenings, the concepts that archaeologists use would not just endure in their conversations, but also grow with the ways archaeologists learn to ecologically appropriate their gravitational environments through feeling and moving.
