ABSTRACT

It goes without saying that archaeologists have always had a close association with dirt – digging through the stuff is what archaeologists do, and the good old garden trowel remains the pre-eminent tool and indeed symbol of archaeological research. However, it is only relatively recently that archaeologists have really begun to take an interest in dirt itself, and started to see it as more than just something to be shifted to get at the things of real interest. Developments in the study of dirt, as well as other elements of the mineral world such as stones, ores and mineral precipitates, have led to the establishment of a separate archaeological sub-discipline called geoarchaeology, which is aimed at exploring how the study of natural and archaeological sediments can shed light on past practices and environments, as well as the formation of archaeological sites. During its formative period, this sub-discipline has drawn heavily on the methods and theories of the natural sciences, and in particular geology and the sciences. The aim of this chapter is not so much to discount the natural sciences as an important source for geoarchaeology as to draw attention to the need for input from the methods and theories of the social sciences into the field as well, particularly in the study of occupation sediments.