ABSTRACT
Excavation recovers from the earth archaeological evidence obtainable in no other way. The soil is an historical document which, like a written record, must be deciphered, translated and interpreted before it can be used. For the very long prehistoric periods of human history excavation is almost the only source of information and for the protohistoric and historic periods it provides evidence where the documents are silent or missing. The more, therefore, that we can refine our methods and techniques the more valid will be the interpretations which we derive from our results.
