Archaeological Reconnaissance

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  • Created by: ktommo
  • Created on: 18-05-17 16:45
What does HER stand for?
Historic Environment Records
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What does NMR stand for?
National Monuments Record
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What are the main types of historical documents?
Legal documents, Tax records, Economic records, Pictorial records, Written accounts, Antiquarian records and Archaeological journals
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Give an example of a Legal document?
Records of ownership, charters or court records of disputes often include physical description of property
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Give an example of a Tax record?
Tax surveys, tithe awards and the Domesday Book
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Give an example of Economic records?
Order and sales books and C19th directories
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Give an example of Pictorial records?
Paintings, engraving and photographs
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Give an example of a Written account?
Descriptions of places in books, diaries, newspapers and travelogues
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Give an example of Antiquarian records?
Reports of early antiquarians such as Stukeley on Avebury
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Give an example of an Archaeological journal?
National journal such as Archaeologica, published by the society of antiquarians, go back to the C18th. Many regional or specialist period journals go back to the C19th.
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What is regression?
Cross referencing older maps to create maps of time periods prior to the oldest surviving map.
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What does GIS stand for?
Geographic Information Systems
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What are GIS?
Powerful databases which can store many layers of data against individual map grid references. It enables direct mapping and recording of data at the excavation site.
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What does DTM stand for?
Digital Terrain Models
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What are Oral Accounts?
Farmers and other people who work on the land or within the built environment can provide local knowledge for non-local archaeologists.
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What does SCAPE stand for?
Scottish Coastal Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion
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What is Random Sampling?
The numbered units are selected by a computer or number table. This is fair as each unit has an equal chance of being selected, but it can also lead to clustering and thus miss features.
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What is Stratified Sampling?
Stratified sampling overcomes clustering bias by first dividing the sample universe into sections. For example, if the site has natural zones such as hill, valley and plain, then numbers are selected randomly for each zone in proportion to its area.
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What is Systematic Sampling?
Systematic sampling overcomes clustering by selecting at evenly spaced intervals;for example, every third grid for 10m. This ensures a more even selection although it could miss things that are regularly distributed.
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What is Stratified Systematic Sampling?
This combines Stratified and Systematic sampling and could be used to take more samples in particular zones than others.
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What is Stratigraphy?
It helps us to understand how the site was formed and the dating sequence or chronology
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What is the 'Law of Superposition'?
Assuming that the deposits at the bottom of the site are older than the ones at the top.
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What is a cut?
A term to describe dug features such as pits, ditches and postholes.
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What is a context?
A deposit of soil which the excavators have been able to distinguish from others above and below it. Contexts may include layers, features, cuts, walls or burials.
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What are vertical photographs?
Aerial photographs used for mapping are taken with the camera pointing straight down at the ground with the aircraft flying along grid lines.
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What are oblique photographs?
They are taken from low-flying aircraft with the picture taken at an angle to the ground.
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What are shadow marks?
When minor variations in ground level cast shadows on slopes away from the sun and reflect highlights on up-slopes facing the sun.
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What are soil marks?
When there is a difference in colour between topsoil and subsoil, therefore evidence of ploughed out monuments can occur as soil marks.
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What are positive cropmarks?
Plants, particularly cereals, with better access to moisture will grow taller and ripen at a slower rate.
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What are negative cropmarks?
Plants growing over something like a wall, will be shorter and ripen quicker, as they have less access to moisture.
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What does fieldwalking involve?
The systematic collection from the ploughsoil of artefacts which might be indicative of human settlement.
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What are theodolites used for?
To link the site grid to the national grid and to establish the height above sea level of the site.
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What is a transect?
A sampling line which could be across a single site or an entire landscape. It is usually lined North-South and tied into the national grid.
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Give three advantages of fieldwalking?
Non-destructive (reasonably), relatively cheap and volunteers can be used
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Give two disadvantages of fieldwalking?
Only useful on arable land, and during certain times, and differential collection by different fieldwalkers
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What is a dot density map?
A map type that uses a dot symbol to show the presence of a feature or phenomenon. Dot maps rely on a visual scatter to show spatial pattern
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What is a one-to-one dot map?
Each dot represents one single recording of a phenomenon. Care must be taken to ensure that the dot is represented in its correct spatial location
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What is a one-to-many dot map?
Each dot on the map represents more than one of the phenomena being mapped
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What are choropleth maps?
They are based on statistical data aggregated over previously defined regions. Choropleths represent two types of data: Spatially Extensive or Spatially Intensive
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What is shovel pit testing?
The top few centimetres of soil are sampled, and in each sample a standard volume is sieved through a fine mesh for artefacts and ecofacts
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What is auguring?
An augur is driven or screwed into the ground. It then extracts a sample of the subsoil in the same way as an apple corer, to present the stratigraphy.
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What is probing?
Pushing a rod into the ground. This is more useful for finding shallow buried features, like walls, on known sites.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What does NMR stand for?

Back

National Monuments Record

Card 3

Front

What are the main types of historical documents?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

Give an example of a Legal document?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

Give an example of a Tax record?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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