The Stone Age Meets the Information Age:
an introduction to archaeology
IFS 1998
Professor Jeanne Sept
Anthropology Department
Student Building 038 (office)
855-5395; sept@indiana.edu
Lisa Maiorino (intern)
Teter Hall room xxx
Seriation and Stratigraphy
In class today we briefly reviewed the concept of seriation of artifact types, as a method of determining the relative ages of archaeological sites. We also discussed the use of frequency seriation, looking at changes trends in the popularity of artifacts through time as a clue to the relative age of sites (e.g. using "battleship curves").
We discussed stratigraphy, and looked at different types of stratigraphic sequences, thinking about the processes that can bury artifacts and create different layers or features at archaeological sites, such as:
- natural deposits carried by wind or water (e.g. wind blown dust, or sediments carried by rivers, or ash or molten rock from volcanic eruptions)
- human deposits, including middens (heaps of debris / garbage), or "features" created by humans such as charcoal hearths, or storage pits, or postholes, or walls made of stone, or other materials.
We looked at a "sidewalk stratigraphy" problem on campus, to illustrate how archaeologists try to work out sequences of natural deposition combined with human construction (and destruction!) in the field. (see pictures below).
We got a tour from Leslie Bush of the Glenn Black Laboratory of archaeology, and saw examples of what the IU Archaeology Field School excavated this summer in Green County. Thank you Leslie!!
Here are some links:
- Glenn Black Laboratory of Archaeology, IU
- IU Field School 1998 excavations at Heaton Farm Site
- Leslie Bush's outline of the stages of Prehistory in Eastern North America, with suggestions on sites you can visit in different states
Can you find the places where "old sidewalk" ends and "new"
begins? 
How many stratigraphic layers can you see in this photo?
Jeanne Sept does field research related to the archaeology of human origins in East Africa,
and teaches in the Anthropology Department at Indiana University, Bloomington.
visit her main web page Human Origins and Evolution in Africa or the following topical pages:
Africa | Primates | Human Evolution | Paleoecology | Archaeology
IU Anthropology | Sept teaching interests | Sept research | Sept Personal Home PageLast updated: 6 August, 1998
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~origins/index.html
Comments: sept@indiana.edu
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 Jeanne Sept