2nd May 2008, 01:40 PM
Well...I guess that a primary fill is not necessarily a primary fill (in the site formation sense of the word), if before the sides of the pit/ feature collapse forming the (site formation type) primary fill, another kind of deposition occurred, such as intentional dumping material etc. Then the first fill would not be a site-formation type primary fill?
The collapse of the sides of a pit doesn't take place immediately (in most natural deposits) I would assume, so that there would have been time to put the pit to 'good use'...
A similar situation could occur for fills further up in the sequence.
If you had a site-formation type primary fill which is also the first fill in the feature, then a intentional dumping of material, which is followed by a site-formation type secondary fill (resulting from the erosion of toposil into the feature) the fill sequence would be cut-primary-secondary-tertiary, but the site formation sequence would be cu-primary-dump-secondary...
I remember that at T5 this issue came up time and time again when trying to reconcile archaeological versus geoarchaeological stratigraphic sequencing.
I don't know...makes my head hurt...
The collapse of the sides of a pit doesn't take place immediately (in most natural deposits) I would assume, so that there would have been time to put the pit to 'good use'...
A similar situation could occur for fills further up in the sequence.
If you had a site-formation type primary fill which is also the first fill in the feature, then a intentional dumping of material, which is followed by a site-formation type secondary fill (resulting from the erosion of toposil into the feature) the fill sequence would be cut-primary-secondary-tertiary, but the site formation sequence would be cu-primary-dump-secondary...
I remember that at T5 this issue came up time and time again when trying to reconcile archaeological versus geoarchaeological stratigraphic sequencing.
I don't know...makes my head hurt...