Is single context recording the only way?

[Tool]

Ah, the much maligned, and OK sometimes abused, mattock. Isn't it part of the job to appreciate what tool to use for what job in what circumstances? An excellent and effective tool. In the right place at the right times and in the right hands.

[Marc Berger]

Presumably each mattock load could be called a context and a spit could be called a context.

Going back to my arrow, when we have a piece of pottery in a context we normally use the pot to date the context when we know that the pot was made before the context (and any glaze that is on the pot was applied after the pot was formed). All pot is inherently residual except when its contamination. Am off to think about the use of Bergers arrows to sort that mess out.

[kevin wooldridge]

Going back to my arrow, when we have a piece of pottery in a context we normally use the pot to date the context when we know that the pot was made before the context (and any glaze that is on the pot was applied after the pot was formed).

Except that the pot in question doesn't date the layer in which it is contained. It provides the TPQ for the layer below and the TAQ for the layer above. Very important distinction.....

[tmsarch]

Except that the pot in question doesn't date the layer in which it is contained. It provides the TPQ for the layer below and the TAQ for the layer above. Very important distinction.....

It's Friday and I'm tired and befuddled, but are your TPQs and TAQs right...?

But totally agree with the general principle - we should never think a piece of pot from a context dates our site or even that context. Indeed a piece of pottery on its own is pretty useless.

What we're hopefully using is a range of relitive and possibly absolute dates derived from different sources, sometimes including scientific dating. It is these dates, combined with the excavation strategraphic data and possibly historical/documentary data (often sadly overlooked) that helps us frame and phase a site and give a possible date range for a site and its features.

[barkingdigger]

The pot doesn't necessarily date the layer below - it could be way older than the context it seals, but sat on a shelf as the decades rolled by...

The only thing we can guarantee is it is older than the context it is found in - even if by only a day!

[Crocodile]

we normally use the pot to date the context when we know that the pot was made before the context (and any glaze that is on the pot was applied after the pot was formed). All pot is inherently residual except when its contamination. Am off to think about the use of Bergers arrows to sort that mess out.

Everything in a context is older than the context, unless it has infiltrated the context, there isn't anything to sort out. How would "Berger's Elephant" help?

[Marc Berger]

"Everything in a context is older than the context" that I think is pure genius.

I have never heard that said but it is a fact. The digger identifies an Arrivals hall and its calls it a context. Everything in a context is a collapsed ceiling question. Crocodile I think that you have found the paradigm of the context. I think that it is a better axiom than anything that Harris tried to copy from the geologists. I have worried a lot recently that Harris's principles are at best truisms. He never seemed to have generated much of a maths from his principles. Wooldridge talked about Valetta and the elephant in the room, isn't single context planning. It only ever made much sense when using a five metre grid on molas perma-trace when post ex was all about unblocking rotary ink pens. Seems to me as people start using 3d plots of mattock contexts that we will forget single context planning and we will move towards spit digging. Single context digging gave a lot of archaeological power to the digger. If there were fifty pots from a context it does not matter if they were found at the top or the bottom of the context. If big brother was to start plotting where the pots were found within the context who knows where it would lead. I once worked on an eh site where we were told that we would not get any spot dates unless the context had 10 or more pot sherds in it as the pot specialists were too busy with the back log to get spot dates out. The very next day I found my first 10 sherd context (I had to break one in half but I made it and got them all into one bag).

[kevin wooldridge]

It's Friday and I'm tired and befuddled, but are your TPQs and TAQs right...?

Think so...the layer above cannot be earlier than the dated pottery from the layer below (TAQ) and the layer below cannot be later than the dated pottery from the layer above (TPQ)...

[Wax]

Think so...the layer above cannot be earlier than the dated pottery from the layer below (TAQ) and the layer below cannot be later than the dated pottery from the layer above (TPQ)...

The layer above cannot have been placed or deposited there before the layer below. However the layer above may be redeposited and contain pottery significantly earlier than anything in the layer below.

[Marc Berger]

Each mattock load would need its own description..colour and partial size ..inclusions finds. it's all very digital. You can change the resolution by changing the size of the mattock.

Along with "in situ" i think that latinish phrases used in archaeology should be dropped. They are bit pompous and I think originate from Oxbridge classicists who saw archaeology as a subset of their degree to be used to impress the children. Maybe we should have a bajr pole