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How The Archaeological Record Dating Is Formed And Altered Through Time Essay

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Discuss how the Archaeological Record in cave or settlement sites is formed and altered through time. Include references to specific site formation processes and the geoarchaeological methods used to investigate them. This essay will be addressing the formation of Archaeological Record in Settlement Sites and some of the methods used to analyse them. There will be an explanation of what a settlement site is and what the archaeological record is, giving examples of what is used to investigate these sites. There will be information given on different types of formation processes and examples of these processes. There will be information on four types of methods used in geoarchaeology which give archaeologists information on the site, and examples of these in use through case studies. The settlement site is where residual evidence of past activity is preserved and able to be investigated through its archaeological record. To understand how the record in settlement sites is formed, we must first understand what we are looking for. The Archaeological Record can be split into three sections; material remains of the past, material culture, and sources used by archaeologists (Lucas, 2012). For this topic we will be concentrating on material culture. Material culture refers to the physical objects and artefacts used by a society. These can be both organic - a substance which was once living, like plants or bacteria - or inorganic - a substance derived from non-living matter.

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