The Five-Minute Archaeologist in the Southern Levant - Cynthia Shafer-Elliott
26. How do you identify dirt floors?
The Five-Minute Archaeologist in the Southern Levant - Cynthia Shafer-Elliott
Oded Borowski [+]
Emory University
Professor of Biblical Archaeology and Hebrew
Description
The most prominent archaeological features encountered and seen at archaeological sites are walls and wall foundations. While these features help outline the nature and scope of settlements, a more important feature are floors or surfaces that can be related to these walls, because with the help of floors other features like walls can be dated. There are different kinds of floors and the most prominent kind in the Near East is dirt floors. There are certain markers that make it possible to recognize these floors, as well as special ways to retrieve and record the material so the date of the floor and the rest of the structure can be ascertained.