Abstract
Smith et al. have presented a case study that demonstrates the value of integrating the analysis of archaeological, geoarchaeological, archaeobotanical and faunal material when studying the organisation of house activity areas. As such, their work continues a long and important tradition of methodological research designed to further the ability of archaeologists to find and interpret patterns among excavated materials. While microrefuse, archaeobotanical, magnetic susceptibility and chemical analyses have all been successfully applied to the spatial analysis of activity areas in the past (e.g. Marshall and Smith, 1999; Metcalfe and Heath, 1990; Middleton and Price, 1996), these techniques have rarely been integrated together into the spatial analysis of a single building. In their study of House 312, a Norse period longhouse at Kilpheder, South Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, Smith et al. very successfully combined a range of archaeological, bioarchaeological and chemical techniques in a highresolution spatial analysis that permitted the identification of activity areas and an internal partition wall within the house. The results of this particular case study, as well as other settlement studies carried out under the umbrella of the SEARCH project (e.g. Parker Pearson and Sharples, 1999a), demonstrate the benefits of integrating various environmental specialists into the research framework and sampling methodology at all stages of archaeological investigation.
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Milek, K. (2001). Environmental Archaeology and the Interpretation of Social Space. In: Albarella, U. (eds) Environmental Archaeology: Meaning and Purpose. Environmental Science and Technology Library, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9652-7_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9652-7_21
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