Lost or Found? Microarchaeology at rescue excavations

Usually, archaeologists report what they found during their excavations. Have you ever reflected on what is lost during archaeological excavations? This seemingly simple question should make most archaeologists feel uncomfortable about the established practice of excavation in Austria, especially in the predominant field of commercial rescue excavations (which amount to about 9095 % of all archaeological excavations). This project aims at challenging the traditional notion of the archaeological record consisting of visible finds. Instead, it shall be demonstrated, how much information can be gained by the tiny invisible finds (also known as the microarchaeological record) that are easily overlooked during rescue excavation, because no adequate sampling techniques are applied. The main objective is to create and analyse the first systematic sample of microarchaeological finds from rescue excavations all over Austria, which up to now have been almost completely neglected. Based on these sources, three research questions shall be addressed: (1) What finds are lost during excavation according to the methods of find retrieval? (2) How do macro-finds (discovered with the naked eye) and the invisible record (microarchaeological finds) relate in terms of quantity and quality? (3) What invisible activities took place at the excavated sites? In order to answer the research questions raised above, the unique idea of this project is to systematically retrieve microarchaeological finds from developer-funded rescue excavations, which up to now are lacking prescriptions for sampling for micro-finds. This unprecedented approach will benefit of the enormous number of rescue excavations (ca 650 per year). Within the two-years pilot project, a stratified sample of approximately 30 prehistoric settlement sites from the Neolithic to the Iron Age shall be examined, distributed as evenly as possible over different regions of Austria. The project will provoke two major transformations in field archaeology: First, the practical application of microarchaeology will expand into the vast field of commercial archaeology. Second, the meaning of the term microarchaeology (in the sense of Stephen Weiner, Microarchaeology. Beyond the visible archaeological record, Cambridge 2010) will be extended, using it as an umbrella term for all archaeological finds and facts that cannot be discovered and examined with the naked eye alone. Following this approach, microarchaeology has the potential to profoundly change our knowledge of many production activities, especially those that leave only tiny residues in the form of micro-debris (e.g. crop processing, food preparation, fishing, metalworking, etc.).

Tracing invisible activities Usually, archaeologists report what they found during their excavations. Have you ever reflected on what is lost during archaeological excavations? This seemingly simple question makes most archaeologists feel uncomfortable about the established practice of excavation. The "Lost or Found?" project aimed at challenging the traditional notion of the archaeological record consisting of "visible" finds. Instead, it demonstrated, how much information can be gained by the tiny "invisible" finds (also known as the microarchaeological record) that are easily overlooked during rescue excavation, because no adequate sampling techniques are applied. The main objective was to create the first systematic sample of microarchaeological finds from rescue excavations all over Austria. This unprecedented approach yielded 673 samples from 25 sites in almost all federal states of Austria. The first 203 samples have already been analysed and the remaining samples will be evaluated as part of follow-up projects. The comparison of different excavations clearly shows the potential of microarchaeology in the discovery of "invisible" activities. The microfinds obtained provide insights into agriculture, plant utilisation and plant nutrition as well as fishing for all prehistoric periods investigated. Charred plant remains were found particularly frequently in the sediment samples. Over 4500 fruits and seeds from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age were identified. Charred food and nutritional remains were also found. Fish bones were discovered at almost half of the sites analysed, demonstrating the importance of fishing for the prehistoric diet. Relatively rare, however, were the remains of metal production in the form of small slag fragments. They evidence iron and bronze working at two sites, which could not be proven from the finds discovered with the naked eye. All in all, knowledge of prehistoric settlements changes considerably when the tiny finds are systematically recovered and analysed. In the future, microarchaeological analyses will offer numerous other potential applications. The "Lost or Found?" project provides a broad basis of reference data on microfinds. On this basis, microfound ensembles from drilling cores or mini-sondages can be interpreted much better. Some sites can only be investigated using minimally invasive methods, either because they cannot be reached otherwise due to their depth (e.g. pits, mines) or because they are to be investigated with the greatest possible preservation of the archaeological heritage (e.g. protected sites, wetland settlements). In this way, microarchaeology helps to better protect and investigate archaeological heritage in the future.