Digging Up Fieldwork guidelines for archaeology students 2nd Revised Edition

While most field manuals begin with abstract theoretical propositions, to move tackling with pratical issues (such as the organization of the archaeological yard) as these latter were secondary, menial aspects, the approach of Luca M. Olivieri goes the other way round. Following the first pages of this book, students will learn to appreciate the advantages of a straight, rational organization of the trench, including issues that are regularly neglected in other books of the same type – like the composition of the excavating teams, the location and maintenance of the excavation dirt, the control of the water running on surface and across the exposed ruins. A clear historical understanding – the Author seems to suggest – depends also upon a neat setting, since the first steps, of an archaeologist’s experimental workbench. Another crucial aspect of this text is its practical vision. While condemning without any ambiguity the criminal destruction of Swat’s archaeological heritage by illegal diggers, as the careless planning of agricultural works and modern construction across important archaeological sites, Olivieri is aware of the fact that the recent impact - even in form of exposed sections – sometimes may be utilized as possible windows to the past. It is a generous effort to create order and information even from what, too often, is turning into a depressing chaos. The Author leads student to a proper planning of surface surveys (in the peculiar situation of mountain slopes), to an exhaustive planning of the dig, considering also legal frameworks and budgeting, the inventorying of the finds, to restoration and site maintenance. Readers are invited to view the contents of this book as an evolution, but also as an important change, of the methods and the theoretical background of Mortimer’s Wheeler’s fieldschool. This change involves a shift from a strongly hierarchical management of the yard to participation and shared discussion, but also to a more detailed documentation of stratigraphy and, as a consequence, to more critical historical interpretations; from stratigraphic limits conceived as lines that separate “historical periods” to tools for reconstructing the formation processes of the site. (from the Foreword, by G. Leonardi)