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Predictive models Archeological sites can be found anywhere; they often are found in unexpected places. Statistically, however, they are more likely to be in certain environmental settings than in others. It is this latter observation that fuels predictive models. Predictive site models rest on the assumption that there are fairly regular patterns of human settlement for any particular time period in a particular environment. These models begin with a hypothesized pattern drawn from known site locations and analogies with ethnographically known societies. Confirmation is then sought through site discovery and inventory. While predictive models may identify potential site locations, they do not encompass the entire scope of topics necessary to interpret past human societies. Archeology documents the long-term use of a landscape. A complete understanding of a society's settlement pattern would include the variety and relationships between sites of different functions that were occupied during different seasons and the variations of these relationships through time and space. It would also put the use of landscape into a context of social, political, economic, and environmental relationships both within and between cultural groups. Such a task is not easily accomplished. It has taken generations of archeologists to flesh out an understanding of this topic and the work is by no means complete. Also, it it requires the integration not only of environmental knowledge, but sometimes history, genealogy, and ethnography as well. Archeology is still in its infancy in its anthropological understanding of past human lives. Predictive models, when used only to locate sites, mistakenly imply that archeologists have a mature understanding of how humans have used the landscape. Site prediction is not the point of archeology; site discovery leading to the interpretation of human lives in a regional context is at least one of archeology's goals (Little 1995:170-171).
Very few archeological investigations-whether survey, testing, or excavation-recover all of the remains in the area being studied. Archeologists must always be concerned about how accurately the data that they have collected reflects the archeological record about which they are making inferences. Almost all archeological discovery and examination investigations involve some kind of sampling. If an investigation does not discover or examine all the remains in a site or all the archeological resources in an area, it deals with a portion, or sample, of them (AEP et al. 1997: 8). Sampling methods
may be judgmental, that is, based upon past knowledge or present interpretations,
or probability-based, that is with sample units selected mathematically,
or a combined method may be used that combines judgement with probability.
There is no single best way to sample. The most important aspect of
sampling is that archeologists carefully consider how sampling will
affect the results of the examination (AEP et al. 1997: 8).
Surface inspection, also referred to as "reconnaissance," "above-ground survey," or "walkover," is probably the technique used most frequently by archeologists to discover sites. In arid parts of the world, such as the American Southwest, surface inspection by teams of archeologists walking systematically-that is, in a purposefully regular way-over an area, recording and/or collecting structures and artifacts remains the standard means of site discovery. Systematic surface inspection is also used in such environments to examine isolated sites or to examine a larger area or a number of sites and make inferences about demography, economic relationships, and other aspects of human adaptation (AEP et al. 1997: 5). Surface inspection also has been used in parts of the world where vegetation or soil aggradation have covered archeological materials. In such areas, for example agricultural portions of the eastern United States, surface inspections of plowed fields has had a long tradition as a primary discovery technique (AEP et al. 1997: 6). There are some limitations to the use of surface inspection as a technique. It requires that site elements be visible on the surface, or when plowed fields are being inspected, within reach of the plow. It requires that artifacts be abundant so that they are easily detected. In areas where dense vegetation covers the surface, it will not work unless the sites of interest also contain remnants of structures that stand out and are detectable despite the vegetation (AEP et al. 1997: 6).
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