Archaeologist and non-archaeologists tend to think of archaeology as something that takes place at "sites". Yet, much of what humans did in the past happened away from their homes or places of work. Further, a lot of evidence about past human activities accumulated at locations far from what we would call "sites". A good example is pollen and other micro-fossil evidence for landscape changes in the past. In the photograph below, my colleagues and I are extracting a sediment core, IZT091, from a location on the coast of Guatemala that is several kilometers from any known archaeological site. The basal radiocarbon date from this core indicates that the 5.6 meters of sediment we extracted represent about 2700 years of accumulation. Pollen, phytolith, charcoal, and stable-isotope analysis of this core are currently in progress. Ultimately, these analyses will provide a 2700-year history of changes in forest cover, including human-induced changes, upstream from this location.
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