Archaeological Site Reuse Behavior

There is no simple correspondence between the distribution of artifacts in an archaeological site and human behavior. The reason why there is no simple correspondence is cultural and natural processes. Cultural processes affects a site by reclamation and reuse. Reclamation is when an artifact is taken from the ground and is used in a new way. For example, Pueblo people reclaim the tools that their ancestors have made. An ancient stone arrow and spear points are used in a ritual offering. These tools now reflect how current Pueblo people use stone arrow and spear points. These tools do not reflect what the ancient Pueblo people did with the tools. Next, reuse is when an artifact is used as something other than what it was originally made to

This broken arrowhead is not being used as it was originally made to be used. Reuse was used with vessels on a site at Eagles Island. “Archaeological remains indicate that definite reuse occurred for 41% of the vessels at Eagles Island. At least 13 vessels at Eagles Island had previous owners prior to ownership and use by industries on Eagles Island. This type of secondary reuse behavior was typical at Eagles Island (Richards 225-227).”
Secondly, another reason why there is no clear correspondence is natural processes. Nature can disrupt a site and make it hard for the archaeologist to understand the human behavior that went on at a particular site. This disruption creates a new site. The site that has been affected by natural processes no shows the patterns of those natural processes and not the patterns of human behavior. This type of site makes it easy for an archaeologist to interpret what natural processes have done compared to what humans have done. Some of these natural processes are floralturbation and faunalturbation. An example of how a natural process can disrupt a site is

Faunalturbation is when animals of different sizes disrupt how artifacts are laid out in an archaeological site. An example of faunalturbation is when an animal digs a hole. The digging causes artifacts that were below the surface to be moved up to a higher position or to the surface. These burrowing animals affect how artifacts are distributed between the top and bottom layers of the soil. Artifacts that are old may be perceived as new because the animals pushed these old artifacts to a higher position. Also, faunalturbation causes artifacts to be mixed up. Old and young artifacts are being moved around by the digging of the animals. The artifacts that are at the bottom layers are artifacts that were too heavy for the animals to push up. Similarly, the artifacts that are at the top layers are artifacts that are light enough so that the animals could dig up and push to a higher level. This situation could be taken as artifacts that are older than the ones at the top. Also, if these artifacts were tools, these tools could be mistaken as if humans started off using big heavy tools then moved to using small and light tools. Faunalturbation can affect the understanding of a site. Another example of faunalturbation is the site Cliché-Rancourt. At the Cliche-Rancourt site in the United States, faunalturbation affected how Paleoindian artifacts were buried. Also, the understanding of faunalturbation and other natural