Chemical Residues as Anthropic Activity Markers. Ethnoarchaeology, Experimental Archaeology and Archaeology of Food Production and Consumption

Alessandra Pecci, Luis Barba and Agustín Ortiz

Environmental Archaeology, 2017, vol. 22, issue 4, 343-353

Abstract: Chemical residues preserved in floors can be considered anthropic activity markers. In fact, residues are strictly related to the activities performed and reflect their spatial distribution. We present a synthesis of the work carried out over the last few decades in Mexico and Italy related to the study of chemical residues in floors. Residues can be identified performing specific chemical analyses both of plastered or earthen floors samples. We outline a methodological approach concerning the use of the markers of the activities to interpret food production and consumption in the archaeological record, based upon evidence from experimental, ethnoarchaeological and archaeological examples. Here we point out the advantages and problems of such an approach, mainly related to equifinality, of the use of spot tests and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry techniques using examples from different sites in the world.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14614103.2017.1359354 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:yenvxx:v:22:y:2017:i:4:p:343-353

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/yenv20

DOI: 10.1080/14614103.2017.1359354

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental Archaeology is currently edited by Tim Mighall

More articles in Environmental Archaeology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().