Micromorphology and context Paul Goldberg a, b, * , Francesco Berna a a Department of Archaeology, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215, USA b Zentrum fu ¨r Naturwissenschaftliche Archa ¨ologie, Universita ¨t Tu ¨bingen, Ru ¨melinstraße 23, 72070 Tu ¨bingen, Germany article info Article history: Available online 4 November 2009 abstract Context is an important concept in archaeology, although the term tends to have a variety of meanings to different people. In this brief note we illustrate how context can be considered at a microstratigraphic scale using the technique of soil micromorphology. Examples are given from the sites of Geißenklo ¨ sterle (Germany), Sibudu (South Africa), and Pech de l’Aze ´ IV (France) to show that micromorphology is an indispensible and robust tool for not only documenting the contextual position of archaeological objects and features within the matrix of the site but also for making accurate interpretations of the archaeo- logical record. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The term context means different things to different people, depending on discipline and approach. From a regional viewpoint, one that might be held by a geographer, for example, context would be encompassed within the following, where archaeological sites fit into a geographic and ecological system: The goal of contextual archaeology should be the study of archaeological sites as part of a human ecosystem, within which past communities interacted spatially, economically, and socially with the environmental subsystem into which they were adaptively networked. (Butzer, 1980) Similarly, we often consider archaeological sites within regional or local geological contexts and settings, such as ‘‘riverine’’ or ‘‘coastal’’ sites, or ‘‘upland’’ vs. ‘‘lowland’’ ones. Even within these broad categories there are subdivisions, including occupations on the levee rather than those on the floodplain or next to oxbows. Moreover, as is typical of historical sciences such as geology and archaeology, temporal changes in geological contexts occur at both the site and regional level. At Boxgrove, UK, for example, a strati- graphic succession documents sea level regression associated with the change from interglacial to glacial conditions (Macphail, 1999). Similarly, at the site of Wilson–Leonard, near Austin, Texas, a shift from early Holocene channel gravels gave way to a succession of overbank silts that are increasingly enriched in colluvial silt and gravel. These changes take place over about 10,000 years through a vertical thickness of deposits of about 6 m as documented in Bousman et al. (2002). At the more refined scale of individual sites and objects, the definition/conception of context takes on different meanings and here the focus is on a finer scale, even a particularistic one in which an individual object is placed within its space. The American Society for American Archaeology (SAA) sums it up this way: Context in archaeology refers to the relationship that artifacts have to each other and the situation in which they are found. Every artifact found on an archaeological site has a precisely defined location. The exact spot where an artifact is found is recorded before it is removed from that location.. Context is what allows archaeologists to understand the relationship between artifacts on the same site, a well as how different archaeological sites are related to each other. (http://www.saa. org/public/educators/03_whatis.html#06) Similarly, at the artifact level Renfrew and Bahn (2007) note that: An artifact’s context usually consists of its immediate matrix [authors’ emphasis] (the material around it e.g., gravel, clay or sand), its provenience (horizontal and vertical position in the matrix), and its association [authors’ emphasis] with other artifacts (with other archaeological remains, usually in the same matrix) (p. 290). At the site and object-specific scale, context is normally first monitored and documented in the field and then later analyzed in the laboratory with different approaches. In the field, the first line * Corresponding author at: Department of Archaeology, Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215, USA. Tel.: þ1 617 358 1666; fax: þ1 617 353 6800. E-mail address: paulberg@bu.edu (P. Goldberg). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint 1040-6182/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2009.10.023 Quaternary International 214 (2010) 56–62