Alignment (archaeology)

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Fig 1.Alignment example

An alignment in archaeology is a secondary or circumstantial form of evidence used to associate features such as postholes by virtue of their physical relationships rather than stratigraphic ones. Features dissected by latter intrusions can have their constituent parts re-associated by looking at alignments.

1 Larger scale alignments
2 Misinterpretation of alignments
3 Vertical multi phased alignments
4 See also

[edit] Larger scale alignments

The alignment of features on a site with-in or across several archaeological phases many times is an indication of a larger topology to the formation of features relating to activity in the archaeological record. Structures buildings and liner features such as ditches can all have common alignments that relate to a feature that is not exposed during excavation or is off-site. An example would be that a road has biased the alignment of features some way back from the actual road side. Another example will be contours or water courses which may be buried or obscure.

[edit] Misinterpretation of alignments

Alignments may or may not be supported by stratigraphic evidence that binds them together in phase. The archaeologist must be wary of making tenuous conclusions based on alignments which have little corroborative evidence.

[edit] Vertical multi phased alignments

The use of GIS databases has introduced the use of land use groups in post excavation study. Here alignments are areas of land use throughout time even if there are across substantive changes in phase through the sequence. The use of these non-stratigraphically aligned groups of features by type is that the evolution of land use can be mapped and recalled with the use of a computerized databases storing the information. The typology of land use in these groups is usually broad in definition, examples include; open area,, road, and structure. the idea is create much larger units of understanding for cross comparison between many sites. Land use is also cross referenced to phases that are site specific.