Horizon (archaeology)
In archaeology, the general meaning of horizon is a distinctive type of sediment, artefact, style or other cultural trait that is found across a large geographical area, from a limited time period.[1][2][3] The term derives from similar ones in geology, horizon or marker horizon, but where these have natural causes, archaeological horizons are caused by man. Most typically there is a change in the type of pottery found, and in the style of less frequent major artefacts. Across a horizon the same type of artefact or style is found very widely over a large area, and it can be assumed that these traces are approximately contemporary.
In the archaeology of the Americas "Horizon" terminology, used as proper names, has become used for schemes of periodization of major periods. "Horizons" are periods of cultural stability and political unity, with "Intermediate periods" covering the politically fragmented transition between them. In the periodization of pre-Columbian Peru and the Central Andes there are three Horizon periods, with two Intermediate periods between them. The Horizons, and their dominant cultures are: Early Horizon, Chavin; Middle Horizon, Tiwanaku and Wari culture; Late Horizon, Inca.[4]
The same terms (Early, Middle and Late Horizons) are sometimes used for the Mesoamerican chronology, though there the five stages defined by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958 remain dominant, and the Formative stage, Classic stage and Post-Classic stage cover approximately similar periods. More commonly lower-case horizons such as an "Olmec horizon" are referred to for the region.[5]
General
The term is used to denote a series of stratigraphic relationships that constitute a phase, or are part of the process of determining the archaeological phases of a site. An archaeological horizon can be understood as a break in contexts formed in the Harris matrix, which denotes a change in epoch on a given site by delineation in time of finds found within contexts.
An example of a horizon is the dark earth horizon in England, which separates Roman artefacts from medieval artefacts and which may indicate the abandonment of urban areas in Roman Britain during the 2nd to 5th centuries. The term 'archaeological horizon' is sometimes, and somewhat incorrectly, used in place of the term layer or strata.
See also
Notes
- ↑ Kipfer, Barbara Ann. "Horizon". Archaeology Wordsmith. Retrieved 2016-04-22.
- ↑ Pool, p. 181.
- ↑ Anthony, p. 131.
- ↑ Daily Life in the Inca Empire, 2nd Edition, Michael A. Malpass, pp. 8-9; Essential Humanities. "History of Precolonial Meso/South America." Accessed 9 May, 2017.
- ↑ Grove, David C., in Latin American Horizons: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 11th and 12th October 1986, pp. 83-111, 88 on Barbara Price's captialized scheme, Dumbarton Oaks, 1993, ISBN 0884022072, 9780884022077google books
References
- Pool, Christopher A. (2007). Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-78882-3.
- David W. Anthony (2007). "How to Reconstruct a Dead Culture". The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press. pp. 131–. ISBN 978-0-691-05887-0. Retrieved 21 October 2011.