INTER-SECTION Volume II | Page 25

| Detecting cultural formation processes through arthropod assemblages |

Whether cultural or natural, it is likely that arthropods are silent witnesses that hitchhiked along with the deposits. Arthropods, like beetles and mites, are largely abundant in any habitat( Robinson 1996, 5). Their sturdy chitinous exoskeletons allow them to be preserved in the archaeological record. The use of these remains and their ecological implications are a useful way to separate the cultural from the natural formation processes, but they are often neglected in archaeological research( Elias 2010). In the search for anthropogenic activities, those arthropods that are known to interact with and benefit from humans and man-made environments form great indicators. These species are called synanthropes. For example, the grain weevil Sitophilus granarius cannot survive without indoor stored grains( King et al. 2014), and forms an indication for grain storage, consumption and waste-disposal.

Using ecofacts, or‘ culturally relevant nonartifactual data’( Binford 1964, 432), as indicators for C-transforms is in sharp contrast with Schiffer’ s pioneering work on formation processes, where he considers ecofacts solely as natural formation processes( Schiffer 1987, 290-291). Since then, people have argued against this, showing that ecofact assemblages can well be a cultural formation process( Welinder 1991). The aim of this article is not to define which arthropod groups are indica tors for a certain activity or feature as with indicator packages( sensu Kenward and Hall 1997), nor to describe species associations from urban deposits like Carrott and Kenward( 2001) have done, but to create a preliminary arthropod-based model for understanding cultural formation processes, using an urban archaeological rubbish / cesspit as example. Urban in this sense refers to a human society where people occupy permanent domestic dwellings, with properties linked to those dwellings.

The trajectory of a deposit from the context of origin to the moment of final deposition can be described as the transition from systemic to archaeological context( sensu Schiffer 1972). In the example of the rubbish / cesspit, this feature is considered the archaeological context, and the conceptual systemic contexts are defined using concepts as described in Robinson’ s work on urban entomology. Conceptual systemic origins and synanthropicity are used to make cultural formation processes visible, by a number of subdivisions of the overall arthropod assemblage.

Between natural and cultural formation processes: defining systemic and archaeological contexts The difference between a natural and a cultural formation process lies in the movement from the systemic to the archaeological context. In order to define move-

Figure 1. Representation of the sub-assemblages and their trajectories from systemic contexts of origin towards the archaeological context.

2016 | INTER-SECTION | VOL II | p. 23