The Benefits of Using Radiocarbon Dating and an Interdisciplinary Approach for Identifying Contamination of Archaeological Find Assemblages. A Case Study from the Multi-period Settlement Site at Rakovice, Czech Republic

Abstract

The contamination of archaeological find assemblages at multi-period (and other) sites can sometimes go undetected. In this article we seek to highlight this problem through analysis of the fill of settlement features from a site at Rakovice, South Bohemia, Czech Republic. After a detailed spatial evaluation of different categories of finds, an analysis of plant macroremains, and radiocarbon dating, what had originally appeared to be a clear-cut archaeological situation of the superposition of two features from the Roman and Early Mediaeval periods was shown to be much more complex. This discovery confirmed the value of a multi-disciplinary approach and especially of radiocarbon dating even in apparently simple contexts. What we are especially concerned about is the risk of assigning particular periods to multi-period sites that have been insufficiently radiocarbon dated. IANSA 2020 ● XI/1 ● 21–31 Tereza Šálková, Tomáš Hiltscher, Dagmar Dreslerová, Lenka Kovačiková, Jaroslav Jiřík: The Benefits of Using Radiocarbon Dating and an Interdisciplinary Approach for Identifying Contamination of Archaeological Find Assemblages. A Case Study from the Multi-period Settlement Site at Rakovice, Czech Republic 22 In this article we aim to demonstrate that: (a) the earlier residuality and later intrusion of plant remains can be crucial for archaeological interpretation even in a situation that appears stratigraphically clear and in which each archaeological feature comprises only artefacts (mostly ceramics) dated to specific periods; (b) the true formation history and “contamination” cannot be recognized without radiocarbon dating of several specimens and without detailed knowledge of the local archaeology and the spectrum of plants cultivated in a particular period. Our objective is to highlight the dangers of unrecognized contamination and the subsequent misinterpretation of archaeological contexts, and to suggest that such contamination can only be revealed by a multi-disciplinary approach and by including radiocarbon