Living Floors at Pech IV

Archaeological sites record the processes of both cultural and natural events that occur over time at a particular locale in the landscape. When people are present at a site, some of their activities result in an archaeological signature of animal bones, stone artifacts, and hearths. This configuration of cultural materials is especially characteristic for very ancient sites, such as the Middle Paleolithic period at Pech IV, because of the preservation durability of stone and bone over the passage of time. As archaeologists, we would like to isolate individual occupations or "living floors" at a site because this is the closest snapshot we can get of past behaviors---something we might think of as the "Pompeii effect," a moment frozen in time. Typically, however, people frequently return to the same site and the individual occupations become mixed together as people go about their daily tasks. When people aren't present at the site, there are many natural processes that can also blur the individual occupations. These include burrowing animals and insects, erosion, movement of cultural materials by water, and so forth. Finding an actual living floor is thus very rare.

In our excavations in the 2002 field season, we have found something that may represent a living floor or at least a relatively brief period of time.  Here, we show you our discovery as it occurred over the course of two days. You can click on any of the photos on this page to see the details more clearly.

In the photo above, we can see numerous large boulders, especially above the photo board, which document several collapses of the rockshelter roof. We decided to remove these boulders so that we could excavate deposits (the very dark sediment at the bottom of the photo) near the base of the site's stratigraphy.

Removing rocks might sound like a relatively easy task, but, in actuality, it has to be carefully planned from both a safety and site preservation perspective. 

Above and in the photos to the left, our excavators drill a series of holes into the top boulder to create cracks which can then be wedged apart and chunks of the boulder lifted out.

When we lifted out the pieces of the overlying boulder, we uncovered a very thin sediment deposit with several animal bones and stone artifacts. This deposit was literally sandwiched between two episodes of roof fall, and quite likely represents an occupation surface that was sealed shortly after the bones and artifacts were left behind.  In the two photos above, you can see some of these cultural materials and a possible burnt area that may represent a hearth. The photo on the right is a close-up of a portion of this surface (inset area).  If you look closely at the stone artifact that is above and to the left of the photo board (in the photo on the right), you will see that it is broken in place, likely as a result of being crushed by the roof fall boulder that sealed this surface.

After our geologist arrived, we excavated this possible living floor. The consensus is that the dark stained area is not a hearth, but that the stone artifacts and animal bones represent a limited period occupation surface. We continued digging in this area and discovered a second living floor. This second surface has many more artifacts, and is also sandwiched between two roof fall boulders.

This is the second exposed living floor surface. There are concentrations of animal bone in the upper right (inset area) and in the lower center, just to the lower right of the stone artifacts.