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Thanks for the example! I'm not so good at sleuthing things from photos, so no bonus points for me :D. I sort of see what you mean about "unremarkable", at lea

Thanks for the example! I'm not so good at sleuthing things from photos, so no bonus points for me :D. I sort of see what you mean about "unremarkable", at least without context. Knowing its an archaeological site of course raises questions: What does an archaeologist see in those rocks that I don't? What made people settle here 2kya (besides the water source)? Why dig here to begin with (instead of a km either direction, instead of 5m either direction, etc)? Similarly, if I was reading about the dig (a report or article or whatnot), I'd be asking questions like: what does the place these ancient humans chose look like? What does "near the river bank" mean? etc. This photo would help me understand those.

AlotOfReading 5y ago
The key feature is actually the little slope you can see in profile. That's the flat land above the river being eroded down into the waterway, exposing subsurface materials. Some of the rocks had fallen out of that bank and it looked suspiciously anthropogenic. We were already in the area looking along that river because the statistical model of the landscape built up over previous expeditions + other evidence indicated that there should be something to find. There were a number of other sites (e.g. lithic production) found the same way. These rocks in particular were probably to support something like semi-permanent tent poles. As for timing, people had been in the area since the last glacial maximum. I actually have photos of a blade from prior to the LGM in a nearby area, but it has colleagues visible in it. We simply haven't found evidence of people building these kinds of structures much prior to then in that area. I should mention that I'm deliberately underestimating this particular site's age because definitive dating hadn't come back last time I heard and it makes the guessing harder.

AlotOfReading 5y ago

The key feature is actually the little slope you can see in profile. That's the flat land above the river being eroded down into the waterway, exposing subsurface materials. Some of the rocks had fallen out of that bank and it looked suspiciously anthropogenic. We were already in the area looking along that river because the statistical model of the landscape built up over previous expeditions + other evidence indicated that there should be something to find. There were a number of other sites (e.g. lithic production) found the same way. These rocks in particular were probably to support something like semi-permanent tent poles. As for timing, people had been in the area since the last glacial maximum. I actually have photos of a blade from prior to the LGM in a nearby area, but it has colleagues visible in it. We simply haven't found evidence of people building these kinds of structures much prior to then in that area. I should mention that I'm deliberately underestimating this particular site's age because definitive dating hadn't come back last time I heard and it makes the guessing harder.