A Review of Site Formation Processes and Their Relevance to Geoarchaeology

Abstract

Someone unfamiliar with the history of archaeological methods and theory who read the title of this chapter would guess that the content addresses the processes responsible for the formation of archaeological sites. That guess would be based on the English use of the word “formation”; an act of giving form or shape to something, or of taking form. The word formation in archaeology, however, has a connotation that goes well beyond this English definition.