ABOUT THIS PROJECT (Home)

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE PAST
Many pasts?
Whose pasts?

WHAT KINDS OF VOICES?
Archaeology
History
Ethnography
Community
Media

WHO'S TALKING?
Participants in Web project
LJP Historical Society
Kids!
YOU! ( feedback)

OTHER USEFUL STUFF
Bibliography
Definitions
Links to other sites
Maps
Search (names, places, etc.)
Table of Contents
(list of all site links)

Levi Jordan
Plantation

Artifact Classification System

Go back to Robert Harris main page
Go back to Robert Harris Interview
Go back to Robert Harris Paper

This artifact was classified as "E 03", or a "shell artifact". That obviously does not convey all of the information necessary to properly study it – it is only a start.

These are the initial categories used for the analysis of Jordan Plantation materials. This is based on a functional classification system – that is, items are classified according to what function they would have served to the people who used them.

However, in this excavation, these categories are regarded as very provisional. This is because before deciding what the objects were used for BY THE PEOPLE WHO USED THEM, they must be examined in context with other materials found around them. They must also be viewed in context with historical documents, oral histories, and ethnographic examples that show the ways that similar objects may have been used in other contexts. Therefore, archaeologists study not only the artifacts, but artifacts AND artifact contexts.

"41BO165" refers to the site number: "41" refers to Texas (in alphabetical order, it is the 41st state), "BO" refers to "Brazoria County", and "165" means that the Jordan site was the 165th site officially designated as an archaeological site in Brazoria County, Texas.