Provider: Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic TY - JOUR JO - Anthropologie (Brno) TI - Postdepositional Artefact Scattering in a Podzol. Processes and Consequences for Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Sites AU - Vermeersch PM AU - Bubel S Y1 - 1997 VL - 35 IS - 2 PB - Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic SN - 0323-1119 SP - 119 EP - 130 KW - Postdepositional processes KW - Faunaturbation KW - Late Palaeolithic KW - Mesolithic KW - Podzol KW - Artefact distribution N2 - N2 - Most West European sites are located on aeolian deposits that, probably, were aggraded, anterior to human occupation. Often the deposit top has been eroded or became included in a plough zone. Only under exceptional circumstances has the whole Holocene soil horizon sequence been preserved. In order to interpret artefact distribution at such sites, one has to answer the question where was the original occupation horizon. Field observations and experimental work suggest that, in the sandy deposits because of faunaturbation, artefacts moved down from their original position. We may presume that the artefacts started their descent from the ancient surface, that in most cases corresponds to the present one. Consequences here of are very important for the archaeological record. It means that the site, even with buried archaeological material is to be considered as a purely surface site, with all implications of possible mixture of later archaeological materials and restrictions for intra-site analysis. ER -