Re: Excavation equipment


Inger E.(Norah) wrote:
"Peter Alaca" <p.alaca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:45820518$0$20618$dbd4d001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tom McDonald <kiltmac@xxxxxxxxx > wrote:

On Dec 14, 4:51 pm, "IE_Json" <inger_e.johans...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"tk" <kavan...@xxxxxxx> wrote in
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Alan Crozier wrote:
I have to translate the Swedish term "hackbord". It's a table on
which excavated soil can be spread so that you can comb through it
in search of objects of interest. The Swedish term means literally
"chopping table". What do you call it in English?

Alan

Does it have a solid bottom? Why not just "table"? ("sorting
table"?)

Usually archies on this side of the pond use a rocker box with a
screen bottom to sieve soil for artifacts/stuff

tktk
look at the photo of two archaeologists are working using a
'hackbord' which
is a type of table on which soil, sand etc can be comb/gone thru

carefully.http://hildebrand.raa.se/uv//projekt/vast/gotatunnel2001_02/v28..ht
m

The soil in that image appears very cohesive, perhaps wet and/or
clayey. Certainly clumpy. I suspect it would be useless to try to
sieve that stuff.

In the sorting table shown, the point appears to be the same as
sieving, only using your hands (and tools?) to do the separating
rather than the screen.

I imagine that, in appropriate conditions, a rocker box would be used,
too. Or are Scandihoovians just inveterate doing-it-the-hard-way-ers?

Some years ago we excavated a Roman horse from
very havy clay. Quite a job.
Afterwards it must be cleaned of course, before it
could be prepared. That was almost worse than the
digging. It must be done very carefully, because most
of the bone was very soft. Very frustrating because many
bones crumbled in your hand or broke when you broke a
lump of clay. The skul looked nice, but in the end the
skeleton was in a too bad condition for proper preparing.
After all that work! That do I call the hard way.

Well the hackbord is a very easy and excellent 'tool'-piece to use. Not as
Tom assumed a way to do it the hard way - on the contrary it's doing it the
easy way.

Difficult or easy isn't really so much the issue as using the most
appropriate technique for the material. In many cases, as with very
cohesive (wet or dry) material, the hackbord/hackboard is the better
way to go, and sieving the harder. In other cases, when the soil is not
so cohesive, sieving is the way to go.

My point about Scandihoovians and difficulty was specific to the issue
of whether you guys failed to use sieving when it is the most
appropriate technique. I assumed you would use it when appropriate.

"Om jorden är tung av t ex lera kan det vara jobbigt att använda såll. Då
kan man istället at till et sk hackbord. Jorden förs upp på en plan yta där
den finfördelas och söks igenom systematiskt efter eventuella föremål."

"If the soil is 'heavy' due to for example clay it can be hard working with
a sieve. Instead you can use a so called 'hackbord'. The soil is transported
to a plane surface where it's grind into finer particles and
systematically/carefully gone thru for possible artifacts"
http://www.geocities.com/stenrose_och_teg/intro_arkgr.htm

That's the point of sieving, too. While the hackboard would seem to
have the advantage of thoroughness over sieving (due to the size of the
hardware cloth holes in the sieve), if every bit of excavated soil is
examined this way, the sieve has the advantage of speed and
selectivity. The sieve spoil is, as a matter of course, sampled for
smaller bits (graduated sieves) and floated for biologicals.

ISTM that the real question as to which to use is one made by the
archaeologist(s), along with ancillary professionals (botanists,
biologists, etc.) at each dig site, and may change as soil conditions
change.

Real archaeology. I love the smell of unwashed bodies in the morning!

.

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