LEARN NC

North Carolina History Digital Textbook Project

Excavating Occaneechi Town: An archaeology primer

From the UNC Research Laboratories of Archaeology

3 Basic excavation steps

Photograph of students engaged in various excavation tasks at Occaneechi Town.

Students engaged in various excavation tasks at Occaneechi Town. (Photograph courtesy of Research Laboratories of Archaeology. More about the photograph)

The five basic steps in any excavation are:

  • Establish a grid of squares over the entire site
  • Remove and screen the plowed soil from the top of each square
  • Photograph and map the soil stains (called features), which are visible beneath the plowed soil
  • Excavate the features to recover their contents
  • And, when everything else is finished, refill (or backfill) the excavated areas with soil.

    • In the rest of this section, we will describe all these steps in more detail.