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Historic Site Content, Structure, and Function

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Stanley South
Stanley South*
Affiliation:
Institute of Archeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208
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Abstract

Site content, structure, and function are examined using information drawn from historic sites, ethnographic observation, and modern material-culture studies in an effort to understand more about the relationship of past cultural systems to their material by-products. The elements of site content, such as artifacts, architecture, features, and strata, are examined in terms of their temporal and spatial dimensions in relation to site function.

The importance of identification of use, form, function, condition, and size in relation to spatial pattern and associations is emphasized. Given the ability to control or identify site function, those of us working on historic sites can begin to recognize the site structure correlates of site function and thereby take our place alongside experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology in the development of general archaeological theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , April 1979 , pp. 213 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1979

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