Estimating original assemblage content to adjust for post‐depositional vertical artifact movement

Abstract

Abstract Frequency curves of a particular class of artifacts, such as pottery, from each stratum assemblage have been used to derive relative chronologies and simultaneously models of cultural change. Such empirical counts do not usually take into account post‐depositional processes affecting archaeological remains. A distinctive type of ceramic, coin molds, from the Iron Age hillfort at the Titelberg in Luxembourg provides the model for presenting a method for estimating original assemblage content per stratum on the basis of the artifact frequency as actually recovered upon excavation.