How are archaeological sites formed?
Some of the first questions that people tend to ask when they look in an archaeological trench for the first time are: ‘How come it’s so deep in the ground?’ and ‘Why is it like that?’ The answers are to be found in the particular processes that take place once a site falls out of use and eventually decays into ruin. The crumbling and rotting decay of any structure can be quite rapid. In a tropical climate the rainforest has been known to reclaim a deserted building in a matter of weeks. In temperate climates like that of the UK it takes a bit longer. But it’s still the same continual processes of new growth of plants and fungus within decaying materials, together with often rampant animal activity, natural erosion, weathering, and human intervention in the form of scavenging and thievery, that combine to turn a standing building into the type of archaeological remains that Time Team finds today. To illustrate what can happen we’ve built a fictional cottage and in the length of this we
