Notorious Grave Robber

As they say, one man’s trash is an archaeologist’s treasure. All this is a very eloquent way to say that, you can find out so much about people through their trash! We archaeologists mainly sort through ancient dead people’s waste;;

There were a lot of little pieces found inside this particular Silo’s fill that are unremarkable on their own, but helped paint a much bigger picture about these people long gone: what did they eat? What materials did they use? What kind of crops did they grow? And many more. While these questions seem insignificant, they help us understand who these people were, how they lived, what their daily lives were like…

For example in this specific Silo’s case, the fill was mostly made up of hardened clay and mud-brick. It was indeed used as a regular silo at first, but quickly became a glorified trash can. (Very common!)

We found many animal bones, a lot of jaws and teeth of sheep, and parts of their spines, legs, skulls, etc. Some charcoal here and there, lots of pottery, and calcified organic material.

What do these finds tell us, then?

These people made their structures mainly out of mud brick. Animal bones say a lot about their diet, pottery will tell you a lot about their technology (were their kilns able to get to very high temperatures, are they hand made or wheel thrown? Are they decorated/painted,) and also can say a lot about their trade, wealth and potential tools they might have used. Further analysis can show the types of grain and seeds in the floor of the silo, and the calcified plant remains are usually a good way to know if the houses of the settlement had a roof or not! Because, the roof was usually made out of fiber and similar organic material.