Video produced by ArchAnge Films for Sherbrooke Museum of Nature and Science
Narrator: François Courchesne, Assistant Dean, Université de Montréal
Date: June 2015
Location: Université de Montréal
Length: 2:40
An expert, François Courchesne, explains the main two contributions of the study of soils to archaeological research.
On-screen: A close-up of a man in a room, in front of windows.
[ François Courchesne ] Hi, my name is François Courchesne, I am a professor at the department of geography of Montreal University. My field of activity is soil science and I am interested in the genesis, the formation of soils, the chemistry of soils, their properties and the mineralogy, the nature of the crystals that forms the soils.
On-screen text: Link between geology and archaeology.
[F.C.] The contribution of soils science to archeology is in two different fields. First, the question of pedoturbations, these are physical disturbances in soil profile, and second, the question of optimizing the search activity of archeologist. Pedoturbations are due to plant, animal activity or frost action and disturb the localisation of artefacts in soils. For the optimisation of search site, we used selected chemical proprieties such as phosphorus concentration in soil to optimize search and to facilitate the action of archeologist.
On-screen text: A concrete example.
[F.C.] At the Cliche-Rancourt site, the main question that was ask to soil scientist was to know why we have artifacts deep in the soil profile, down to 50 even 70 centimetres deep. The Cliche-Rancourt site is quite old, 20 000 years old, and at that time, frost was very deep in soil, so the freeze-thaw cycle could displace the particles, the artefact, down the soil profile at the bottom of the profile. A second mechanism that is more contemporary and is dues to trees is particular tree throw, fallowing wind action, also displace
artefacts in the profile and create this occasion where the artefacts are moving down. These two mechanisms are responsible for changes and help the archeologist to interpret their findings.
On-screen text: An anecdote.
[F.C.] There a short story that shows well how the soil scientists can help the archeologists. Several years ago, we were a group of soil scientists and we met archeologists in the field along the St. Lawrence Valley and they were searching a site, with a very thick black surface that they were interpreting as a occupation surface, but they were not finding any artefact, so they ask the soil scientist what actually is this surface. And it was very easy for us to detect the fact that this surface was a natural horizon forming normally in soil in that area and it was not an occupation surface. That shows well how soil scientist can help archeologist.
