My Take on Sorting Flotation Samples
Hey, it's Rachel here! Over the past few weeks, our archeological analysis class has been working on sorting artifacts and floatation samples. During our time at Fort St. Joseph, multiple samples were taken for the purpose of learning more about foodways at the site by collecting small pieces of bone and seeds. The soil samples are placed in the floatation machine which uses water and air flow to separate artifacts that float (seeds and other botanicals) from the ones that sink (dense artifacts such as lead shot, glass beads, etc.). After we float the material, we used various sizes of sieves to separate the light and heavy fraction by size. It has been very interesting to see what artifacts are most prevalent within each size. Although the floatation process itself only took a single class period, sorting the materials recovered takes much longer. After artifacts are divided into the light and heavy fraction (float vs. sink) and then by their sieve size, the material is fur...
