Fill (archaeology)
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In archaeology a fill is the material that has accumulated or has been deposited into a cut feature such as ditch or pit of some kind of a later date than the feature itself.[1] Fills are an important part of the archaeological record as their formation and composition can throw light on many aspects of archaeological study.
Primary fills
A primary fill is the context that first appears in the
Primary fills, in the plural sense, are all the fills within a feature that are sealed by layer(s) possibly representing a change in
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Slumppit.002.png/220px-Slumppit.002.png)
Slumping
Slumping is a process that can occur to any context in the archaeological record and not just fills. Slumping represents how a context's deposition morphology may deform from its original position by natural settling action. This is readily apparent with fills which have a tendency to settle radically over time. This settling is termed slumping and has a bearing on the
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ditchfills.001.png/220px-Ditchfills.001.png)
Tip lines
Tip lines are an intrinsic characteristic of fills, but they can apply to many other types of context such as dumps. Tip lines are the angles which the contexts form as an indicator of action in the past. As fills of a feature form stratigraphically, the direction off the horizontal by which they form may give us information. For example, a ditch that has fills all angled, so one side of each fill is higher on a specific side of the ditch, would suggest that the ditch was backfilled from the side where the fills were highest. (See
See also
- Archaeological context
- Archaeological plan
- Archaeological association
- Relationship (archaeology)
- Cut (archaeology)
- Archaeological section
- Feature (archaeology)
- Single context recording
- Harris matrix
- Spit (archaeology)
References
- ^ "fill". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)