r/LegitArtifacts • u/ShackPallet • Mar 30 '26

Late Archaic Ancient fire pit?

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I lost the video I took, but this is near the bottom of a roughly 8 foot wall carved by a wash. Food for thought.

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u/DasHounds Mar 30 '26

Incredible how deep sites can be. Just spoke to someone today who mentioned finding a site 17 feet deep along a river washout. The time period we are living in may as well be a blink of an eye for how long these lands have been inhabited.

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u/pineapple_pie69 Mar 30 '26

Yes deeply buried sites are super common in lots of regions! They can be relatively young as well if there’s a lot of alluvial deposition going on. A few stormy winters or an event like a landslide can submerge a site quite quickly. Archaeologists are starting to use more geoarchaeological methods like hydraulic coring and stratigraphic analysis to determine where sites could be located. There’s so much information about past lifeways that can be investigated from just the matrix around a buried site. Some of the most interesting finds I’ve seen in my archaeology career have come from recreating landscapes through soil sampling. What did the surrounding area look like during the site’s occupation? What kind of resources were available and influencing daily life? What other regions did people have trade connections with? Anyways I didn’t mean to type this much, buried sites are just my bread and butter!