Archaeobotanical Methodology: Results of an Archaeobotany Questionnaire

In preparation for a 2010 Society for American Archaeology Forum organized by Christine Hastorf, “Quantification and Presentation: Effective Means of Presenting Plant Evidence in Archaeology,” I devised a questionnaire about archaeobotany methodology. In the autumn of 2009, I posted a link to the survey on “www.surveymonkey.com.” I alerted archaeobotanists through the Archaeobotany listserv (www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ archaeobotany) and my own website. Since my network is primarily Old World, I also sent a notice to about ten North American archaeobotanists of my acquaintance. Therefore, the sample of survey respondents is not in any way random or representative, and each “case” is not truly independent, as university training and experience in different world areas influence practitioners. At least 138 people started the questionnaire, and 120 finished it. I would like to thank all who took the time to answer the survey. Although the survey did not directly address the topic of the SAA forum, the forum was one solution to a common problem: lack of communication among archaeobotanists. In the mid-1980s, I distributed a methodology questionnaire at the SAA annual meeting; about 25 archaeobotanists responded. The questions were open-ended, but many answers could be grouped. Those responses allowed me to construct multiple choice questions for this survey. Times change, so I added questions about the Internet and other digital matters. The survey was organized in six main sections: field, laboratory, recording, reporting and analysis, suggestions and comments, and demography. Disciplines History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/penn_museum_papers/42