Building on buildings: creating a solid foundation for the contextualisation of building remains
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2017-01-24

Archaeological settlement research in the Netherlands can traditionally be characterised by its coverage of large excavation areas, often yielding substantial numbers of house-plans. This image is particularly applicable to the (Pleistocene) sandy soils, where poor preservation conditions enable quick and fairly straightforward documentation of postholes and other, mostly negative soil features. Over the years, numerous typologies have been built up which outline regional groundplan varieties and their development through time. But this conventional typological approach has recently been criticised for not having moved beyond basic data classification. Theoretical interpretations, on the other hand, may be said to push our understanding of past societies beyond what currently can safely be established on the basis of building remains. Viewing these typological and theoretical approaches as opposites in archaeological settlement research, it becomes clear that they are divided by something of a methodological gap. The current situation in Dutch settlement archaeology seemingly hampers the development of a single, both highly informative and well-founded approach for researching past architecture.
This paper presents a simple strategy to establish a more solid argumentation for interpretating archaeological building remains. It is argued that we should not move away from classic groundplan typologies, as some archaeologists suggest, but neither should we lower our expectations when it comes to interpreting these plans in economic, socio-political or ideological terms. Rather, it is suggested that we elaborate on well-established research strategies in such a way that they can support each other; as Trebsche (2009, 515) puts it: “Contextual analyses should always proceed from better-documented interpretations.” In order to really understand ancient building traditions, information on the use and technicalities of built structures will have to be analysed in separate methodological ‘building blocks’, as a means of closing the gap between classification and interpretation. It will be demonstrated that the concept of a ‘functional typology’ can provide a framework for systematically building up a well-founded, yet holistic view of excavated ground-plans. The key objective in setting up a functional typology is to analyse and explain how ancient buildings functioned in their various respects. Starting as objectively as possible, the level of interpretation gradually increases to a total of five steps: 1) typological analysis, 2) functional use analysis, 3) technical analysis, 4) reconstruction and 5) contextualisation.
The basis for this methodology was recently outlined and tested during the research of early medieval buildings in the north of the Netherlands. Building remains previously unearthed in the (Holocene) clay and peat area have shown that a lot more information can be gathered from ground-plans than excavations in the sandy soils have so far suggested. Using early medieval turfwalled buildings with cruck-like trusses as an example, it is argued that a structural approach (cf. steps 3 and 4) is essential for in-depth research of ancient buildings.
Referenced article: Trebsche, P. 2009. “Does form follow function? Towards a methodical interpretation of archaeological
building features”. World Archaeology 41 (3): 505–19. doi:10.1080/00438240903112534.

Author - M.A. Postma, Daniel, Groningen Institute of Archaeology, Lelystad, Netherlands (Presenting author)