Master Gardener Home PageReconstructing past lifeways has been the major focus of archaeology from the time the discipline first developed. However, in recent years, archaeologists have extended their expertise beyond conducting the usual analysis of artifacts in an attempt to understand more fully how populations utilized and distributed themselves across the landscape.
One important development in archaeology has been the realization that historic properties, which seem on the surface to be static and unchanging through time, may have actually gone through dramatic changes, particularly in their yards and gardens. To present a clearer understanding of how the people fit into and viewed their surroundings, it is also important to know how they designed and utilized their landscapes, which often reflected their lifestyles and philosophies more accurately than their possessions.
Each generation has left a particular cultural imprint on the garden landscape. The recovery of past garden landscapes today is a primary element in the restoration and interpretation of historic sites. Therefore, many of the restoration projects at historic houses, which utilize archaeology to reconstruct architectural elements, now involve the use of archaeology to help reconstruct the grounds and gardens so that a more complete picture of the people who built and inhabited these cultural resources can be presented.
Extensive historic research is conducted first to accumulate as much written information as possible about how a house was constructed and how a garden or yard area was established. Historic garden literature may provide specific techniques for geometry to create effects in the landscape. Documentary resources such as letters to order trees and seeds are examined to determine what plants may have been raised on a property. The most valuable writings may include diaries and personal accounts of those avid gardeners who maintained detailed records of their techniques. Laws governing the fencing of property and the planting of specific crops may also prove useful. Paintings and photographs are revealing concerning property layout and garden design during specific time periods.
In some cases, preliminary landscape archaeology can be conducted without excavating a shovel-full of dirt. For instance, researchers often can learn about a particular yard by preparing a topographic map.
In mapping the site, a garden plan may emerge which may not be seen by the casual observer. The map will include all existing visible garden features such as walkways, walls, terraces, etc. Then a geophysicist may use electronic remote sensing techniques to identify below-ground "features" such as buried pipes, paths, and foundations. Aerial photographs are often examined to identify crop marks and soils marks which may aid in locating the presence of historic agricultural activity. Infrared photography can also be used in conjunction with ground penetrating radar to pick up organic anomalies such as crop marks, etc.
Excavations are valuable for unravelling the various activities which may have occurred through time across a piece of property. Archaeologists can learn when and how a garden was created by studying similarities and differences between core samples of soil taken from precise intervals across the entire yard or garden.
The soil core samples often reveal areas which have been filled in as well as areas where extensive cultivation or disturbances have taken place. Then, by placing excavation pits or units near those core sample locations which indicate activity, garden features such as shovel divots at the base of garden beds and garden drainage ditches may be found in addition to tree and planting stains. Test units are expanded if features are found which reveal patterns of plantings. Locations of entire orchards, vineyards, and hedgerows have been discovered at some historic sites.
By chemically analyzing soil samples and mapping patterns in chemical distributions, the limits of yard areas or other specific gardening activities may be identified. For instance, the distribution of potassium is linked with wood ash, which may indicate the dumping of fireplace ashes in and around gardens or along the edge of a property line.
Seed and pollen analyses are other means for revealing the types of plants utilized in a particular garden or landscape. Seeds and plant remains retrieved from water screened soils excavated from planting features can be identified (via ethnobotanical analysis) as to specific species. In most cases, the results of this analysis have led to a more authentic reconstruction of orchards and garden areas around some historic buildings.
Finally, artifactual evidence of gardening such as metal and glass remains found on former garden sites is still an important aspect of archaeological research, and these data elements can complement the information recovered by other methods. Landscape and garden archaeology, therefore, makes an important contribution by adding a new dimension to the reconstruction and interpretation of many of the important historical sites toured each year by thousands of visitors.
--Hettie Ballweber, MG, 1996
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