Resistance of Buried Archeological Site to One-dimensional Mechanical Loading

Abstract

Our article focuses on wetland archeological sites that are subjected to one dimensional compression by the placement of a soil body for the construction of a line infrastructure or a landfill. We study the resistance to mechanical loading of ecofacts that are often investigated in archeological prospection works: charred and non charred plant remains and shells. We conducted one dimensional compression tests on assemblies of ecofacts, sand samples seeded manually with ecofacts and natural soils rich in ecofacts and used X-ray micro-tomography to evaluate the integrity of the ecofacts as function of loading. We assumed that fragmentation of ecofacts results in a loss of archeological value if particles become too small to be recovered. The ecofacts tested so far are unlikely to get crushed when included in an archeological soil above which a sand embankment of 1 to 10 m height is constructed. Some might however be deformed, flattened and re-aligned.