backdirt

The excavated soil is called backdirt, and if you are lucky you have it piled in a location where you won’t have to dig later.

Mammoth Figurine 2007

There they waterscreened the backdirt, presumably through very small-meshed screens, and recovered the figurines.

Mammoth Figurine 2007

This puts the interpretations that are advanced about the age (35,000 years BP) and cultural affiliation (Aurignacian) of the figurines in question, as they have been recovered “out of context” as we say, in the jumbled backdirt piles.

Mammoth Figurine 2007

The previous ones were found mostly in the Aurignacian find horizons one was actually found in the backdirt back in 1931.

Mammoth Figurine 2007

According to her, the University of Tubingen researchers relocated the 1931 backdirt piles at the cave a couple of years ago, put the dirt into bags and carried them back to their laboratory.

Mammoth Figurine 2007

I misinterpreted the Der Speigel article to mean that the original excavators had saved their backdirt, but Laura tells me that is not the case here.

Mammoth Figurine 2007

In the 1930’s when Vogelherd Cave was excavated, it wasn’t standard practice to screen backdirt and as a result many small artifacts were missed.

Mammoth Figurine 2007

Reexamining old backdirt piles isn’t a practice that I’ve heard of before.

Mammoth Figurine 2007