Mobility is considered to play an important role in the way people use their habitual space. Highly mobile societies present a particular challenge to archaeologists as a direct relation is assumed between the duration of occupation and the intensity of its archaeological signature. Here, we present a cross-cultural, ethnoarchaeological study carried out among three contemporary societies that, while showing different patterns of mobility, all live in humid tropical forests—in Thailand, the Congo Basin, and India—and share many social notions and values. The aim of this study was to observe how differences in patterns of mobility affect the formation of archaeological signatures. Our study demonstrates that when a site is occupied for only a few days to a couple of weeks, activity residues tend to be deposited . This could potentially preserve the original spatial pattern of material distribution that directly reflects the activity areas and people’s use of space. However, when a site is occupied for more than a week or two, maintenance practices such as sweeping begin to take place, which result in almost complete removal of activity residues from their primary location and the formation of waste areas at the edge of the dwelling sites.

中文翻译：

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流动性、遗址维护和考古形成过程：民族考古学视角


流动性被认为在人们使用习惯空间的方式中发挥着重要作用。高度流动的社会给考古学家带来了特殊的挑战，因为人们假定占领的持续时间与其考古特征的强度之间存在直接关系。在这里，我们提出了一项在三个当代社会中进行的跨文化、民族考古学研究，这三个社会虽然表现出不同的流动模式，但都生活在潮湿的热带森林中——泰国、刚果盆地和印度——并且拥有许多共同的社会观念和价值观。本研究的目的是观察流动模式的差异如何影响考古特征的形成。我们的研究表明，当一个地点仅被占用几天到几周时，活动残留物往往会沉积。这有可能保留直接反映活动区域和人们对空间的使用的物质分布的原始空间格局。然而，当一个场地被占用超过一两周时，就会开始进行清扫等维护工作，这会导致活动残留物几乎完全从其主要位置被清除，并在住宅边缘形成废物区域网站。