Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: “Backhoe? I thought archaeologists worked with hand trowels, brushes, and dental picks!”

A: Archaeologists certainly use fine tools while excavating fragile artifacts, but sometimes heavy equipment is necessary to excavate a site properly.

Backhoes are used in archaeology for two tasks:

Clearing off soil from the top of deeply buried sites.

Sometimes backhoes are needed to remove dirt or debris that has buried a site. Excavations at the San Agustín mission site are a good example. Portions of the site are buried beneath serveral feet of modern fill. To expose the area it is necessary to use a front end loader and then a backhoe with a special scraping blade to remove the dirt.

Digging trenches to show the archaeologist what is buried below the ground surface.

Think of this task as archaeological “prospecting.” When you do not know what is buried below ground, and you have a large plot of land to study, the fastest way to find buried deposits is to use a backhoe to cut evenly spaced trenches into the ground. Buried features can then be seen in the “sidewalls” of the freshly dug trenches. For example, once a buried feature like a pithouse is seen in the backhoe trench, it can then be excavated with more delicate tools. This excavation technique may seem destructive, but usually less than 1% of a given site is lost using this strategy.