1) Pick an archaeological culture, region, site, assemblage or artifact type and describe it in detail. Section one of your paper should address the “culture history” (including relevant geographical and ecological information) of the society, region or site you chose to study “Time, space and form” should be your relevant topics for the first section. When was the material deposited?
Where was the material deposited? What was the material that was recovered?
How was it found, by whom and under what conditions?
This section of your paper allows you to present the “raw data” that will be explained in the next two sections.
2) Discuss the relevant “natural,” social and cultural processes that were in effect at the time and in the place you described in part 1. Aspects of the culture such as environmental adaptation, economy, political interaction, trade and exchange and so forth are the topics of interest for this section.
Why do the materials take the particular form that they do and not some other form?
Be sure to consider aspects of taphonomy, preservation and other site formation processes, as well as the important cultural processes, in this section.
What does the context of discovery allow us to know about the material that we might not know without it?