Confronta i metodi

	Soil Micromorphology	Formation Process Analysis
Campo	Archeologia	Archeologia
Famiglia	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Anno di origine	1938	1987
Ideatore	Walter L. Kubiëna (soil micromorphology); applied to archaeology by Goldberg, Macphail, Courty and others	Michael B. Schiffer (behavioral archaeology)
Tipo	Microscopic thin-section analysis pipeline for site formation	Inferential framework and analysis pipeline for record formation
Fonte seminale	Goldberg, P., & Macphail, R. I. (2006). Practical and Theoretical Geoarchaeology. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN: 9780632060443	Schiffer, M. B. (1987). Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. University of New Mexico Press. ISBN: 9780826309631
Alias	Archaeological Micromorphology, Thin-Section Micromorphology, Sediment Thin-Section Analysis, Micromorphological Analysis	Site Formation Analysis, C-transforms and N-transforms, Behavioral Archaeology Formation Theory, Archaeological Record Formation
Correlati	2	2
Sintesi	Soil micromorphology is the microscopic study of undisturbed soils and sediments in thin section to reconstruct how archaeological deposits formed and were altered. An oriented block is cut from a deposit without disturbing its internal structure, hardened with resin, and ground into a slice about thirty micrometers thick that can be examined under a petrographic microscope. At that scale the analyst can read features invisible in the field — the arrangement of mineral grains, microscopic charcoal and bone, plastered surfaces, dung, trampling fabrics, and the pedofeatures left by water, roots, and burrowing organisms. Developed for soil science by Walter Kubiëna and adapted for archaeology by geoarchaeologists such as Goldberg, Macphail, and Courty, micromorphology is the highest-resolution tool for interpreting site formation, occupation surfaces, and anthropogenic deposits in their original spatial context.	Formation process analysis is the framework for identifying the cultural and natural processes that transform materials from their living, systemic context into the archaeological record we excavate. Developed by Michael Schiffer within behavioral archaeology and codified in his 1987 Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record, it insists that the archaeological record is not a fossilized snapshot of past life but the cumulative product of how things were discarded, lost, reused, and disturbed (cultural or C-transforms) and how they then decayed, moved, and mixed in the ground (natural or N-transforms). Because every deposit has been filtered and rearranged by these processes, sound inference about past behavior requires first reconstructing the formation history of the record and correcting for it. Formation process analysis is therefore foundational to interpretation, linking excavation, geoarchaeology, and taphonomy.