The Abandonment of Settlements and Regions

Book excerpt: Groups of people abandoned sites in different ways, and for different reasons. And what they did when they left a settlement or area had a direct bearing on the kind and quality of cultural remains that entered the archaeological record, for example, whether buildings were dismantled or left standing, or tools buried, destroyed or removed from the site. Contributors to this unique collection on site abandonment draw on ethnoarchaeological and archaeological data from North and South America, Europe, Africa, and the Near East.