The Jasper Ridge Reexcavation Experiment: Rates of Artifact Mixing by Rodents

Abstract

Previous research about rodent disturbance has led to various predictions about the effects of burrowing rodents on site stratigraphy and the relation between material sizes and the degree of displacement by rodents. This brief report describes the reexcavation in 1988 of a 1-x-2-m unit originally excavated and backfilled with clean sifted sediment in 1981. New materials introduced by gophers during the seven-year hiatus help to refine earlier predictions about rodent stratigraphy and also indicate the rate at which small-sized materials may be transported by burrowing activity.