Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each material by whether it typically survives in ordinary soil.
Groups: Usually survives · Usually lost
- Leather shoes
- Bronze fittings
- Wooden tools
- Woollen cloth
- Fired ceramic
- Worked stone
Hints
- Ask what ordinary soil chemistry destroys.
- Most of what people handled daily is in the perishable column.
Show the answer
Usually survives: Fired ceramic, Worked stone, Bronze fittings
Usually lost: Woollen cloth, Wooden tools, Leather shoes
Why
The right-hand column is most of what people touched all day. The record over-represents the durable, and therefore the ceremonial, the elite, and the buried.
Practise Material Culture as a Source
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
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