Mud, mud glorious mud…

We all know the song, mud, mud glorious mud. But to an archaeologist, it is much more a case of mud mud glorious diagnostic tool. The question, other than why bother, is how exactly do they analyse mud?

The first question is what exactly is mud. In the literal sense it is a ‘soft, sticky matter resulting from the mixing of earth and water’ or so the Oxford Languages dictionary would have you believe. But this is an oversimplification to archaeologists. I mean yes most excavations are not dissimilar to a Somme Trench in a hurricane, but in those rare moments of sunshine you can begin to appreciate mud for its complexities.

How can mud be complex? Well firstly let us substitute for the word mud the word deposit. The ground is made up of lots of types of deposits. Normally such deposits are described as soil. However, as any gardener will tell you, soils can also be subdivided; we have clay soils, sandy soils, silty soils, loamy soils and so on. This recognises the fact that there are rather a lot of processes operating in the ground, both natural and man made, that mean rather than there being a single soil type, there are many soil types.

Enter archaeology. Ever keen to complicate matters archaeologists create their own set of properties to look out for when looking at deposits or fills — that distinction is for another blog. Each little detail tells a story about how, and sometimes who, made it and why. So grab a ball of mud and let’s begin.

Amazing though this might sound, an archaeologist will look at a deposit — mud to you and me — in a specific order. Firstly, they will look at how compact or not the deposit is. Soil, especially when you are trying to dig through it, can be extremely firm, in fact mattock breakingly firm. Conversely it can be so runny you might suppose it had been on the lam the night before consuming bad curry after bad curry.

Secondly archaeologists look at the colour of the deposit — soil. You might instantly suppose all soil is brown, and well you would basically be right. However the type of brown is very important, don’t believe me ask your Gastroenterologist. In the case of archaeology, and curiously also gastroenterology, deposits — including soil — can range from black to grey and through shades of brown that are both dark and light and even sandy.

Only in the third step do archaeologists actually get their hands dirty, literally. They start to look at the deposits composition — how does the soil feel. It is perhaps here that the archaeologist enters a world in which most of us don’t want to tread as they start rolling mud over various body parts to identify every bit of grit.

It is but a small step from composition to the fourth stage of assessment — inclusions. What is actually contained within your deposit. Does it contain little stones, if so what do they look like, how many are there. As Aristotle once hypothesised, there are a very large number of sand particles in the world, but they are not infinite. As an archaeologist you start counting that number.

Finally, when you stand back and admire your work, beer in hand — this is archaeology after all, you get to assess how thick your deposit is. No idea what I mean by this? Then you have not read my posts on stratigraphy, go on I’ll wait.

And there it is, the real reason why, from the point of view of an archaeologist, mud is glorious. However you are probably asking yourself why bother to analyse soil in such detail? What is the secret so important that close attention to mud is required. Well that dear reader is for another post.