Near Eastern Archaeology, March 2018, “Microarchaeology at Tell eṣ-Ṣâfi/Gath, Area A” by Steve Weiner (Weizmann Institute of Science) and Elisabetta Boaretto (Weizmann Institute of Science).
The overall objective of archaeological excavations is to extract as much reliable information as possible from the whole archaeological record: both macroscopic and microscopic. An effective approach to achieve this goal is to integrate observations on the macroscopic and microscopic records as the excavation proceeds by operating an on-site analytical laboratory at the excavation. In this way important primary context locations can be better identified as they are exposed, and the excavation and sampling strategy can be adapted accordingly (Weiner 2010).