Archaeological reports provide a record of what is excavated as well as the context in which the remains are found. I have often read archaeological reports for information on the conservation practices and materials used by archaeologists and to find data bearing on the identification and exhibition of artifacts. I have studied them to discover the nature of the published literature on writing archaeological reports, and have found them exceedingly varied in content and structure. This article will introduce the history and theory of the report and will compare a selection of reports, using the descriptive time periods of Willey and Sabloff (1974). I will also examine published literature on report writing by American and British authors.
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