Visibility, Preservation and Colour: A Descriptive System for the Study of Opal Phytoliths in (Archaeological) Soil and Sediment Thin Sections

ABSTRACT

Phytoliths are abundantly reported in (archaeological) soil thin sections. However, standard description systems are largely missing. The purpose of this paper is to present a descriptive system describing three aspects of phytoliths in soil thin sections: visibility, preservation and colour (VPC). The visibility expresses to which extent the phytoliths are masked or surrounded by fine material. The preservation is an indicator for the physico-chemical alterations that affected the phytoliths. Finally, colour is an indicator of the charring of the organic material surrounding the phytoliths.

KEYWORDS:

• Opal phytoliths
• guidelines
• visibility
• preservation
• colour

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Brussels Capital Region for financing this research as well as the Provincie Antwerpen which provided some material relevant to the present study. Prof. Dr Em. G. Stoops (Ghent University) and M. Portillo (University of Reading) are acknowledged for their pertinent comments on a previous version of the present paper. The authors also acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for their comments on this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Luc Vrydaghs is a phytolith specialist at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Involved in phytolith analysis for more than 25 years, he is a current member of the International Committee for Phytolith Taxonomy.

Yannick Devos is a geoarchaeologist at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He is responsible for the coordination of palaeoenvironmental research in the Brussels Capital Region.

ORCID

Luc Vrydaghs http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2250-2883

Yannick Devos http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5315-1916