Refits are an aspect of an archaeological assemblage of artifacts, in which the pieces of a broken object are identified and, if possible, the object is put back together again.

An artifact assemblage is essentially made up of pieces of broken objects. Refitting the broken pieces together to make a partial or complete object is a painstaking, jigsaw-like process, made more difficult because many of the pieces are sure to be missing.


But archaeological refits can provide a wide range of interesting information about archaeological sites and human behaviors.

Refit Examples

Refitting in archaeology is attempted on a wide range of artifact types. The sherds of a pottery vessel might be partly or completely reassembled by fitting the pieces recovered from an archaeological site. Refits of animal bones are used to attempt to match different body parts from the same animal.

Somewhat more complex are refits from stone tools. Like sculpture, stone tools are made by removing pieces of stone from a block until only the tool is left. In a perfect world, when you know you have all the pieces, it would be possible to recreate the block of stone piece by piece.

Insight from Refits

Identifying refits is useful from a larger standpoint than simply reconstructing an object. For example, if one piece of a pot is found in the bottom of a well at a site, and another piece of the same pot is discovered in the garden of a house, the archaeologist can be reasonably certain that the well and the garden were used by the same people at the same time.

Refitting pieces of the same animal might tell the researcher how a butchered carcase at a hunter-gatherer camp was shared throughout the community: the chief got the haunch, while the weaver got the legs.

Stone tool refits can be signals of a site's integrity. Finding multiple pieces of the construction debris--called debitage--from a stone tool supports an archaeologist's contention that the tool was made or repaired in an undisturbed location. Identifying discrete areas where activities have taken place is useful for understanding how people in the past ordered their living spaces.

In addition, refitting the pieces that were made when a stone tool was built provides insight into the way a stone tool was made, insight not available in any other manner of investigation.

Methods of Refits

Most artifact refitting is completed by hand, at a laboratory table with the artifacts spread out by category, and the pieces painstakingly checked for matches. Statistics tell us that the number of matches discovered is directly proportional to the time the researcher spends looking for them, but refitting a large archaeological site assemblage can be extremely expensive.

Attempts to mechanize the refit process have not been largely successful, mostly because it takes a considerable amount of time to digitize artifacts in adequate detail to make matches. In addition, the task of refitting is idiosyncratic and subjective, not a mechanical process of seeing if two jigsaw pieces fit together, but rather a skill derived from human experience and diligence. A technique with potential is combinng the two, using high level digital images to do the first round of matches, and human labor to finish it up.

Because the work is extremely labor-intensive, archaeological projects do not seek refits unless there is a good reason to do so: the pieces are large and numerous enough to have a reasonable chance of success, it is important to identify relationships across features at a site, or the site requires additional support for site integrity arguments.

Sources

Bamforth DB, and Becker MS. 2000. Core/biface ratios, mobility, refitting, and artifact use-lives: a Paleoindian example. Plains Anthropologist 45(173):273-290.

Bleed P. 2002. Obviously sequential, but continuous or staged? Refits and cognition in three late paleolithic assemblages from Japan.Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21(3):329-343.

Bollong CA. 1994. Analysis of site stratigraphy and formation processes using patterns of pottery sherd dispersion. Journal of Field Archaeology 21:18-28.

Close AE. 1990. Living on the edge: Neolithic herders in the eastern Sahara. Antiquity 64(242):79-96.

Cooper JR, and Qiu F. 2006. Expediting and standardizing stone artifact refitting using a computerized suitability model. Journal of Archaeological Science 33:987-998.

Hahn J, and Owen LR. 1985. Blade Technology in the Aurignacian and Gravettian of Geissenklosterle Cave, Southwest Germany.World Archaeology 17(1):61-75.

Mens E. 2008. Refitting megaliths in western France. Antiquity 82(315):25–36.

Morin E, Tsanova T, Sirakov N, Rendu W, Mallye J-B, and Lévêque F. 2005. Bone refits in stratified deposits: testing the chronological grain at Saint-Césaire.Journal of Archaeological Science 32(7):1083-1098.

Morrow TA. 1996. Lithic refitting and archaeological site formation processes: A case study from the Twin Ditch site, Green County, Illinois. In: Odell GH, editor. Stone Tools: Theoretical Insights into Human Prehistory. New York: Plenum Press.

Santamaría D, Fortea J, De La Rasilla M, Martínez L, Martínez E, Cañaveras JC, Sánchez-Moral S, Rosas A, Estalrrich A, García-Tabernero A et al. 2010. The Technological and Typological Behaviour of a Neanderthal Group from El Sidron Cave (Asturias, Spain). Oxford Journal Of Archaeology 29(2):119-148.

Waguespack NM. 2002. Caribou sharing and storage: refitting the Palangana site.Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 21(3):396-417.