Cookie Excavation
Objectives
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Students will demonstrate an understanding of the process of excavating artifacts.
If there are different colour chips, the yellow chips can represent pottery sherds, the blue
chips can be stone tool flakes, the green chips can be food remains, and the red chips can be
shells.
Materials
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1 chocolate chip cookie
1 toothpick
1 small plate
Background
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Excavation is the method that archaeologists use to extract artifacts out of the ground. The
work is very difficult and has to be detail-oriented since the archaeologist is destroying the
very thing he/she is trying to study by removing it from its context. There are no “do-overs.” It
is also impossible for the archaeologist to know exactly what is under the ground, so he/she
has to be very careful not to damage artifacts they cannot see while excavating artifacts at the
surface.
Procedure
1. Take one of each of the materials provided.
2. You are now archaeologists and are asked to excavate their artifacts (the chocolate chips)
from their archaeological site (the cookie) to the best of their ability by keeping their chips
intact.
3. You will use the grid to map off the cookie, and to draw exactly where each chocolate chip is
located in the cookie. If there is different colours, please ensure you provide those colours on
your grid.
Conclusion
1. What problems did you encounter in excavating their chips?
2. Was it easy to determine where the chips were in the cookie?
3. How many students excavated a chip only to discover that they sacrificed another one
underneath it?
4. There were a number of different colour chips. How can you interpret the large concentration
of one colour over another (Eg. large amount of pottery shards, or small amount of food
particles… )
Place Cookie Here
Draw your Cookie: