Feature (archaeology)

In archaeological excavation, a feature is a collection of one or more contexts representing some human non-portable activity, such as a hearth or wall.

[1] Features serve as an indication that the area in which they are found has been interfered with in the past, usually by humans.

[5] In relation to site stratigraphy, features generally have a vertical characteristic, such as pits, walls, or ditches.

[2] In circumstances where a stratigraphic layer cannot be defined by soil color or consistency, such as in the excavation of several features such as wells or cisterns, arbitrary layers can be defined by an archaeologist based on equal levels of depth, allowing for the categorization of artifacts based on relative placement within a feature.

[2] Features specific to certain architecture types or eras such as trilithon for the purposes of this article are not considered generic.