Plow zone

The upper layer of a cultivated field, churned by the plough, in which artifacts have lost their original layer relationships. Plow-zone finds are the bulk of the private collection trade and carry site-level, not layer-level, context.

Sources

Renfrew, C. & Bahn, P. (2020). Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice, 8th ed. Thames & Hudson
Society for American Archaeology — Principles of Archaeological Ethics

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Plow zone" (Glossary). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16. https://stratum.black/study/glossary/plow-zone. Accessed 2026-09-21.

BibTeX · CSL-JSON

@misc{stratum-plow-zone,
  title        = {Plow zone},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/glossary/plow-zone}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Glossary article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16; sources: stratum. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.