To the untrained eye, a tell may appear as a simple hill of earth. To an archaeologist, however, it is a complex, structured archive, a “layer-cake of history” that can be meticulously deconstructed to reveal the story of its creation. The science of reading these layers is known as stratigraphy, and the substance of the layers themselves—the composition of the tell—provides the raw data for understanding the lives of its former inhabitants. Deconstructing the tell’s anatomy reveals it to be a product of both passive accumulation and active, culturally mediated deposition, a curated archive as much as an accidental one.

The Layer-Cake of History: The Principle of Stratigraphy

Stratigraphy is one of the most fundamental concepts in archaeology. It is the study and interpretation of the stratified layers, or strata , of soil, sediment, and debris that accumulate on top of one another over time. ^[15] The guiding principle of stratigraphy is the geological Law of Superposition, which states that if a sequence of layers is undisturbed, the oldest layers will be at the bottom and the youngest, most recent layers will be at the top. ^[16] An intuitive analogy is a laundry basket: the clothes worn on Monday are at the bottom, while those worn on Friday are on top, creating a relative chronological sequence from oldest to most recent. ^[16]

Archaeologists apply this law to the excavation of tells. Each individual stratum, which can be differentiated by factors such as soil color, texture, or composition, represents a distinct period of time or a specific event in the site’s history. ^[16] To preserve the integrity of this record, excavation proceeds stratigraphically—that is, each layer is carefully removed and documented as a separate unit before proceeding to the layer below it. ^[17] This painstaking process involves a specialized vocabulary. A single discernible layer of occupation is a

stratum . ^[15] To preserve a visible record of the layers, archaeologists often leave a

balk , a vertical, unexcavated wall of earth between excavation squares, which displays the site’s stratigraphy in profile. ^[15] The ultimate goal is to find artifacts

in situ , a Latin term meaning “in its original place,” as their position within a specific stratum is what gives them their scientific value. ^[15]

The precise three-dimensional location of an artifact is known as its provenience . Recording provenience is paramount because it establishes an artifact’s context —its relationship to the soil layer it was found in and to the other artifacts and features around it. ^[16] An artifact removed from a tell without its provenience being recorded is an object stripped of its story. It loses its ability to help date a layer or to inform our understanding of the site’s function. For example, a bone awl found in a lower stratum (Stratum E) is demonstrably older than a horseshoe found in an upper stratum (Stratum B). ^[16] This relative dating, based on the sequence of layers, can be anchored with absolute dates through methods like radiocarbon dating of organic materials found within the strata, allowing for the creation of a robust chronological framework for the entire history of the settlement. ^[13]

The Substance of Settlement: Composition of a Tell

The material that constitutes a tell is, quite literally, the substance of past lives. Tells are massive accumulations of the debris generated by human activity, piled up over the course of a settlement’s existence. ^[1] This debris is a heterogeneous mixture of collapsed house materials, refuse from daily life, lost or broken objects, and sediments deposited by natural forces like wind and water. ^[9]

A primary component of this accumulation is midden , the archaeological term for the deposits of rubbish, domestic waste, and other by-products of human occupation. ^[19] Midden layers are archaeological treasure troves, providing a direct window into past diets (through animal bones and plant remains), craft activities (through manufacturing debris), and consumption patterns (through broken pottery). At the Ness of Brodgar, a Neolithic site in Orkney, midden deposits were not just refuse piles but grew into monumental mounds that came to act as territorial markers or memorials. ^[19]

The overall matrix of a tell is a complex amalgam. It consists primarily of decayed and collapsed mudbrick, which forms the bulk of the soil. ^[3] Interspersed within this matrix are lenses of ash from hearths and fires, layers of organic waste, and a dense concentration of cultural materials: countless pottery sherds, fragments of stone tools, animal bones, and, in many cases, the remains of the dead themselves, who were often buried within the settlement. ^[4] Each of these components tells a part of the story, and their careful excavation and analysis allow archaeologists to reconstruct the environment, economy, and social world of the people who built the mound.

While some of this accumulation is the result of passive processes like wind-blown sand or the simple discarding of trash, a deeper analysis reveals that tell formation is often a highly active and culturally mediated process. The mound is not merely an accidental garbage dump that grows over time. Evidence from sites around the world indicates that the inhabitants were active agents in the creation of their own landscape. At Neolithic sites in Orkney, for example, midden material was not simply thrown away; it was purposefully used as a construction material, spread out to create level platforms for new buildings. ^[19] This was a deliberate act of landscape engineering using the by-products of daily life. Similarly, the deposition of very fine, polished stone artifacts within the midden layers at the Ness of Brodgar suggests that these “rubbish” areas were also considered appropriate places for the ritual “burial” of important objects at the end of their use-lives, transcending their function as mere dumps. ^[19]

Research at Kirikongo in Burkina Faso provides an even more profound example of active, ritualized deposition. Here, the evidence suggests that architectural remnants were intentionally created and preserved through rituals associated with the veneration of ancestors. The slow, deliberate process of stratification was tied to cycles of social memory, with new construction only taking place after the memory of a specific ancestor had faded from the living community. ^[13] These examples demonstrate that a tell is a complex feature shaped by both mundane discard and purposeful, often ritualized, construction and deposition. It is a curated archive, not just an accumulated one, reflecting the conscious choices and worldview of its creators.

The physical process of accretion through mudbrick decay explains how tells grew vertically, but it does not explain why communities chose to remain rooted to a single spot for millennia, allowing this process to unfold. The answer lies in a complex interplay between the practical advantages of a location and the powerful cultural forces that forged an unbreakable bond between a people and their place. Tell formation was not simply a passive response to geography; it was driven by active human agency, strategic decision-making, and deep-seated ritual and social attachments that transformed a settlement into an ancestral home.

The Power of Place: Strategic and Resource-Rich Locations

The initial decision to establish a settlement was almost always grounded in sound environmental and strategic logic. Access to critical resources was a primary factor. A reliable, perennial water source, in particular, was a powerful magnet for settlement in the often-arid landscapes of the Near East. The site of Jericho, which would become one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, first emerged around the ‘Ain es-Sultan spring, a natural oasis that attracted human habitation for thousands of years. ^[7] This spring was the lifeblood of the community, making its location exceptionally valuable and worthy of long-term investment and defense.

Proximity to fertile land suitable for agriculture was another crucial consideration, especially with the onset of the Neolithic Revolution. The settlement of Çatalhöyük, for example, was established on alluvial clay soils that were likely favorable for early farming, providing the subsistence base necessary to support a large, sedentary population. ^[4] The surrounding environment, which at the time was a rich wetland, also offered a wide range of resources, including fish, waterfowl, and wild game, further enhancing the location’s appeal. ^[28]

Beyond subsistence resources, strategic control over transportation and trade routes was a major factor in the long-term success and growth of many settlements. Tell Brak’s rise to prominence as an early urban center was intrinsically linked to its strategic position on a major overland route that connected the resource-rich mountains of Anatolia with the populous cities of southern Mesopotamia, while also controlling north-south traffic between the Euphrates Valley and the Levant. ^[3] Such a location would have been a hub of economic activity and cultural exchange, providing a strong incentive for continuous occupation and investment in the site’s infrastructure and defense.

The Agency of Inhabitants: Cultural and Ritual Anchors

While geography and resources provided the initial rationale for settlement, it was culture and ritual that provided the “glue” holding communities to these locations for thousands of years. Tell formation cannot be understood without appreciating the active cultural choices and beliefs that created a profound, multi-generational attachment to place. ^[13]

One of the most powerful of these cultural anchors was the widespread practice of intramural burial—the burying of the dead within the confines of the settlement, often directly beneath the floors of occupied houses. This practice is well-documented at numerous key sites. At Çatalhöyük, human remains have been found in pits beneath the floors, platforms, and hearths of the mudbrick houses. ^[4] Similarly, at Neolithic Jericho, the dead were buried under the floors of their circular dwellings. ^[7] This act fundamentally transformed the nature of the house. It was no longer merely a shelter for the living; it became a family mausoleum, a sacred space that physically united the current generation with their deceased ancestors. Abandoning such a house would mean abandoning the family’s tomb and severing a tangible link to its lineage.

This practice points to a deeper worldview, one in which the living and the dead were not strictly separated. Archaeological research in West Africa explicitly suggests that some tells formed through a deeply held cultural belief in the co-residence of the living and ancestral communities. ^[13] Rebuilding on the exact same spot was a way of maintaining this sacred connection, of keeping the community physically and spiritually whole. At the site of Kirikongo, it has been argued that the mound’s growth was directly tied to cycles of social memory; new houses, often with foundation ritual deposits, were constructed over older ones only after the active memory of the individuals buried below had faded from the living community, a process that could take 80 to 100 years. ^[13] This ritualized cycle of construction and remembrance provides a powerful cultural logic for the slow, steady accretion of the tell.

Over time, the tell itself becomes a monument. As it grows in height and prominence, it becomes a physical embodiment of the community’s history, lineage, and endurance. It stands as a testament to their ancestors and their continuous presence in the landscape. To abandon such a monument would be a profound cultural and symbolic rupture, a break with the past that many societies were unwilling to make. The mound becomes an ancestral locus, a sacred center of the world for its inhabitants.

This dynamic reveals that human-environment interaction in the context of tell formation is a complex, two-way street. Initially, human settlement is an act of adaptation to the natural environment; a community chooses a location based on its favorable characteristics, such as a spring or fertile soil. ^[30] However, over centuries of occupation, the cumulative effect of their activities—building with mudbrick, discarding waste, burying their dead—creates a massive artificial landform: the tell. This new topography fundamentally modifies the local environment. It creates a new high ground, alters drainage patterns, and becomes the most dominant feature in the landscape. Subsequent generations are no longer simply interacting with the original, natural environment. They are interacting with the anthropogenic environment created by their ancestors. The tell itself becomes the primary environmental feature to which they must adapt, a reality vividly illustrated at Iron Age Jericho, where inhabitants had to cut staircases directly into the steep sides of the mound their predecessors had built in order to access their homes on top. ^[31]