What does caching have to do with archaeology?

Question

I really need know know what caching is, in affiliation to archaeology?

Answer 1

Caching is the process of making a cache.

Long before the use as a computer term, a cache is to stash away or store for future use some essentials.  For nomadic peoples this may have taken the shape of stashing arrowheads, furs and food for winter or for a return trip.  Many nomadic people would summer in one area and winter in another.  If they had made special tools for things like catching fish or gathering nuts, they would have no need to haul them around for a year to come back to where they were.  So they might set, or hide them in a place.  Often marking the location with a pile of stones.  Dried food or clothing may also be placed in these type of storage areas.  There are a boon to an archaeologist that finds one.

Answer 2

People who were nomadic couldn't carry a lot of things so, in most hunter/gatherer societies they would return to the same place and use what they left behind. eg. matates and monos, they're to heavy to carry.

Answer 3

The Wenatchee Clovis Site is an example of a cache. It was found in 1987 during the digging of an irrigation pipe for an apple orchard.

Some 47 artifacts (of which 36 were stone tools) were recovered during a dig. The most amazing were a number of huge Clovis stone points. Until then the largest such point was less then a third the size of the largest  Wenatchee point.

The cache was no doubt left there with the intention of returning and recovering the points. They appear, due to size to have some ceremonial use.

I recall finding a cache to two grinding stones. They had clearly be carefully placed to await the person's next visit. For some reason (death, moving, just lost) they were never recovered. We had two young ladies that were interested in an archaeological career and they got to lift the stones.

Caches were for people that didn't have the means of carrying lots of stuff and just needed certain things at a location. They also could be supply caches were worked stone was stored.