What is the difference between a Phase I and a Phase II site? What does Phase III mean?

Question

What is the difference between a Phase I and a Phase II site? What does Phase III mean?

Answer 1

It depends on which area of the world and which university you are dealing with.

My area of interest is the Maya . In that discipline phases refer to refer to site subordination to a "captial" city. large sites such as tikal are classified as phase I.

Answer 2

Phase I is usually called Identification (Are there archaeological sites in the project area?).  Initial shovel pit testing.

Phase II is Evaluation.  It includes background information and evaluating potential significance.  Often associated with the meter-unit dig.

Phase III is called Mitigation and Data Discovery (Recovery).  It includes Avoiding adverse impacts to significant sites and full realization of a site's potential.

The topic is much more complicated than this, but check out the sites below for all the information you will need.