Archaeologists working in the Eastern United States routinely employ shovel testing as a method for site discovery and delineation in areas of dense ground cover, and as a means of collecting information on the kinds and numbers of artifacts and features present at a site. This sampling strategy is employed in the context of Section 106 compliance, as well as in academic research. This paper presents findings on the relationship between shovel-testing strategies and the accuracy and usefulness of the models of archaeological occupations that result from the information collected during shovel testing. These results demonstrate that some common approaches to shovel testing lead to faulty models that fail to accurately represent important occupational variables, thus compromising our ability to make valid significance determinations.

在美国东部工作的考古学家通常将铁锹测试用作在稠密的地面覆盖区域中进行现场发现和划定轮廓的方法，并作为收集有关现场存在的文物和特征的种类和数量的信息的手段。在第106节规定的范围内以及学术研究中都采用了这种抽样策略。本文介绍了铲子测试策略与考古职业模型的准确性和实用性之间的关系，这些模型是从铲子测试过程中收集的信息得出的。这些结果表明，一些常规的铲土测试方法会导致模型错误，无法准确代表重要的职业变量，从而损害了我们进行有效重要性确定的能力。