This is an article I wrote for the magazine Worm Digest. It was originally published in 2004, volume 35, pages 8-11. The article is non-technical, meant to be understandable to people who are not archaeologists or oligochaetologists (people who study earthworms - it's a new word to me, too). I hope it may teach you something about earthworms, and something about archaeology too.

Here I've adapted the article for the Internet and added a few new figures.

Part I is a general introduction and explains why earthworms are important to archaeology. I hope Harrison Ford isn't insulted by the imagery I use in this section.

Part II is an explanation of bioturbation and soil processes important in understanding the archaeological record. I explain these processes by pretending that we have a window into the soil, and can view soil changes over different periods of time.

Parts III and IV give more detail about other soil mixing processes, how and why we can use them to help reconstruct archaeological sites, and how, in some ways, they help to preserve the archaeological record.