When an archaeologist is excavating a single site, is it an independent political unit or a small base camp?

When an archaeologist is excavating a single site, is it an independent political unit, such as Maya city-state, or a smaller-scale base camp of a hunter-gather group?|||Much will depend on location and what you find. Certainly large temples and stone structures would be a permanent habitation. As hunter-gather's are nomadic within a defined range, you'll find sparse collections of artifacts and often evidence of specialized food processing. A hunter-gather base came would be larger as more clans and family groups would gather and more likely be a winter camp with shelter.|||When you start, there is no way to know if your site is independent or part of another, larger group. It is only by excavating and comparing those findings to those sites.