Environment and Climate (Other Keyword)
326-350 (353 Records)
Much of the Southeastern United States suffers from poor organic preservation. Direct dating of archaeological components is often impossible, and intact paleoenvironmental sequences are very rare, especially for the terminal Pleistocene. Inundated terrestrial sites in the Aucilla River of northwestern Florida can overcome both of these difficulties, with archaeological materials buried within directly-dateable intact strata containing well-preserved paleobotanical and faunal remains. Strata...
Testing the (Disappearing) Waters: A Preliminary Assessment of the Sedimentary Record of Lake Jackson, Florida (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent coring at the Lake Jackson Aquatic Preserve in Northwest Florida investigated the current sediment and stratigraphic integrity in order to assess the research potential of the area for exploring associated cultural events from the Mississippian Period (AD 1050 - 1500). The lake is a unique karst formation with sinkholes that cause dramatic drydown...
They’re Alright: Late Quaternary Fossil Pocket Gopher DNA Provides Nuanced View of Climate Changes at Hall’s Cave, Texas (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although considered pests to farmers and golfers alike, gophers – specifically pocket gophers (family Geomyidae) – can be excellent proxies for assessing climate change in archaeological contexts owing to their penchant for living in specific soil conditions. At the Hall’s Cave site in Kerr County, Texas, geomyids are found in most of the radiocarbon-dated...
A Thousand Years of Wetland Management at Hacienda Zuleta in the Ecuadorian Andes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Nestled within a deeply incised valley in the eastern cordillera of the Andes, the archaeological site of Zuleta is an immensely humanized hydrologic landscape. A complex network of perennially and seasonally wet streams and canals crisscross the pastures along the valley floor carrying water from the paramo to the...
Tlaloques, Tiemperos, and Trees: Cultural Models of Nature in Central Mexico (2018)
Abundant water-related art and architecture produced by Teotihuacanos and Mexica-Aztecs in the central Mexican highlands coupled with the rhetoric of today’s farmers from the same region regarding the catastrophic impacts of changes in local seasonal rainfall patterns make it clear that access to rainwater has always been a crucial factor for agricultural success in the semi-arid highlands of central Mexico, especially in communities that lack a reliable water source for irrigation. We collect a...
Tracking Paleoaridity through Multi-isotope Analyses of Ostrich Eggshells at Spitzkloof Rockshelter A, South Africa (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable isotopes in ratite eggshells record information about the birds’ diet during shell formation, making them valuable proxies for paleoenvironmental reconstruction. Here we present the results of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen stable isotope analyses in ostrich (Struthio camelus australis) eggshell (OES) collected in excavation at Spitzkloof A, a rock...
Transdisciplinary Analysis of Marine Mammal Use in the Norse North Atlantic and Subarctic (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Celebrating Anna Kerttula's Contributions to Northern Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This ongoing project, funded in 2015 by Anna Kerttula and the Arctic Social Sciences Program, uses historical, literary, aDNA, ZooMS, and archaeological data to identify patterns in marine mammal exploitation across the North Atlantic and Subarctic from ca. 800 -1800 CE. With over 230 samples of archaeological whale bone...
Tree Island Life: Late Archaic Adaptations of a Northern Everglades Community (2018)
The Wedgworth Midden (8PB16175), a Late Archaic tree island site near Belle Glade, Florida, produced large quantities of faunal remains during excavations undertaken by Florida Gulf Coast University in May of 2016. Analysis of these remains allows insight into patterns of resource acquisition and reveals ways in which people adapted to the local environment. Comparison of proportions of taxa from different occupational periods allows us to trace changes in resource use and sheds light on...
Trends, Traditions, Interregnums, and Continuities: An Examination of the Cultures of the Early Holocene of the Far Northeast (2018)
This paper will examine several early Holocene archaeological complexes producing Late Paleoindian St. Anne/Varney bifaces, quartz unifaces (Early Maritime Archaic), and bifurcate-based Early Archaic bifaces across the Far Northeast. Recent examinations by the authors have raised questions about the timing and spatial extent of some of these complexes and what the patterns or lack thereof suggest about the cultural and technological origins of the Native Americans producing them, their lifeways,...
The Trouble with the Curve: Reassessing the Gulf of Mexico Sea-Level Rise Model (2018)
During last glacial episode, a massive amount of water was locked within ice sheets, resulting in a reduction in global sea-levels by 134 meters. The reintroduction of freshwater into the oceans radically changed global sea-levels and littoral landscapes. Over the last 20,000 years, approximately 15-20 million km2 of landscape has been submerged worldwide. Sea-level rise explains the rarity of glacial period coastal archaeological sites. Understanding Florida’s Paleoindians’ interactions with...
An Urban Micromorphological Perspective on Neopalatial Environmental Changes at Bronze Age Palaikastro, Crete (2018)
Transitional phases between settlement periods on Bronze Age Crete are often associated with ‘natural’ destructive events. However, it is unclear whether these ‘natural’ destructive events and subsequent shifts in material practices were influenced by anthropogenic or environmental processes. For example, the end of the Neopalatial period on Crete occurred in the LM IB period; some researchers view LM IB destructive fires as indicative of human action during a phase of social and political...
Urban-palaeoecology of Cambodia's 'Middle Period' (2018)
The transition from the sprawling Angkor kingdom with its vast, low-density urban forms, to a constellation of smaller cities on the Mekong River was accompanied by profound changes to urban ecology and to landscapes – both in the failing low-density cities, and in the burgeoning trade-based centres that replaced them. Here, we present a paleo record of urban ecology that responds, in part, to changing population dynamics across Cambodia during the 15th to 19th centuries C.E. Implications for...
Using Avifaunal Trends to Evaluate Environmental Shifts on the Eurasian Forest-Steppe with the Expansion of Agropastoralism (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Expansion of agricultural communities during the Eneolithic in Europe likely had an impact on the environment due to a need for land, wood for building houses, and agricultural practices (e.g., slash-and-burn). We focus on the Trypillians (an Eneolithic, forest-steppe group) from Southeastern Europe, and how their agropastoral lifestyles impacted their...
Using Fish Remains from Paisley Caves, Oregon to Explore Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways and Lake Level History in the Chewaucan Basin over the Past 14,000+ Calendar Years (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paisley Caves holds some of the earliest evidence for human occupation in North America. The site’s fish remains have received only limited attention before now. Our pilot study sought to assess the potential for using a sample of the fish remains to help reconstruct lake level history, better understand regional paleoenvironments, and gain insights on forager...
Using Landscape to Unbuild Binaries: Human-Environment Relationships at Aventura, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dividing the landscape into the categories of natural and cultural clouds an understanding of the relationship between humans and their ecological environment. Humans are not separate from or above the landscape they inhabit, and landscape archaeology is well-situated to address arbitrary binaries that reinforce problematic notions about human-environment...
Using the City Simulator Tool to Aid in Preservation during Resiliency Planning (2018)
The SAA has held sessions on how climate change is affecting cultural resources for several years now. We began with characterizing the impacts and concerns on how to preserve or mitigate. We have discussed ongoing studies, and strategies to engage the public and local government in conservation and recordation initiatives. This year, Atkins will be presenting a newly developed tool to help planning organizations visualize physical impacts to built environment, traditional cultural properties,...
Vertebrate Response to Little Ice Age Climate Change in the Ohio River Valley (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines vertebrate species from Fort Ancient archaeological sites in the Ohio River Valley, which date to the Little Ice Age. They are compared to vertebrate species from archaeological sites, which predate the Little Ice Age and from modern contexts. The results of this comparison suggest that vertebrate species exhibited individual responses to...
The Water and the Land: How the Private Sector and Government Work Together to Plan for Climate Change Impacts to Cultural Resources (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Triage: Prioritizing Responses to Climate Change Impacts on Archaeological Resources" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Government, inclusive of the local, state, and national levels, is the largest aggregate landholder in the United States and has under its direct jurisdiction the largest array of cultural resources in the country, not to mention the cultural resources under jurisdictional oversight. As such,...
Were Neandertals the Original Snowbirds? Zooarchaeological Evidence from Greece (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Peninsular Southern Europe Refugia during the Middle Paleolithic" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Compared to other parts of Eurasia, the southern Balkan Peninsula had a relatively stable climate during the Late Pleistocene. Zooarchaeological materials from the Asprochaliko Rockshelter in northwestern Greece provide evidence for hominin subsistence strategies in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. In this study, we...
What Late Formative Period and Modern Jackrabbits (*Lepus californicus) Tell Us about Climate Change in the Southeastern Southwest (2021)
This is an abstract from the "People, Climate, and Proxies in Holocene Western North America" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster documents the environmental conditions of the Tularosa Basin/Hueco Bolson during the Doña Ana and El Paso phases (AD 1000–1450) in the Jornada Mogollon Region of the US Southwest by comparing stable carbon isotope values of black-tailed jackrabbits (*Lepus californicus) from archaeological sites to modern...
When and Where Did They Go? More Fully Conceptualizing Fort Ancient’s Descendants (2018)
There were two distinct cultural systems in a key part of the Fort Ancient region – Anderson and Madisonville – with the general understanding that one changed into the other in situ ca. AD 1400 and then left the region en masse ca. AD 1650, becoming one of several contemporary Central Algonquian tribes. However, new data raise the possibility that this interpretation needs revision. First, through a biodistance analysis we learn that at least some Anderson and Madisonville groups were not...
White-Tailed Deer Antlers as Proxies for Seasonal Climate Variations (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen isotope analyses of faunal bone samples can provide information reflective of past environmental conditions. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) antlers, although found in many archaeological assemblages, remain underutilized as paleoenvironmental proxies. Here we assess their feasibility to serve as proxies of...
Who Owns the Anthropocene and Does It Matter? (2018)
While there is little doubt that we currently live in an era in which humans have become the dominant force shaping climate and environments globally, the question of when we entered this era has become a contentious one. Many archaeologists argue for an early start date, but have been largely excluded from geology-driven discussions by the Working Group on the Anthropocene. Does this matter? This paper will explore this question, and consider more broadly the place of archaeology in shaping...
Wildfires and Human Communities in Bronze and Iron Age, Armenia: A Macro-Charcoal and Paleo-Temperature (brGDGT) Reconstruction (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Humans today and in the past have to contend with the impacts of wildland fires. In grasslands, these fires occur frequently at annual to decadal scale. In the Kasakh valley, Armenia, recent research has revealed periods of increased fire activity during the Early Bronze and Late Iron Age and decreased activity in the Middle and Late Bronze Age (Cromartie et...
Zooarchaeological Data as a Building Block for Knowledge Building in the Past (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Zooarchaeological data is often looked at for what it can tell archaeologists about those utilizing the specimens in the past. However, these specimens (data) provided information to those utilizing the fauna themselves. In the maritime environment, the information transmitted by the fauna extracted was often one of the only sources of information available to...