Geoarchaeology (Other Keyword)
26-50 (845 Records)
Archaeologists have employed many different approaches to characterize the composition of ceramic pastes, but until recently only a minority of studies have used multiple analytical techniques to examine the same sample. An "analytical technique" is used here to mean a single perspective that characterizes an aspect of a ceramic paste. Since humans created pottery using different processes and recipes, it follows that each perspective teaches us about a unique aspect of the potter's behavior...
Ancestral Pueblo Agriculture on the Pajarito Plateau: A Geoscience Investigation of Field Terraces in the Northern Mountains of New Mexico (2018)
In honor of Robert Powers, Bandelier National Monument (BNM) presents research on his final project investigating agricultural potential in the arid highlands of the American Southwest. Powers’ research was conducted on behalf of the University of New Mexico’s anthropology doctoral program for archaeology. The Park is well-known for its ancestral Pueblo archaeological sites and the unique, natural ecotones throughout the Eastern Jemez Mountains. The region is topographically dynamic; the...
The Ancient Floors of Housepit 54, Bridge River site: Stratigraphy and Dating (2015)
The Bridge River Archaeological Project is a long-term partnership between The University of Montana and X’wisten, the Bridge River Indian Band. The focus of the project is on understanding the historical development of this large housepit village, located near Lillooet, British Columbia. Previous research has emphasized village-wide demographic, technological, and socio-economic and political change during the Bridge River 2 (1600-1300 cal. B.P.), 3 (1300-1000 cal. B.P.), and 4 (post 600 cal....
The Ancient Landscapes of South Texas Initiative and Augmented Reality: An Immersive Experience in Archaeological Education and Community Engagement (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To educate and engage the community about archeological and geological resources available to the inhabitants of the Rio Grande Valley from Laredo to Brownsville, the Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools Program at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley completed a multi-year initiative combining community engagement with the creation...
Ancient Maya Water Control, Wetlands, and the Fiery Pool (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Decipherment, Digs, and Discourse: Honoring Stephen Houston's Contributions to Maya Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of Steve Houston’s sublime volumes is The Fiery Pool, which was also a groundbreaking exhibit. These explored the themes of the Maya and their relationships with water. Here we consider the themes from The Fiery Pool from the perspectives of ancient Maya Wetland fields, "creatures", and...
Ancient Use of Copper in the Southeast United States (2023)
This is an abstract from the "From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While Indigenous copper use in the Southeast United States is well documented in later Woodland and Mississippian periods, far less is known about earlier metallurgical practices and exchange. This paper documents our current state of knowledge and considers the importance of...
Ancient Water Collection and Storage in the Elevated Interior Region of the Maya Lowlands (2016)
The Elevated Interior Region (EIR) of the Maya Lowlands posed especially difficult challenges for year-round ancient human occupation and urbanization. Accessible surface and groundwater sources are rare and a 5-month dry season necessitated the annual collection and storage of rainwater in order to concentrate human population. Here we review ancient Maya water storage adaptation in the EIR including urban and hinterland reservoirs as well as residential scale tanks and cisterns. Large...
The Andean Urban Center of Cajamarquilla: Environmental and Occupational Dynamics (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Central Andes saw a long and complex development of prehistoric urban life. Although considerable progress has been made in understanding this process, our assessment is still very fragmentary due to the lack of key data on centers that appear to have been pivotal at the regional scale. In this paper, I examine Cajamarquilla, a site (> 100 ha) on the...
Answers in the Dirt: Taphonomy, Preservation Bias, and Pastoralism at Iron Age Nichoria, Greece (2017)
The assumed increase of cattle in Dark Age Nichoria has been a key piece of evidence for the "cattle-ranching" model of Dark Age Greek economy. New zooarchaeological analysis, however, demonstrates a distribution of more robust skeletal specimens which are likely the result of preservation bias, rather than economic reliance on cattle. Geoarchaeological analysis of "archival" soils retrieved from uncleaned bones provides some confirmation and additional detail: the abundance of cattle bones at...
The Anthropogenic and Geogenic Coproduction of Seismically Triggered Soft Sediment Deformation Structures (SSDS) in Helike, Greece (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Political Geologies in the Ancient and Recent Pasts: Ontology, Knowledge, and Affect" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Factors of earthquakes in archaeology are often relegated to disaster and collapse narratives. Causality runs from the “natural” extreme to its human impacts. Following political ecology and Science and Technology Studies literatures and using the case of Helike, Greece, from the third millennium BCE to...
Anthropogenic Fire and the Origins of Agricultural Landscapes during the Neolithic Period (7,700–4,500 cal. BP) in Eastern Spain (2018)
Humans have intentionally set fires for millennia to transform the arrangement and diversity of resources within their landscapes, often altering the relationship between fire and ecosystems at multiple scales. Although scholars regularly identify human-altered fire regimes through paleoecological studies, archaeological research has not yet fully incorporated the spatial, temporal, and cultural dimensions of human-caused fire into discussions of the development of agricultural landscapes. This...
The Anthropogenic Wetlands of Northwestern Belize: Decades of Research and New Horizons for Study (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. It is now clear that wetlands were critical resources for populations throughout human history in the Maya Lowlands of Belize and adjacent regions, and that these wetlands serve as important ecosystems and cultural heritage zones today. In northwestern Belize, decades of research have transformed our understanding of...
The Application of Soil and Sediment Micromorphology in First Americans Research (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Geoarchaeology in First Americans Research, Part 1" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past several decades, the application of soil and sediment micromorphology in geoarchaeology has flourished, especially outside of the Americas. Despite the widespread acceptance and use of this approach by our European counterparts, a similar effect has yet to occur among geoarchaeologists focused on the early archaeological...
Archaeological Excavations in the Carrizo Wash Valley, East-Central Arizona: Data Recovery on the Fence Lake Mine Transportation Corridor, Volume II (2004)
Between May 15 and October 11, 2002, SWCA Environmental Consultants (SWCA) conducted archaeological data recovery at 11 sites along the proposed Fence Lake Mine Transportation Corridor (FLTCA) between the New Mexico state line and the Coronado Generating Station in St. Johns, Apache County, Arizona. The project was conducted for the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District (SRP). The lead federal agency was the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Socorro Resource Area, New...
Archaeological Investigations of the Archaic and Paleoindian Occupations at Hall’s Cave, Texas (2018)
Hall’s Cave is a well-studied paleontological site that has provided a detailed climatic record for the Texas Hill-country from the late Pleistocene through the Holocene. There have been no discussions, however, of the archaeological record of the cave deposits. Archaeological excavations at Hall’s Cave conducted in 2017 revealed a 3 m thick, well-stratified sequence of sediments derived from the watershed outside the cave. Early deposits ranging from 18,000 to14,000 cal yr B.P. contain the...
Archaeological Open Air Hunter-Gatherer Sites in the Serranopolis Region, Brazil: An Interpretation of the Landscape (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological region of Serranópolis in Southestern Goias/Brazil stands out for its cultural material in rock shelter sites occupied by groups of hunter-gatheres and agricultural ceramists from 10,400 B.P to 915 B.P. The purpose of this paper is to verify the low frequency and visibility of open air sites, applying variables such as landscape, geology,...
Archaeological Resources Located on Windward and Leeward Sand Dunes Adjacent to Playas and Ephemeral Lakes: A Limited Case Study from the Western Shoreline of the Salton Sea (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There are many locations in Southern California where ephemeral lakes formed during the Late Pleistocene, then desiccated during the latter part of the Holocene: the Cronese Lakes, Lake Manly in Death Valley, Lake Thompson near Lancaster, and many others. Some geological studies have shown that prevailing winds become turbulent over desert flats and as a...
Archaeological, Paleoenvironmental, and Geoarchaeological Investigations of Hall’s Cave, Texas (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Hall’s Cave, located in central Texas, contains a 4 m thick geological record extending back to 20,000 cal yr B.P. Within these sediments is an archaeological record dating from the historic period to approximately 10,500 cal yr B.P. with living surfaces containing artifacts and animal bones associated with hearths. Over 60 hearth features, including over 40...
Archaeologies of Flow in the Southern Jequetepeque: The Organization of Infrastructure, Irrigation, and Roads (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Bridging Time, Space, and Species: Over 20 Years of Archaeological Insights from the Cañoncillo Complex, Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, Part 2" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Canoñcillo probablemente derivó su importancia inicial de su posición a lo largo de los principales corredores de tránsito que conectaban la costa y la sierra. Su ubicación en el margen del desierto no se presta fácilmente al asentamiento. El río...
Archaeology in a Cretaceous Swamp (2015)
During the Late Paleocene and Early Eocene, a tropic/sub-tropic forest located in a large swamp was located in present day east-central Colorado. Overtime the swamp was enveloped by subsequent volcanic eruptions which resulted in the creation of the Paleosol-Dawson Arkose formation. The primary area of this geological formation is located in Elbert County, between Colorado Springs and the small town of Agate on the plains of Colorado. Large stands of tropical wood, including sycamore, walnut,...
Archaeology in the Age of the Anthropocene: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (2018)
The 2016 decision by the Working Group on the Anthropocene of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) to designate an Epoch based on a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) fixed at AD1950 is significant for managing global ecological systems moving forward. There is no serious scientific debate on whether humans have impacted the global ecology, but regardless of the ICS decision to anchor the so-called "Golden Spike" to the advent of the nuclear age, humans are known...
Archaeology in the Big Bend of the Green River, KY (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Middens to Museums: Papers in Honor of Julie K. Stein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Julie Stein joined the Shell Mound Archaeological Project (SMAP) in western Kentucky in 1977 when Patty Jo Watson and William Marquardt, leaders of the project initiated in 1971, recognized the need to add geoarchaeology to the already interdisciplinary project. I started as a graduate student at Washington University–St. Louis...
The Archaeology of Wetlands, Weirs, and Waterways in the Kawartha Lakes Region, Ontario (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Wetlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. I provide an overview of the relationship between Archaic through Middle Woodland peoples and the ecologically heterogenous wetlands and waterways of the Kawartha Lakes region of south-central Ontario. I focus on our research group's survey of submerged shorelines which has revealed a substantial underwater archaeological record that demonstrates a longer...
Archaeology on Sheppard’s Island: Predictive Modeling and Heritage Preservation in Delaware’s Inter-Tidal Zone (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Middle Atlantic Regional Transect Approach to Climate Change Impacts on Archaeological Resources" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Delaware Bay is the second largest estuary along the U.S. Atlantic coast and is experiencing some of the gravest effects from sea level rise. Most of the estuarine shoreline is fringed by salt marshes that have been developing for over 2,000 years but are now being lost at a rate of...
Arlington Springs Chronostratigraphy and Implications for Early Human Settlement along North America's Pacific Coast (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. What may be the earliest dated human skeletal remains so far discovered in North America come from the Arlington Springs Site on Santa Rosa Island, California. To corroborate the 13,077-12,656 2-sigma cal BP age of this ancient Native American, stratigraphic investigations were undertaken to place this discovery in its chronological and paleoenvironmental...