Geoarchaeology (Other Keyword)
626-650 (715 Records)
Great Basin Antelope Traps are ideal laboratories due to their feature system level focus on one set of subsistence behaviors (antelope hunting). By combining data collected using LiDAR, GPS and GIS, our analysis in the Liza Jane Trap focused on the spatial patterning of lithic artifacts and the location of small-scale landforms. The geoarchaeological analysis indicates relatively stable landforms modified by cultural-transforms. Analysis to locate small-scale landforms was performed to locate...
Spring Creek Drainage - Geoarchaeological Explorations along the Southern High Plains Eastern Escarpment, Northwest Texas (2018)
The Spring Creek drainage, part of the upper Brazos River system, is located along the Southern High Plains eastern escarpment breaks near Post, Texas. Steep and confined vertical channel incision typifies the breaks and the drainage is and was fed by numerous springs emanating from the Ogallala Formation. Geoarchaeological research along a 774m transect from Macy Fork to 222m below its confluence with Spring Creek proper has documented a continual depositional record spanning the latest...
Stable Isotope Analysis Applied to the Reconstruction of Paleoenvironment and Landscape Use during the Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic at Üçağızlı I and II, South-Central Turkey (2018)
Stable isotope analysis of δ13C and δ18O in herbivore tooth enamel from the archaeological sites of Üçağızlı I and II in south-central Turkey is used to explore human responses to environmental change during MIS 3 in the eastern Mediterranean. Although changes through time in local ambient moisture are associated with changes in the local animal communities, they generally do not correlate with proxies for site occupation intensity, and thus do not indicate depopulation or shorter site stays...
Staying Afloat: A Comparative Case Study of Angkor Wat and Tikal’s Management of Water (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation is a large-scale comparative case study of two distinct regions to see how their use and control of water was similar given their environments but different from social, political, and cultural perspectives. Specifically, I examine the sociopolitical nature of Angkor Wat as an expression of ancient Khmer culture and the Classic Maya city of...
A Stratified Past: A Geoarchaeological Perspective of the Sayles Adobe Terrace Site (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Eagle Nest Canyon, Texas: Papers in Honor of Jack and Wilmuth Skiles" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper is a condensed summary of master’s thesis “Stories in the Sand: Excavation and Analysis of The Sayles Adobe Terrace (41VV2239) In Eagle Nest Canyon, Langtry, Texas” (Pagano 2019). It presents an overview of the background, methodologies, analyses, and conclusions of work completed at the...
Stratigraphic Evidence for Large Floods in Canal System 2, Phoenix, Arizona (2015)
Recent excavations conducted downstream from Park of Four Waters have provided new evidence of damaging floods within System 2 between AD 1050-1400. Two main canals contain stratigraphic evidence of uncontrolled Salt River. One canal (Hagenstad) contains evidence for two floods, the last one causing the alignment to be abandoned. The other canal (Woodbury's North), contains a flood deposit that filled the channel and led to its abandonment. A combination of ceramic, 14C, and luminescence ages...
Stratigraphy and Radiocarbon Chronology at McDonald Creek: A Multicomponent Pleistocene-Holocene Site in Central Alaska (2021)
This is an abstract from the "McDonald Creek and Blair Lakes: Late Pleistocene-Holocene Human Activity in the Tanana Flats of Central Alaska" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. McDonald Creek, located in the Tanana Flats ~55 km south of Fairbanks, Alaska, rests on an isolated remnant of an ancient alluvial terrace of the Tanana River that hugs the southeast corner of a monadnock rising from the flats. While testing the site, we discovered a...
A Structural Geological Study of the Tombs of Nabataean Petra (2018)
Many studies have discussed the first century BC to first century AD Nabataean rock-cut monuments in the Nabataean city of Petra, Jordan. These surveys provide information about proposed chronologies for the façade tombs and limited data about burial customs of the Nabataeans themselves. One neglected topic is the Nabataean tomb placement in relation to the structural geology of the Petra region. During the 2014 field season of the BYU Ad-Deir Monument and Plateau project, it was discovered...
Sub-Tropical Agronomy on a Variable Landscape: Exploring Classic Maya Farming Through Geotechnical Design and the Distribution of Edaphic Variables (2018)
Late Classic hinterland agronomy presents a compelling glimpse into the socioeconomic dynamics of production and demand in the Three Rivers region. This project focused on a prominent house-group located 350 meters east of the site of Dos Hombres which was known to exhibit intensive agricultural strategies as well as a specialized degree of stone working. Additionally, a series of four karst depressions bordered the site and likely leveraged moisture demand resulting from agricultural needs as...
Submerged Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Sites in the Aucilla River Basin, Florida: What Can They Tell Us About Early Cultures We Could Not Learn Elsewhere? (2018)
Many projectile points of late Paleoindian and early Archaic styles have been recovered from underwater contexts in the Aucilla Basin. A large percentage of these are unprovenienced surface finds, but these artifacts have also been found in association with soils currently submerged more than 4 meters underwater. Dates from these soils span the Younger Dryas at Page-Ladson and Sloth Hole, while other sites have proven complex to date but provide excellent environmental information....
Submergence of Indian Mounds (1935)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Substances in Transition: Tell Construction in Chalcolithic Bulgaria (2018)
Tells are living places continuously constructed and transformed by their inhabitants through their actions on the matter and objects constituting these places. In effect, the accumulation of clay, rubble and refuse on which houses are built and lives lived reflects daily actions, cultural events happening on longer cycles as well as environmental considerations. Therefore, the blend of things and matter that transited from the riverbed to houses, pots, and aggregated rubble and rubbish requires...
The Suitability of Ground-Penetrating Radar for Mapping Sub-Marsh Paleogeography and Implications for Large-Scale Archaeological Surveys of Wetlands and Marshes (2015)
Prehistoric sites beneath modern marshes are uncommon and valuable cultural resources with superior organic preservation potential. Such sites generally offer greater stratigraphic integrity than their terrestrial counterparts as they were not historically plowed. However, these sites are overlooked and understudied in eastern North America due to low visibility, disagreement on surveying strategies, and misperceptions regarding the high costs of investigation and low potential for site...
Surviving Climate Change (2018)
During the past decade, the University of Cincinnati has offered a summer archaeological field school, which focuses on periods of rapid and profound global climatic change. Students undertake detailed excavation profile descriptions, collect samples for AMS radiocarbon and OSL dating, botanical, faunal, soil, and geochemical analyses to develop an accurate chronology and paleoenvironmental framework of the depositional history for archaeological sites, which date to the Younger Dryas and Little...
Sustainability and Climate Change in the Ancient Maya Area: Evidence from Remote Sensing and Long-Term Land Use (2018)
The sub-tropical forests that once covered the ancient ruins of much of Mesoamerica are being rapidly removed due to modern subsistence practices. Yet, archaeological and ecological research shows that this is not the first time that extensive human-caused deforestation has occurred in this region, minimally representing the third iteration of such an event. Analyses of lake-cores and remote sensing imagery provide evidence for extensive land clearing around 1000 BCE and again after CE 250, with...
The Swag Site (38AL137): Yet Another Paleoindian Site at the Allendale Quarries in South Carolina (2018)
The Swag Site (38AL137) was recorded during the initial survey of the Allendale chert quarries by Albert Goodyear and Tommy Charles in 1984. While subsequent work focused on the Topper and Big Pine Tree sites, the Swag site was overlooked until a systematic survey conducted in 2015 identified several localities with buried archaeological deposits. In May 2016 and March 2017, further excavations at the Swag Site produced artifacts that are comparable to Clovis components at Topper,...
Synthesizing Results from the 2017–2022 Excavations at Crvena Stijena (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Late Middle Paleolithic in the Western Balkans: Results from Recent Excavations at Crvena Stijena, Montenegro" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The excavations at Crvena Stijena from 2017–2022 have had two main objectives. The first is to test the Sandgathe/Dibble hypothesis that Neanderthals did not have the ability to make fire; rather, they were dependent on natural occurrences of fire. The testable implication...
The Tacahuay Landscape: Land Use and Environmental Change on the South Coast of Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Tacahuay Quebrada on the far southern coast of Peru was shaped by a combination of human and environmental forces. Within its watershed, there is a system of channels that have provided resources for humans and other living beings throughout its anthropogenic history. Excavations within these channels revealed use of the Tacahuay landscape between 1000...
The Tacahuay Legacy: Landscape Modification and Reuse on the South Coast of Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Tacahuay Quebrada has a long geologic history of flood events, as well as human occupation. Around 12,000 years ago, early inhabitants lived along the coastline of this landscape. Through time, people moved away from the ocean to settle along the channel, floodplain, and elevated terraces of the quebrada. In...
Tackling the Early Holocene Record in Patagonia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The early Holocene archaeological record in Patagonia has always been elusive. It is often recorded as layers within multi-component cave sites where archaeological and natural materials accumulate. However ordered the layering, careful the excavation techniques, or large the quantity of radiocarbon dates, such sites are complex to interpret due to site...
A Tale of Two Houses: Soil Chemical and Floor Assemblage Evidence of Domestic Activities at the Menoken Site, North Dakota (2015)
Although they are often used by archaeologists to identify activity patterns within domestic spaces, floor assemblages are influenced by a variety of cultural and natural formation processes, especially those related to abandonment. By contrast, soil chemical traces are thought to be less vulnerable to alteration by subsequent activity and, therefore, are treated as primary residue of activities in their original location. Although the formation histories of these two types of evidence differ,...
A Tale of Two Projects: Geoarchaeological Investigations along the Shores of Pleistocene Lake Waring in Elko County, Nevada, and the Importance of Early Planning and Collaboration between Public Land Managers, Project Proponents, and Stakeholders (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Further Discussion on the Role of Archaeology in Resource and Public Land Management" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological investigations conducted between 2015 and 2021 along the margins of a Great Basin pluvial lake applied multidisciplinary methods that resulted in the identification of significant deeply stratified sites. A geoarchaeological approach that entailed detailed mapping and modeling of the...
A Tale of Two Styles: A Geoarchaeological Investigation into Lima & Ychsma Construction Materials at Cajamarquilla, Peru (2015)
This paper examines construction materials from Cajamarquilla, one of the largest prehistoric urban sites on the Central Coast of Peru. Little work has been published about the architecture at Cajamarquilla, other than to comment on the enormity of the site and its constructions. Rammed earth (tapia, in Spanish) is the main construction style at Cajamarquilla, but with marked observable differences between the Lima Phase (AD500 – 800) and Ychsma Phase (AD1100 – 1450) occupations. Lima walls were...
A Tale of Two Villages: Exploring the Role of Villages with Massive Shell Accumulations as Anthropogenic Coastline Modifications in Prince Rupert Harbour (2017)
3D mapping, percussion coring, and radiocarbon dating are used to explore the geoarchaeology and chronology of two villages composed of massive shell deposits in the Prince Rupert Harbour. We map out accumulation and development of these sites through time and demonstrate that they are major anthropogenic coastline modifications, which, with dozens of other large villages in the area, form a substantial built environment. As well as providing well-drained terraformed terraces on which to build...
The Tangled Roots of the Anthropocene: China from the Late Neolithic to the Song Dynasty (2018)
The Anthropocene is now commonly defined as a geological event, or "golden spike" that begins in the later twentieth century with the detonation of nuclear weapons. While this event-based characterization serves a useful purpose in providing a formal geological definition, it tells us nothing of how humans developed the social, economic, technological, and moral capacities that allow us to affect natural processes at a global scale. Using archaeological and environmental data from China between...