Geoarchaeology (Other Keyword)
251-275 (619 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Two Approaches to Archaeological Jades: Source Characterization and Social Valuation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The occurrence of nephrite is primarily linked to ophiolite locations around the world and is associated with serpentinite (S-nephrite); however, most nephrite in China is associated with metamorphosed magnesian limestone (dolomarble) deposits (D-nephrite). Characterizing D-nephrite by chemical...
Geomorphic and isotopic indicators of anthropogenic change from Holocene-length alluvial deposits in the Rio Blanco watershed (2017)
Recent geoarchaeological investigations in southern Belize have focused on the Paleoindian to Archaic site of Tzib’te Yux located in the Rio Blanco watershed and dating between 3000-12500 BP as well as adjacent river terraces. Landscape-level vegetation changes are apparent within the area in the form of forest clearance by 5000 BP. Evidence of pedogenesis derived from four years of excavations and sedimentation rates established through modeling and high-precision 14C AMS dating have produced...
Geomorphological and Geoarcheological Investigations at the Fort Carson-Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, Las Animas, County, Colorado (1985)
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.
Geomorphological Investigations at the U.S. Army Ft. Carson-Pinon Canyon Maneuver Area, Las Animas County, Colorado (1984)
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.
Geostratigraphy, Volcanology, and Chronology at Ceren: Implications of Dating the Ilopango and Loma Caldera Eruptions (2015)
Built upon a fine white volcanic tephra from the eruption of the Ilopango caldera and buried under tephra from an eruption of Loma Caldera, the Maya village of Ceren affords a unique opportunity to explore geostratigraphy, volcanology, and chronology in relation to vulnerability and resilience. The sheer volume and scale of the eruption of Ilopango caldera, known as Tierra Blanca Joven (TBJ), would have had decimated not only the Zapotitán valley in which Ceren is located, but also all of El...
Geotechnical Aspects of the Utqiagvik Project (1990)
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.
Getting It Right for the Wrong Reasons: Using ED-XRF to Characterize Red Munsungun Chert (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Case Studies in Toolstone Provenance: Reliable Ascription from the Ground Up" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Artifacts made of high-quality red chert appear regularly in terminal Pleistocene fluted point period sites throughout New England. Although archaeologists in the region often attribute this material to the Munsungun Lake geologic formation of northern Maine, no large-scale effort had been made to evaluate...
The Giddings’ Legacy of Beach Ridge Archaeology in Alaska: A Proxy Record of Late Holocene Climate (2016)
Beach ridge archaeology developed as a relative-age archaeological survey method in the late 1950s within Kotzebue Sound. Giddings’ breakthrough collaboration with geologists David Hopkins and George Moore focused on Cape Krusenstern, defining 5,000 years of prehistory from the Denbigh complex to Thule tradition, dated mostly by reference to the type site at Onion Portage and 14C ages mostly on Old Whaling and Ipiutak and Thule occupations, but none on Norton or Denbigh. The onset of beach ridge...
A GIS approach to stratigraphy in visually homogeneous rockshelter deposits: results from Woodpecker Cave. (2016)
The sediment stack at Woodpecker Cave (13JH202) does not possess an easily discernable stratigraphic sequence. Woodpecker Cave’s deposits are a combination of visually homogeneous colluvium derived from glacial loess mobilized from above the rockshelter and variably-sized tabular roof fall blocks. The lack of visible stratigraphy has necessitated the creation of a digital model from which to analyze the spatial provenience of a variety of mapped objects in order to differentiate between sections...
Giving Form to Flow: Modeling Paleohydrology in North-Central Coastal Peru (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In coastal Andean archaeology, long-standing interest in water and cultural dynamics is intensifying, especially with diminishing glacial water supplies in the coast’s headwater regions. However, archaeologists who have hinged their hypotheses on the availability or management of water resources have frequently overlooked or disregarded the non-linear ways...
Goodson Shelter: Recent Excavations at a Newly Discovered Deeply Stratified Rockshelter in Northeastern Oklahoma. (2015)
Goodson Shelter was discovered by an amateur artifact collector and was first brought to our attention in 2012. The site is an approximately 20 x 7 meter eroded sandstone rockshelter situated about 5 meters above a small tributary. Work in 2013 and 2014 consisted of excavation of a 1x7 meter trench running from outside the dripline to the back wall of the shelter. Deposits are approximately 2 meters deep, and appear to be largely stratigraphically intact. Over 300 projectile points/preforms...
Great Zimbabwe's Water (2017)
In southern Africa, Great Zimbabwe has long been the focus of research, debates and preservation as the remains of what was once the urban centre of a vast state system. As new research findings are reframing the development of the Zimbabwe civilization in the region, local environmental settings and natural resources at Great Zimbabwe remain poorly understood. Using approaches in geoarchaeology, this paper presents Great Zimbabwe as a living landscape. New soil sequences from within and around...
Higher-Level Plio-Pleistocene Shoreline in South Florida (1978)
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.
Historic Water Management Infrastructure in the San Pasquale Valley, Calabria, Italy (2018)
Over the last several field seasons, the Bova Marina Archaeological Project has been documenting the timing of construction and the physical characteristics of the original water management infrastructure as well as documenting the changes in the natural and social systems of the San Pasquale Valley in Calabria, Italy. The Valley was recolonized in the 19th and early 20th centuries for both large scale bergamot plantations and by peasant farmers. With large scale population exodus from the...
A History of Landscape Transformation and Environmental Change across the Ascope Irrigation System of the Chicama Valley. (2017)
The sequence of landscape transformation across the area of the Ascope Canal System in the Chicama Valley involved both natural and anthropogenic events and processes that unfolded in nonlinear ways. We argue that early events were crucial in determining transformations later in the sequence. In the arid environment of the North Coast, water availability plays a key role in landscape histories. This paper highlights evidence for El Niño events, water management, and changing ecologies for the...
Holocene Human Adaptations on the Pacific Coast of Central America (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Human Behavioral Ecology at the Coastal Margins: Global Perspectives on Coastal & Maritime Adaptations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Holocene human adaptations to the Pacific coast of southern Mesoamerica and Central America are documented at a number of locations from southern Mexico to Panama. Evidence comes from Archaic-Period shell mounds, Early Formative sites at the edge of dry land behind the mangrove...
Holocene Palaeoenvironmental Changes in Southeastern Mozambique: The Case of the Inhambane Bay (2018)
Geoarchaeological surveys were conducted in 2016 and 2017 to better understand the environmental history and landscape evolution of the Inhambane coastal area, Southeastern Mozambique, aiming to know the environmental context of human occupation of the Tofo, Praia da Rocha and Chibuene archaeological sites. To reach this aim, 4 cores were collected in a mangrove area of the Inhambane estuary, an area both influenced by sea-level and climate changes. All the boreholes were georeferenced and...
Holocene Paleoenvironment and Demography of the New Guinea North Coast (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Pacific islands are often used as model cases of human-environment systems and the development of biocultural diversity. In comparison to the smaller islands of the southwestern Pacific, the prehistory of the north coast of New Guinea remains poorly understood, particularly prior to ~2000 BP. We draw together a variety of archaeological evidence collected...
Honing an Integrated Approach to Geoarchaeological Research in Alluvial Environments of the Lower 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. Identification and interpretation of buried cultural deposits in alluvial settings is improved by an integrated approach that considers the area at an appropriate scale in line with prehistoric land use; applies key underlying concepts; and utilizes multiple methodologies of subsurface investigation, laboratory analysis, and environmental modeling. Success at...
Hood Canal, WA: a Geoarchaeological Examination of Land Use (2017)
Hood Canal in Washington State contains a variety of archaeological sites, dating from at least 3,330 years ago to historic times. These sites include shell middens, villages, individual settlements, petroglyphs, logging activity traits, and hydroelectric features, to name a few. The area has undergone significant land movement due to seismic activity, landslides, and, possibly, sand blows. This presentation examines Hood Canal’s prehistoric and historic land use with respect to the region’s...
How to Build a Better reservoir: Evolving Ancient Maya Strategies (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient inhabitants of the Elevated Interior Region of the Maya Lowlands spent centuries devising ways to capture and store rainwater in this seasonally arid environment devoid of sizeable permanent surface water bodies. Over time, varied methods were created to ensure a sufficient quantity of water to meet the...
How to Deal with Homogeneous Stratigraphies: Excavation, Sampling, and Analysis Strategies at Umhlatuzana Rockshelter, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Developing Paleolithic Excavation Methods for the Twenty-First Century" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To ensure proper context control for archaeological samples, it is crucial that excavations determine and, where possible, follow the natural stratigraphic subdivisions in a sedimentary sequence. In cases with a single, unchanging source of sedimentary input, this may pose challenges. We present our strategies to...
Human ecodynamics of late Neanderthal survival and anatomically modern human expansion at the Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition, Lapa do Picareiro, Portugal
With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Jonathan Haws (University of Louisville) and Dr. Michael Benedetti (University of North Carolina Wilmington) are leading a multi-year study of Neanderthal extinction and replacement by anatomically modern humans in central Portugal. The project brings together an international team to recover high-resolution archaeological, geological and paleoecological records from the excavation of Lapa do Picareiro, a cave in central Portugal. Our...
Human impact on a monumental landscape at the microscopic level: an ancient Maya community and its temple (2015)
This paper discusses the results of geochemical and micromorphological analysis of sediment samples in and around a monumental temple structure at the site of La Milpa, northwest Belize. This analysis forms part of a project that aims to examine community agency and practice in public monumental spaces, in particular how the actions of diverse groups of agents influence the functions of monumental architecture. Artifact and architectural evidence gathered over five field seasons at Structure 3...
Human-climate-landscape interactions within the Rio Blanco Basin, Southern Belize (2015)
Excavations of alluvial terraces along the Rio Blanco, near the Maya site of Uxbenká in southern Belize, Toledo District, record Holocene human impacts and sediment aggradation from the pre-ceramic through the modern period. Assuming sediment aggradation rates on the terraces are inversely related to basin-wide hill slope erosion allows us to develop a landscape evolution model during the Holocene and investigate possible anthropogenic vs. climatic effects on the landscape. Radiocarbon dates and...