Geoarchaeology (Other Keyword)
401-425 (619 Records)
The Lukas-Tooth and Price algorithm for empirical calibration of x-ray fluorescence systems has become the standard for archaeometry, particularly in obsidian sourcing. Here, a new way of using the computer language R and HTML5 websites is introduced to calibrate these systems.
Organic Molecular Proxies for Fire in Archaeological Sediments (2018)
A number of different direct and indirect proxies are used to identify fire at archaeological sites. We propose a new organic molecular proxy for identification of anthropogenic fire in archaeological sediments, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These molecules are a byproduct of the incomplete combustion of organic biomass, and are preserved well on deep time scales. We applied this proxy to Lusakert Cave, a Middle Paleolithic site in the Hrazdan Gorge, Armenia. From these same samples,...
Origins of Parietal Art: Evidence from the Archaeological Record (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The interpretation of drawings and engravings rely on our unique ability to internally process visual information and identify recognizable patterns. This same ability processes imaginary patterns, such as animals and faces of people in geological formations, clouds, and stars. The phenomenon of identifying imaginary patterns, referred to as “pareidolia,”...
Page-Ladson and Submerged Late Pleistocene Sites along the Aucilla River, Florida, and their Importance to First Americans Archaeology (2018)
Late Pleistocene terrestrial archaeological sites now lie submerged in the karstic river systems of Florida. Nowhere is this more apparent than along the Aucilla River where dozens of inundated prehistoric sites are known. One of the most important sites is Page-Ladson, which has yielded some of the earliest unequivocal evidence for pre-Clovis occupation in North America, dating back to 14,550 cal yr B.P. At that time, sea levels had fallen approximately 100 m and people utilized a pond in...
Paisajes aprovechados y causes modificados en el sistema portuario de la costa este de Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz (2018)
En la zona este de Los Tuxtlas se ha identificado un complejo sistema de intercomunicación fluvial y marítima, construido a partir del aprovechamiento y acondicionamiento de corrientes acuáticas. Una gran parte de estas vías de comunicación confluyen en el sistema portuario de la costa este de Los Tuxtlas. La región se caracteriza por estar en un abanico aluvial, por lo que presenta un gran dinamismo fluvial, es decir los causes no son estáticos en el tiempo. En los estudios arqueológicos debe...
The Paleo Suwannee Project: Offshore Research in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The goal of the project is to find and map a portion of the submerged Paleo-Suwannee River in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. The main goals of our research are to find the Suwannee River channel offshore and map any archaeological sites encountered, and produce geological (sedimentological) and habitat (species and landscape) maps of the area at multiple...
Paleo-lake Otero, Playas, and Paleoindian Land-Use in the Tularosa Basin, New Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Perennial lakes and wetlands occupied many intermontane basins of the western United States during the last glacial period. Spatio-temporal trends in Paleoindian land-use and subsistence inferred from the distribution of sites relative to paleo-lakes remain speculative for many basins in the Southwest in the absence of well-constrained paleo-lake-level...
Paleo-sea levels, Bill Dickinson, and Interpretive Modeling for the Lapita Settlement of Fanga ‘Uta Lagoon, Kingdom of Tonga (2015)
In the 1990s and subsequently Bill Dickinson carried out widespread survey of paleo-shoreline indicators throughout the Kingdom of Tonga, these providing context for initial Lapita settlement of the archipelago. His research on Fanga ‘Uta lagoon on the island of Tongatapu has proven essential to interpretations of a 3000 BP landscape considerably different than the mangrove fringed shoreline existing today. Recent archaeological studies support and refine Dickinson’s model, providing additional...
Paleoecological Assessment of the Douglas Korongo East and Bell's Korongo East Sites, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania (2017)
Current work at DKE and BKE in concert with The Olduvai Paleoanthropology and Paleoecology Project (TOPPP) has exposed Bed I and Bed II deposits, respectively. At DKE a series of tuffs and siltstones, including paleosols, indicates DKE hosted a series of productive landscapes through time. Paleosols have well-developed blocky structure and host large concentrations of fossils. At BKE sandy fluvial deposits adjacent to siliceous siltstones confirm previous descriptions of site materials. Cultural...
Paleoecology and Geoarchaeology of the Buenavista Valley, Petén, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "La Cuernavilla, Guatemala: A Maya Fortress and Its Environs" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We have studied the long-term environmental change and geoarchaeology of the Buenavista Valley in the region of El Zotz and La Cuernavilla in Guatemala’s Petén through multiple NSF grants from the 2000s to an NGS Grant for fieldwork in 2022. Past studies focused on the El Zotz reservoir, other regional reservoirs, dam...
Paleoenvironment, Population, and the Origins of Resource Intensification on the Eastern Edge of the Colorado Plateau (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Geoarchaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Site 5ME13127, a Formative-Era camp at the eastern edge of the Colorado Plateau, was excavated in 2018. Macrofloral and faunal analyses indicate small seeds and lagomorphs dominated subsistence by AD320-420, and the bow was adopted by AD560-650. Sediment cores from Kannah Creek fen on Grand Mesa (27km southeast) provide paleoenvironmental context for interpretations of...
Paleoenvironmental Conditions of Holocene Southern Mozambique: Multiproxy Data from Coastal Lake Nyalonzelwe Cores (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To understand the role climate played in facilitating the development and expression of human behaviors, our interdisciplinary research team cored the interdunal Nyalonzelwe lake (Inhambane coast, southern Mozambique) during the summer of 2019. Lake Nyalonzelwe sits 5 m above MSL and is sheltered from the Indian Ocean by a Pleistocene dune system. Its...
Paleoenvironmental Context of Calusa Cultural Evolution on Mound Key, Estero Bay, Southwest Florida (2018)
The Calusa occupied Mound Key in Estero Bay, southwest Florida, from approximately AD600 to the 1700s with this location serving as a cultural and political center from ca. AD950. As a fisher-gatherer-hunter society, they heavily exploited the shellfish and finfish resources of the estuary. During this time, Estero Bay’s estuarine ecology and coastal geomorphology developed in response to variable rates of sea-level rise (SLR) and climate change. Our work integrates archaeological and geological...
Paleoindian Occupation in the North Dakota National Grasslands: A geoarchaeological analysis of site preservation and land-use (2015)
A GIS model was utilized to help understand Paleoindian land-use, site formation processes and major landform changes in the North Dakota National Grasslands since the terminal Pleistocene. This landscape has changed dramatically over the last 12,000 years and geoarchaeological methods can help understand what the landscape and environment may have looked like during the Paleoindian period. Further, a recent survey has shown that soil erosion in the North Dakota National Grasslands is occurring...
Paleoindian Site Formation in the Tennessee River Valley (2018)
The Paleoindian occupation of the unglaciated eastern woodlands has generally been characterized by distributions of projectile points and few true sites. While this perception has begun to change in recent history, the Late Pleistocene archaeological record beyond projectile points including sites and settlement patterns remain poorly studied and reported. This paper provides an evaluation of the natural and cultural formation processes associated with Paleoindian occupation in the Tennessee...
Paleoindian Site in Central São Paulo State, Brazil: Bastos Site, Dourado County (2018)
Bastos site, located in central São Paulo State, provided ages between 7,600 and 12,600 cal BP.The lithic industry is composed by flakes on silicified sandstone, with rare unifacial retouch, without formal artifacts. The site probably represents a habitation area in a river terrace, later covered by acolluvial fan. Refitting pieces attest the overall integrity of the spatial positioning of the archaeological materials. The site is the oldest found in São Paulo, and is contemporaneous to sites...
Paleoindian Sites from Central Mexico: Paleoenvironment and Dating (2018)
During the last 20 years we have studied systematically several important Paleoindian sites from Central Mexico doing detailed stratigraphic studies, paleoenvironmental reconstructions (pollen, diatoms, tephra studies) and radiocarbon dating. The sites include: Peñon Woman III skeleton, Santa Isabel Iztapan Mammoths with associated lithics, Tlapacoya Man Skull, Tocuila Mammoths, Tequixquiac Late Pleistocene Fossils and Tepexpan Man Skeleton. We present here a general model of strong...
Paleoindian Use of Eocene Chert from the Wyoming Basin (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Old Technology, New Methodology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The first people who occupied the western hemisphere are characterized as being highly mobile and for having a propensity for using high quality cherts. Many of these high-quality lithic sources have been described and documented, while Eocene cherts of the Wyoming Basin have yet to have the same attention nor are they recognized as being a favorable...
The Paleoindian-age Deposits of Eagle Cave: Preliminary Impressions (2017)
One of the fundamental research questions of the Ancient Southwest Texas project was to determine if there was Paleoindian occupation of Eagle Cave. Excavations during the 2016 field season explored the Paleoindian age deposits and revealed tantalizing evidence of human presence at that time. One clear occupation was revealed (discussed in another presentation in detail by Castañeda et al.) but beneath this were several deposits that appear to be decomposed fiber beds which are associated with...
Paleoindians Beyond the Edge of the Great Plains: The Water Canyon Site in Western New Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Preserved in the complex cut-and-fill stratigraphy of an alluvial fan, the Water Canyon site represents one of the most notable and rare Paleoindian sites in the American Southwest west of the Pecos River for having an in situ, stratified multi-component Paleoindian record. Paleoindian cultures currently represented at the site include Clovis, Folsom,...
Paleolandscape Reconstruction Using Geoproxy Evidence at Erfkroon, a Middle to Later Stone Age Occupation in South Africa’s Continental Interior (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Erfkroon is situated in South Africa’s Modder River Valley and is known for its well-stratified fluvial landscape and archaeologically rich terrace systems. The Orangia terrace is the subject of ongoing investigations because it is characterized by abundant in situ alluvial deposits containing Middle and Later Stone Age artifact assemblages in context with...
The Paleolithic Archaeology of Shirak Province (Armenia) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Pleistocene Landscapes and Hominin Behavior in the Armenian Highlands" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Within Shirak Province in the Republic of Armenia, the open-air site complex at Aghvorik is currently the most prominent site. The Paleolithic sites of Shirak are geomorphologically associated with the Ashotsk Plateau in the north, the Shirak Depression and northwestern slopes of Mt. Aragats in the south, and the...
Paleopollution and Environmental Consequences of Bronze Craft Production during the Shang Periods in Anyang, China (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Geoarchaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The aim of this study is to understand the relationship between bronze production and paleopollution during the middle and late Shang periods (1450-1045 BCE) in Anyang. Archaeologists have discovered several bronze workshops operating during these periods. These workshops were located among residential areas, and the long-term bronze production activity at Anyang could...
Paleoseismology at Old Town Ridge (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the fall of 2018 personnel from the Arkansas Archeological Survey, University of Memphis, and the Natural and Cultural Resources Services conducted investigations at Old Town Ridge (3CG41) to determine if Mississippian period Native Americans abandoned the site circa A.D.1400 because of earthquake activity. Excavation of Trench A exposed four sediment...
Paleostorms and Precolonial Societies: Hurricane Deposits in Inundated Archaeological Sites in Northwest Florida (2019)
This is an abstract from the "First Floridians to La Florida: Recent FSU Investigations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How people respond to their environment is an ongoing theme in archaeological research. However, it is not well understood how people in the past responded to rapid high energy events such as hurricanes and if planning for these events did or did not occur. To understand how hurricanes affected people in the past, we need to...