Charred Organic Matter in the Archaeological Sedimentary Record

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Charred Organic Matter in the Archaeological Sedimentary Record," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Charred organic matter has a high preservation potential and is common in archaeological sedimentary deposits and combustion features. It is an important part of the archaeological record, as it holds clues about food items, clothing, bedding, fuel and the natural vegetation associated with past human groups. However, it remains understudied. Although archaeologists are implementing an increasingly wide range of high-resolution geoarchaeological techniques to investigate anthropogenic fire and combustion residues in search of new sources of behavioral information, most of these techniques involve the inorganic (i.e., mineral) sedimentary record. In recent years, there has been a considerable advance in applied organic geochemistry research and there are several promising techniques at hand. This session brings together researchers investigating archaeological charred matter from a variety of geographic and chronological contexts and using a diversity of interdisciplinary approaches and techniques, such as soil micromorphology, spectroscopy and biomarker research.