Dating ancient field walls in karst landscapes using differential bedrock erosion.

Author(s): Carleton Jones

Year: 2015

Summary

While karst environments present methodological and interpretive challenges to archaeologists, they also provide some unique opportunities. One of these opportunities is the ability to date field walls by measuring divergent rates of bedrock erosion underneath and adjacent to ancient walls. Field walls are traditionally difficult to date, either by using morphological typologies or through the association of diagnostic or chronometric materials. The method presented here, therefore, represents a valuable tool for archaeologists working in karst landscapes. The methodology is described along with a discussion of potential problems, drawing in particular upon evidence from the karstic terrain of the Burren in western Ireland. The methodology is then applied to a group of field walls on the Burren where independent archaeological and geomorphological evidence confirms the usefulness of the method.

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Cite this Record

Dating ancient field walls in karst landscapes using differential bedrock erosion.. Carleton Jones. Presented at The 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco, California. 2015 ( tDAR id: 397390)

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Spatial Coverage

min long: -11.074; min lat: 37.44 ; max long: 50.098; max lat: 70.845 ;