Micromorphological Studies from the Clear Lake Basin California

Summary

Geoarchaeology has a wide range of applications for the understanding of the past. Within geoarchaeology, since the 1980s, micromorphological analysis has become a more common worldwide research tool for the study of soils from archaeological sites because it can play an important role in understanding site formation through the research of human waste, occupation debris, fuel residues and animal waste. It can serve as an aid in the reconstruction of human occupation, help identify economic activities, and dietary habits.

Several environmental factors can affect soil structure and they must be considered in micromorphological analysis. For instance, soil fauna activities such as feeding, re-production and protection (burrowing), affect both soil components and therefore soil structure arrangement. As part of the South Main Street Water Line Archaeological Project, soil profiles were made for five archaeological sites. Each site was sampled using Kubïena tins for soil micromorphological analyses. In this instance, samples were taken from paleosols identified from a soil coring project (Redmond 2009) with the goal of assessing whether any possessed evidence of prehistoric occupation. Results of this investigation will help guide Phase 2 studies.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage