The Sky is Falling: Site formation processes at Woodpecker Cave, Johnson County, Iowa

Summary

Woodpecker Cave is a small, limestone rock shelter occurring on a drainage of the Coralville Reservoir in Johnson Country, Iowa. The site was originally excavated in 1956 by Warren Caldwell and has been the home of the University of Iowa archaeological field school from 2012 to 2016. The University of Iowa excavations identified Late and Terminal Woodland materials with a high concentration of roofspall contributing to the archaeological deposits. When combined with recent terrestrial LIDAR scans of the rock shelter, the roofspall data provide insights into the site formation processes occurring at Woodpecker Cave. Roofspall morphology and the fabric of the archaeological deposits are the focus here to better understand how active formation processes occurring within the rock shelter have influenced the human occupations of the site.

Cite this Record

The Sky is Falling: Site formation processes at Woodpecker Cave, Johnson County, Iowa. James McGrath, Rebekah Truhan, Adam Skibbe, James Enloe. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, British Columbia. 2017 ( tDAR id: 428873)

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Keywords

Spatial Coverage

min long: -104.634; min lat: 36.739 ; max long: -80.64; max lat: 49.153 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15873