State of the Art: Reconstructing paleolandscapes for maritime CRM projects

Summary

Advancements in sound underwater remote sensing have resulted in effective ways to study the ocean bottom, reconstruct paleolandscape settings, and find pre-contact archaeological sites.  The inventory of submerged sites known to date ranges from 3 to 13 kya.  These sites are located in, and theorized to exist from nearshore to mid-shelf settings, but the potential for pre-contact sites goes all the way out to the continental shelf break, a fact confirmed by recent findings of several pre-Clovis sites terrestrially, as well as evidence from underwater (e.g. Page/Ladson and Cinmar). The methods by which sites have been found show that maritime CRM firms conducting 106 surveys have protocols to follow and that they can adequately reconstruct antecedent landscape settings if they are using geophysical and geoarchaeological principles and methods. This talk will expand on these topics and demonstrate the benefits of following BOEM guidelines for any (State or Federal water) project.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Contribution of Drowned Landscapes to Understanding Past Peoples   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 749