Lost Landscapes of the Kawarthas: Investigating Inundated Archaeological Sites Using Integrated Methods

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Kawartha lakes region of south-central Ontario is a region dominated by water bodies and rivers, where humans are known to of lived at least since 12,000 years ago (only shortly after the retreat of glaciers from the region). Since this time, water levels within the region have changed dramatically as a result of various geophysical, climatological, and human induced phenomena, leaving modern water level at a maximum high-stand. While it is acknowledged within the local archaeological community that these hydrological dynamics would have resulted in the inundation of much of the region’s past terrestrial and culturally active landscapes, cultural research into the region’s lakes and waterbodies have to date been very few and limited in scale. The subject of this presentation is a master's-level research project assessing the cultural significance of the inundated landscapes around an island within Pigeon Lake of the Kawartha Lakes region, known as Jacob Island. Using a series of integrated methods including bathymetric modeling, shoreline/ecological reconstruction, and in-water-visual artefact survey, the goals of this research relate to illuminating the nature of the Kawartha Lakes Region’s underwater archaeological record and associating specific cultural occupations and land-use strategies with various regions of Jacob island’s inundated landscapes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25193