White Caps and Laptops: Results from the 2019 and 2020 Surveys of Submerged Precontact Landscapes in the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Global Submerged Paleolandscapes Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Sea-level rise models since the last glacial maximum demonstrate that the North American landmass available for precontact human habitation was larger than at present. In the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, less than 1 m2 of the continental shelf has been sampled and tested archaeologically. Out of 106 sediment cores acquired for archaeology, two have identified preserved landscape elements of interest: a probable rangia shell midden and a charcoal horizon. Both cores were collected in modern water depths of 17 m BSL, and both returned radiocarbon dates of approximately 8500 yrs BP. The two cores are 48 miles apart from one another, but in between the two locations, along the shoreline, are known archaeological sites dating to the same time period. Using the two locations and the modern shoreline, geophysical survey including both chirp sub-bottom and parametric sonar was conducted at targeted areas, resulting in over 650 line-km of survey. This paper will present the survey design and preliminary results from the geophysical remote-sensing survey cruise in May and June 2019. The authors will further present the testing design and preliminary results from vibracoring conducted in June 2020.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Advances in Global Submerged Paleolandscapes Research   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32485