Geoarchaeological Coring: Determining Where Intact Buried Archaeological Sites Should Be and Shouldn’t Be

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For decades, archaeologists have used coring for subsurface testing and paleolandscape reconstruction, but only sporadically. Non-invasive and efficient, core extraction produces intact stratigraphic columns collected in clear plastic tubes that can be brought back to the lab for analysis. Unlike shovel testing and backhoe trenching, coring has no depth limit. This is particularly valuable for testing deposits deeper than 5 feet such as in river valleys, wetlands, and coastal zones. Coring’s efficiency equals or surpasses that of traditional methods and coring rigs are widely available. However, the integration of coring into the initial stages archaeological projects is far from mainstream despite its efficiency and affordability. Recent geoarchaeological coring in deep deposits throughout the mid-Atlantic and Midwest have demonstrated the effectiveness of this method for determining the relative and absolute age of deposits, assessing potential for containing intact archaeological sites, and defining the location of buried surfaces that were potentially occupied. The result is a more efficient method for demonstrating where buried and preserved archaeological sites should be, and where they shouldn’t be.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37549.0