Searching for the Submerged: Five Decades of Research Related to Drowned Prehistoric Sites in the Gulf of Mexico and Coastal Louisiana

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Submerged Paleolandscape Investigations in the Gulf of Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Since 1975, personnel at Coastal Environments Inc. have applied a geophysical and geological approach in their search for drowned prehistoric sites on the outer continental shelf of the Gulf of Mexico and within marshlands of south Louisiana. Initial efforts culminated in the retrieval of numerous vibracore samples from the drowned Sabine River valley offshore Louisiana and Texas and the discovery of a ca. 8,000-year-old Rangia cuneata shell deposit about 17 m below modern sea level and 5 m beneath the Gulf bottom. Subsequent research in coastal marsh settings using similar techniques also successfully identified the presence of submerged prehistoric shell middens.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Submerged Paleolandscape Investigations in the Gulf of Mexico   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39245.0