Micro-remains in Sediment as Indicators of Human Activity

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Plant microfossil analysis has been utilized for environmental reconstruction at numerous archaeological sites around the world; however, the process of preparing and examining samples is labor intensive, requiring skill and a large investment of time in order to manually obtain sufficient count numbers. Furthermore, observations based on microfossil datasets are restricted in their scope by a reliance on a limited set of diagnostic morphotypes. The project presented in this poster explores a semi-automated method for analyzing microfossils extracted from archaeological samples. Additionally, in order to acquire a finer scale picture of localized ecological changes over time, we are performing a metagenomic assessment of ancient microbial taxa. Our objectives are: 1) to develop a more economical method for microfossil analysis, and 2) to determine if patterns observed in microfossil datasets are reflected in corresponding microbial communities with the potential of providing additional insights into prehistoric human activities (e.g., colonization events, farming, etc.).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40400.0