Charting the Paleo-Pensacola: Investigating Pensacola Bay for Submerged Precontact Landforms

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The investigation of inshore waterway systems for submerged landforms has the potential to further our understanding of late Pleistocene and early Holocene populations. This study evaluates such potential by characterizing inundated landforms within a section of Pensacola Bay likely to contain relict channels. Initial geophysical survey with subbottom profiler and side-scan sonar yielded spatial and stratigraphic information regarding submerged landforms that assisted in understanding the precontact landscape. Mapping of surfaces that have been buried since the last glacial maximum also provided locations for future geoarchaeological testing. The analysis and interpretation of data generated by this project will assist in the identification of geomorphological features with greater probability of containing intact archaeological deposits. This work contributes to the field of submerged precontact archaeology by identifying inundated terminal Pleistocene surfaces in the Pensacola Bay system, and further, yields data that might one day allow for the identification of sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow