Lithostratigraphy as a Tool for Finding Evidence of the First People in the Americas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Geoarchaeology in First Americans Research, Part 1" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this paper, the application of lithostratigraphy in geoarchaeological research is offered as a powerful tool for determining where Early Paleoindian and Pre-Clovis cultural deposits are likely to occur in buried contexts. This approach is facilitated by an understanding of the history for all sediment comprising each lithostratigraphic unit, including the sediment source, transport agent, depositional environment, and post-depositional alterations (especially soil formation). Lithostratigraphic units are easily recognized and defined in the field based on observable sediment characteristics, such as color, texture and carbonate morphology. Examples of geoarchaeological studies that employed lithostratigraphy at the site-specific and regional scale in the North American Great Plains, Central Lowlands, and Southwest are presented. Specifically, this paper focuses on three lithostratigraphic units: Peoria Loess, the Severance Formation, and the Lykes Formation. At the site-specific scale, potential early (>12.6 ka) archaeological components in these formations include the Scheuerman Mammoth site in western Kansas, the Coffey site in northeastern Kansas, and the Genevieve Lykes Duncan (GLD) site in southwest Texas, respectively. Findings at these sites underscore the need to explore lithostratigraphic units at the regional scale in searching for evidence of the first people in the Americas.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Geoarchaeology in First Americans Research, Part 1   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50336