Good Vibrations: Vibracoring of Terrestrial and Inundated Archaeological Sites

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Geoarchaeology Within the Context of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) Today (Part Two)" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Vibracoring is a sediment coring method that utilizes a gas-powered vibrating head to drive a core barrel into sediments, reducing frictional and compressive disturbances and providing a continuous sample recovery. While geologists and geoarchaeologists have traditionally utilized vibracoring in sub-aqueous environments to characterize inundated landscapes and sediment accumulation rates, these methods are rarely applied to terrestrial archaeological sites. Terrestrial vibracoring represents a powerful tool for archaeologists to characterize the stratigraphy of sites, particularly those deeply buried and outside the reach of traditional excavation methods. Vibracoring in intertidal and inundated areas can also provide archaeologists with useful information regarding the inundation of sites through relative sea-level rise. Recovered cores also provide easy access to in situ analyses of site stratigraphy, including radiocarbon dating, Portable X-Ray Fluorescence, X-Ray Diffraction, and Loss on Ignition, among others. Recent investigations involving vibracoring studies at known pre-contact and historical period archaeological sites in the Northeastern United States are discussed to highlight the importance and impact of this technique.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Geoarchaeology Within the Context of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) Today (Part Two)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52203