Download or read book Landscape Evolution and the Archaeological Record written by Jeffrey Rosenthal and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines the relationship between landscape change and the archaeological record in the southern Santa Clara Valley and surrounding region. In order to understand this relationship, the study integrates geologic and archaeological data using an innovative combination of archival research, fieldwork, radiocarbon dating and GIS based analysis. The study argues that many archaeological sites have been buried by one or more episodes of widespread deposition in the valleys of the the region. The multidisciplinary approach of this work makes it an important reference for archaeologists, geologists, soil scientists and anyone else who seeks to understand the nature and timing of Holocene landscape evolution.
Download or read book Principles of Geoarchaeology written by Michael R. Waters and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geoarchaeological studies can significantly enhance interpretations of human prehistory by allowing archaeologists to decipher from sediments and soils the effects of earth processes on the evidence of human activity. While a number of previous books have provided broad geographic and temporal treatments of geoarchaeology, this new volume presents a single author's view intended for North American archaeologists. Waters deals with those aspects of geoarchaeology—stratigraphy, site formation processes, and landscape reconstruction—most fundamental to archaeology, and he focuses on the late Quaternary of North America, permitting in-depth discussions of the concepts directly applicable to that research. Assuming no prior geologic knowledge on the part of the reader, Waters provides a background in fundamental geological processes and the basic tools of geoarchaeology. He then proceeds to relate specific physical processes, microenvironments, deposits, and landforms associated with riverine, desert, lake, glacial, cave, coastal, and other environments to archaeological site formation, location, and context. This practical volume illustrates the contributions of geoarchaeological investigations and demonstrates the need to make such studies an integral part of archaeological research. The text is enhanced by more than a hundred line drawings and photographs. CONTENTS 1. Research Objectives of Geoarchaeology 2. Geoarchaeological Foundations: The Archaeological Site Matrix: Sediments and Soils / Stratigraphy / The Geoarchaeological Interpretation of Sediments, Soils, and Stratigraphy 3. Alluvial Environments: Streamflow / Sediment Erosion, Transport, and Deposition / Alluvial Environments: Rivers, Arroyos, Terraces, and Fans / Alluvial Landscapes Evolution and the Archaeological Record / Alluvial Landscape Reconstruction 4. Eolian Environments: Sediment Erosion, Transport, and Deposition / Sand Dunes / Loess and Dust / Stone Pavements / Eolian Erosion / Volcanic Ash (Tephra) 5. Springs, Lakes, Rockshelters, and Other Terrestrial Environments: Springs / Lakes / Slopes / Glaciers / Rockshelters and Caves 6. Coastal Environments: Coastal Processes / Late Quaternary Sea Level Changes / Coastal Environments / Coastal Landscape Evolution and the Archaeological Record / Coastal Landscape Reconstruction 7. The Postburial Disturbance af Archaeological Site Contexts: Cryoturbation / Argilliturbation / Graviturbation / Deformation / Other Physical Disturbances / Floralturbation / Faunalturbation 8. Geoarchaeological Research Appendix A: Geoarchaeological Studies Illustrating the Effects of Fluvial Landscape Evolution on the Archaeological Record Appendix B: Geoarchaeological Studies Illustrating Site-Specific Synchronic and Diachronic Alluvial Landscape Reconstructions Appendix C: Geoarchaeological Studies Illustrating Regional Synchronic and Diachronic Alluvial Landscape Reconstructions
Download or read book Geoarchaeology in Action written by Charles French and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-06-27 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geoarchaeology in Action provides much-needed 'hands on' methodologies to assist anyone conducting or studying geoarchaeological investigations on sites and in landscapes, irrespective of date, place and environment. The book sets out the essential features of geoarchaeological practice and geomorphological processes, and is deliberately aimed at the archaeologist as practitioner in the field. It explains the basics - what can be expected, what approaches may be taken, and what outcomes might be forthcoming, and asks what we can reasonably expect a micromorphological approach to archaeological contexts, data and problems to tell us. The twelve case studies are taken from Britain, Europe and the Near East. They illustrate how past landscape change can be discovered and deciphered whether you are primarily a digger, environmentalist or soil micromorphologist. Based on the author's extensive experience of investigating buried and eroded landscapes, the book develops new ways of looking at conventional models of landscape change. With an extensive glossary, bibliography and more than 100 illustrations it will be an essential text and reference tool for students, academics and professionals.
Download or read book Space Time and Archaeological Landscapes written by Jaqueline Rossignol and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last 20 years have witnessed a proliferation of new approaches in archaeolog ical data recovery, analysis, and theory building that incorporate both new forms of information and new methods for investigating them. The growing importance of survey has meant an expansion of the spatial realm of traditional archaeological data recovery and analysis from its traditional focus on specific locations on the landscape-archaeological sites-to the incorporation of data both on-site and off-site from across extensive regions. Evolving survey methods have led to experiments with nonsite and distributional data recovery as well as the critical evaluation of the definition and role of archaeological sites in data recovery and analysis. In both survey and excavation, the geomorphological analysis of land scapes has become increasingly important in the analysis of archaeological ma terials. Ethnoarchaeology-the use of ethnography to sharpen archaeological understanding of cultural and natural formation processes-has concentrated study on the formation processes underlying the content and structure of archae ological deposits. These actualistic studies consider patterns of deposition at the site level and the material results of human organization at the regional scale. Ethnoarchaeological approaches have also affected research in theoretical ways by expanding investigation into the nature and organization of systems of land use per se, thus providing direction for further study of the material results of those systems.
Download or read book Archaeological Landscape Evolution written by Mike T. Carson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-06-17 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Landscapes have been fundamental to the human experience world-wide and throughout time, yet how did we as human beings evolve or co-evolve with our landscapes? By answering this question, we can understand our place in the complex, ever-changing world that we inhabit. This book guides readers on a journey through the concurrent processes of change in an integrated natural-cultural history of a landscape. While outlining the general principles for global application, a richly illustrated case is offered through the Mariana Islands in the northwest tropical Pacific and furthermore situated in a larger Asia-Pacific context for a full comprehension of landscape evolution at variable scales. The author examines what happened during the first time when human beings encountered the world’s Remote Oceanic environment in the Mariana Islands about 3500 years ago, followed by a continuous sequence of changing sea level, climate, water resources, forest composition, human population growth, and social dynamics. This book provides a high-resolution and long-term view of the complexities of landscape evolution that affect all of us today.
Download or read book Landscape archaeology between art and science written by E.B. Guttmann-Bond and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Researchers in landscape archaeology use two different definitions of landscape. One definition (landscape as territory) is used by the processual archaeologists, earth scientists, and most historical geographers within this volume. By contrast, post-processual archaeologists, new cultural geographers and anthropologists favour a more abstract definition of landscape, based on how it is perceived by the observer. Both definitions are addressed in this book, with 35 papers that are presented here and that are divided into six themes: 1) How did landscape change?; 2) Improving temporal, chronological and transformational frameworks; 3) Linking landscapes of lowlands with mountainous areas; 4) Applying concepts of scale; 5) New directions in digital prospection and modelling techniques, and 6) How will landscape archaeology develop in the future? This volume demonstrates a worldwide interest in landscape archaeology, and the research presented here draws upon and integrates the humanities and sciences. This interdisciplinary approach is rapidly gaining support in new regions where such collaborations were previously uncommon.
Download or read book Landscape of the Mind written by John F. Hoffecker and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Landscape of the Mind, John F. Hoffecker explores the origin and growth of the human mind, drawing on archaeology, history, and the fossil record. He suggests that, as an indirect result of bipedal locomotion, early humans developed a feedback relationship among their hands, brains, and tools that evolved into the capacity to externalize thoughts in the form of shaped stone objects. When anatomically modern humans evolved a parallel capacity to externalize thoughts as symbolic language, individual brains within social groups became integrated into a "neocortical Internet," or super-brain, giving birth to the mind. Noting that archaeological traces of symbolism coincide with evidence of the ability to generate novel technology, Hoffecker contends that human creativity, as well as higher order consciousness, is a product of the superbrain. He equates the subsequent growth of the mind with human history, which began in Africa more than 50,000 years ago. As anatomically modern humans spread across the globe, adapting to a variety of climates and habitats, they redesigned themselves technologically and created alternative realities through tools, language, and art. Hoffecker connects the rise of civilization to a hierarchical reorganization of the super-brain, triggered by explosive population growth. Subsequent human history reflects to varying degrees the suppression of the mind's creative powers by the rigid hierarchies of nationstates and empires, constraining the further accumulation of knowledge. The modern world emerged after 1200 from the fragments of the Roman Empire, whose collapse had eliminated a central authority that could thwart innovation. Hoffecker concludes with speculation about the possibility of artificial intelligence and the consequences of a mind liberated from its organic antecedents to exist in an independent, nonbiological form.
Download or read book Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes written by Marcy Rockman and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A series of case studies examines the archaeological evidence for and interpretations of landscape learning from the movement of the first pre-modern humans into Europe to the English colonists at Jamestown.
Download or read book A Handbook of Geoarchaeological Approaches to Settlement Sites and Landscapes written by Charles French and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Geoarchaeology is a major branch of archaeological science at the interfaces between geology, geography and archaeology, involving the combined study of archaeological, soil and geomorphological records and the recognition of how natural, climatic and human-induced processes alter landscapes. The formation and modification of past soils, and occupation sequences can be examined primarily through the use of soil micromorphological techniques and various physical and geo-chemical techniques. This short text aims to explain some of the basics of geoarchaeological approaches and research design used to tackle the investigation of landscapes and settlement archaeology, and the application of soil micromorphology to archaeological situations. The intention is to present a basic handbook of good practice, with case studies and examples, that any archaeologist or aspiring geoarchaeologist can use.
Download or read book Handbook of Landscape Archaeology written by Bruno David and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-03 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 80 archaeologists from four continents create a benchmark volume of the ideas and practices of landscape archaeology, covering the theoretical and the practical, the research and conservation, and encasing the term in a global framework.
Download or read book Earth Sciences and Archaeology written by Paul Goldberg and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together contributions from an experienced group of archaeologists and geologists whose common objective is to present thorough and current reviews of the diverse ways in which methods from the earth sciences can contribute to archaeological research. Many areas of research are addressed here, including artifact analysis and sourcing, landscape reconstruction and site formation analysis, soil micromorphology and geophysical exploration of buried sites.
Download or read book Landscape Evolution Revealed by Archaeological Excavations at Peskeomskut written by Kathryn Curran and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Late Quaternary Landscape Evolution of the Swale Ure Washlands North Yorkshire written by D. R. Bridgland and published by Oxbow Books Limited. This book was released on 2011 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reporting on a multi-disciplinary project this book seeks to reconstruct the history since the last glaciation of the area between and including the middle reaches of the Rivers Swale and Ure in Yorkshire. Included in this history are both natural changes, determined from studies of landforms and sediments, and human-induced changes, recorded in archaeological and geo-archaeological records. The work is set in the context of previous research and pre-existing knowledge, outlined in an introductory chapter. Key methods used include geomorphological mapping and the study of sediment exposures, both aimed at reconstructing the final phases of glaciation and then the melting of the ice and its replacement by the post-glacial rivers, as well as the use of fossil materials to reconstruct the post-glacial record, both of natural change and increasing anthropogenic impacts. Particular emphasis is given to pollen analyses, with supplementary data from plant macro-fossils, molluscs, insects and vertebrates, the whole being constrained by some 57 new radiocarbon dates. The penultimate of the five chapters provides an overview of the archaeological record from the study area, while in the final chapter the work is synthesized and placed in a wider national and international context. The detailed geomorphological mapping has provided an improved understanding of the interactions of the various ice bodies during the Last Glacial, notably the Pennine ice from Wensleydale and its coalescence with the larger Vale of York ice-sheet. Also, by combining data from the various localities studied, the palaeo-ecological work provides an unusually complete record of environmental change from deglaciation to post-Medieval times. The text is copiously illustrated and an accompanying CD provides a high-resolution electronic copy of the geomorphological map, as well as written reports on the radiocarbon dating and on attempted OSL and amino-acid dating, colour versions of some of the illustrations and other archival material.
Download or read book Cultural Resources Inventory of Caltrans District 10 Rural Conventional Highways written by Jeffrey Rosenthal and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Landscapes of Human Evolution written by James Cole and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2020-02-13 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fourteen papers are presented here in honour of John Gowlett. John has a wide range of research interests primarily focused on the human genus Homo and is a world leader in understanding the cognitive and behavioural preconditions necessary for the emergence of complex behaviours such as language and art.
Download or read book Settlement Society and Cognition in Human Evolution written by Fiona Susan Coward and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-26 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a narrative of early hominin evolution, linking material aspects of the early archaeological record with social, cognitive and symbolic landscapes.
Download or read book Evolutionary and Interpretive Archaeologies written by Ethan Cochrane and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of original articles compares various key archaeological topics—agency, violence, social groups, diffusion—from evolutionary and interpretive perspectives. These two strands represent the major current theoretical poles in the discipline. By comparing and contrasting the insights they provide into major archaeological themes, this volume demonstrates the importance of theoretical frameworks in archaeological interpretations. Chapter authors discuss relevant Darwinian or interpretive theory with short archaeological and anthropological case studies to illustrate the substantive conclusions produced. The book will advance debate and contribute to a better understanding of the goals and research strategies that comprise these distinct research traditions.
