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Geoarchaeology uses the techniques, methods, and concepts of the physical sciences to address archaeological questions. Examined here are the major techniques of geoarchaeology that are geared toward: discovering archaeological sites and documenting their internal structure; surveying site formation and disturbance processes; the analysis of soils and sediments; paleoenvironmental reconstruction and the impact of humans on the landscape; the physical analysis of archaeological materials; and the integration of geoarchaeology with social archaeology. Geoarchaeology must be integrated into research programs at the design, excavation, and analytical stages to be most advantageous.
Geoarchaeology: an introduction
Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 1999
Of all of the sciences utilized in modern archaeological research, that of geology has the longest history of association with archaeology. Surprisingly, perhaps, geoarchaeology as a recognized sub-discipline has taken slightly longer to establish itself than others such as bioarchaeology. There is still some uncertainty about what exactly geoarchaeology encompasses, and some differences of usage of the term between Europe and North America. This brief introduction explores some of these issues, and attempts to place the other contributions to this volume in a slightly broader context. Geoarchaeology here is used to describe the application of the geosciences to solve research problems in archaeology. The interaction between the sciences of geology and archaeology has a long and honourable history, going back to the early 19th century, when geology and prehistoric archaeology developed substantially in parallel. Conventionally, it is usual to consider primarily a subset of the geosciences as included within the term 'geoarchaeology', particularly geomorphology, sedimentology, pedology and stratigraphy. This priority perhaps reflects an observation made by Renfrew in 1976, in his introduction to one of the earliest volumes to use the term geoarchaeology (Davidson & Shackley 1976), that 'since archaeology, or at least prehistoric archaeology, recovers almost all its basic data by excavation, every archaeological problem starts as a problem in geoarchaeology' (Renfrew 1976). It also reflects the intensity of interest during the 1980s in the subject of site formation processes, to which these techniques have made a considerable contribution (e.g. Schiffer 1987). Chronology, although central to both archaeology and geology, is usually considered to be a separate sub-discipline. Opinions differ as to whether chemical analysis (of raw materials and artefacts) and geophysics should be included within the term geoarchaeology. The former, particularly in the United States, is often termed 'archaeometry', and forms a significant subset of the emerging sub-discipline known as 'archaeological chemistry' (e.g. Pollard & Heron 1996). The latter is often incorporated in the wider field of study known as remote sensing or archaeological prospection. We have taken a broad view of the word geoarchaeology here, and, as signified by the subtitle , have included a wider spectrum of geoscience techniques applied to problems in archaeology. The papers presented here are a subset of those presented at the Geoarchaeology session of the Geosciences '98 Conference, held at Keele University on 14-16 April 1998. Archaeology, geology, geoarchaeology and archaeological geology The beginnings of scientific archaeology in the 19th century are intimately tied to the parallel development of geology. This approach is personified by Sir Charles Lyell
Geoarchaeology as Geoarchaeology
Journal of Anthropological and Archaeological Sciences, 2020
Short Communication This contribution collects our reflections on the current role of Geoarcheology, an idea in which, together with many other researchers, we have been working for decades. It has seemed to us that sharing our point of view on this matter could help to maintain the debate on a scientific task that, like it or not-and as much as its predicament has not stopped growing since, from the seventies of the last century C. Renfrew, K. W. Butzer and other precursors formally coined the expression Geoarcheology and endowed it with a meaning similar to the one we currently assign to it-is still a budding discipline. As we have already stated on other occasions [1,2], we understand Butzer [3] when he considers that the main dichotomy of the current geoarchaeological research is whether its practice gives priority to technical issues or, by contrast, to its objectives. And although this observation is absolutely timely, from our point of view it really talks about of the existing dissension between an orientation conducive to a subsidiary consideration of the discipline, against another one that encourages a proactive approach, more autonomous and integral of them. Thus, this disagreement is not something specific to the current geoarchaeological praxis, but, on the contrary, it is a matter that could be considered inherent to the discipline itself since its beginning. Since the sixties of the last century [4], indeed, technical and scientific applications at the service of archaeological research not ceased to grow and diversify [5], such that auxiliary sense of the Geoarchaeology above mentioned soon became one of its main hallmarks. From there, there was but a small step to think of it as in an "auxiliary branch of Archaeology", making of the application of the concepts and methods of Earth Sciences to archaeological research its main task [6-9]. Thus, the geoarcheologists were progressively choosing among a discipline understood as an Archaeology that uses procedures other sciences in his research, that is, a Geoarchaeology as Archaeology; or a discipline understood as a Geology that finds its study subject in the archaeological sites, that is, a Geoarchaeology as Geology. However, whereas this notion of the Geoarchaeology conceived as an accessory instrument progresses in either of its two variants (Geoarchaeology as Archaeology or Geoarchaeology as Geology), a different way of understanding the role that Geoarchaeology can play in the study of History gradually emerges. Seen from the present, this other concept was not an alternative within said subaltern notion of the Geoarchaeology, but a new strategic overview from which must be consider: first, that the commonly known issues as "archaeological problems" really are geoarchaeological troubles [10], so all stratigraphic sequence concerned by human action could be read as a geoarchaeological record, because is the result, both genetic sense as chronological, of the joint action of natural and cultural processes; second, that the Geoarchaeology should only be responsible for solving geoarchaeological problems, and not of the other kind, meaning those that are derived from historically established relations between human groups and their natural environment [11]; and, lastly, that the final characterization of any human occupational context depends, ultimately, of the historical process of "anthropization" (that is, of the particular evolution of the human activity and its capacity to modify the structure and/or functioning of natural system), so that any transformed area by humans should be categorized, even from the historical perspective, as a "anthropized environment"; that is to say, as a sector of the earth's surface whose configuration and / or dynamism can be explained, at any time of historical evolution, as the result of the combination of natural and human factors [12-15]. Therefore, emphasizing the importance of the natural component of the historical process from a comprehensive perspective, the Geoarchaeology not only hopes to obtain its own interpretation of the archaeological evidence [16], but also aims to enunciate a specific scientific narrative and, consequently, have its owns subject
Geoarchaeology – A New Discipline?
DIE ERDE – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin, 2011
Geoarchaeology is an emerging scientific field at the interface between archaeological and earth sciences, with a growing and vital community in Germany. Since Butzer (1973) first introduced the term geoarchaeology, several books on this topic have been published in the past three decades: for instance,
Archaeology, Remote Sensing, Encyclopedia of Geoarchaeology, Springer
Geoarchaeology is the archaeological subfield that focuses on archaeological information retrieval and problem solving utilizing the methods of geological investigation. Archaeological recovery and analysis are already geoarchaeological in the most fundamental sense because buried remains are contained within and removed from an essentially geological context. Yet geoarchaeological research goes beyond this simple relationship and attempts to build collaborative links between specialists in archaeology and the earth sciences to produce new knowledge about past human behavior using the technical information and methods of the geosciences. The principal goals of geoarchaeology lie in understanding the relationships between humans and their environment. These goals include (1) how cultures adjust to their ecosystem through time, (2) what earth science factors were related to the evolutionary emergence of humankind, and (3) which methodological tools involving analysis of sediments and landforms, documentation and explanation of change in buried materials, and measurement of time will allow access to new aspects of the past. This encyclopedia defines terms, introduces problems, describes techniques, and discusses theory and strategy, all in a format designed to make specialized details accessible to the public as well as practitioners. It covers subjects in environmental archaeology, dating, materials analysis, and paleoecology, all of which represent different sources of specialist knowledge that must be shared in order to reconstruct, analyze, and explain the record of the human past. It will not specifically cover sites, civilizations, and ancient cultures, etc., that are better described in other encyclopedias of world archaeology.
Geoarchaeological Investigations
A Slave Who Would Be King Oral Tradition and Archaeology of the Recent Past in the Upper Senegal River Basin, 2016
As part of the SCHP, we completed a geoarchaeological study in March 2010. Research objectives of this study included (1) modeling the potential for buried archaeological sites in the areas of direct impact (ADIs) and (2) evaluating the associations of archaeological sites with geomorphic surfaces. This analysis was conceived from the outset as being integral to the SCHP, and therefore the discussion is presented below rather than in an appendix. A map of buried site sensitivity was produced for the different landforms, based on interpretations of soil development and geomorphic processes associated with various landforms and landscape positions. Buried-site probability was determined to be highest for the floodplains, but the site types located there are most likely dominated by agricultural fields, which leave few archaeological traces.
Encyclopedia of Geoarchaeology, 2016
Synonyms Gas-liquid chromatography (GLC); Gas-solid chromatography (GSC) A.S. Gilbert (ed.