Reconstructing Patterns of Prehistoric Settlement within the Lower Connecticut River Valley Assessing the Archaeological Sensitivity of the Current Landscape (original) (raw)
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A Prehistoric Inventory of the Upper Connecticut River Valley
This manuscript provides an inventory of almost all the recorded prehistoric archaeological sites in the Connecticut River drainage basin in Vermont and New Hampshire as of 1991. I had compiled files for intended academic research but never completed it, so I prepared this manuscript and distributed to local researchers and repositories who might be interested.
Determining Prehistoric Site Locations in Southwestern Ohio: A Study in GIS Predictive Modeling
2011
This study evaluates anthropological assumptions about prehistoric human use of the landscape with a spatial analysis in a Geographical Information Science (GIS) environment. Through a multi-stage, multi-method, cross-cultural analysis, this study proves that it is possible to predict where prehistoric archaeological sites are located on a highly dynamic landscape. Using each archaeological site found within a local scale as data points, the variables of elevation, slope aspect, distance from water and soils are statically evaluated and modified using GIS. The results of this analysis proves that not only is it possible to produce a predictive model of prehistoric landscape use, but it is also possible to make conclusions about prehistoric land use strategies.
2021
This research focuses on an area deemed the Dome Analysis Area (i.e., Dome) in western South Dakota on the Black Hills National Forest. With the aid of geographic information systems (GIS) and statistics, the identification of favorable locations to analyze that may indicate where cultural resources occur will be illustrated through statistically significant associations between the presence or absence of cultural resources and specific environmental variables. The original approach proposed for this research in 2014 intended to build a model for predicting cultural site locations to facilitate land management planning activities more efficiently. In the process of formulating the model, a number of unexpected challenges were encountered that required a shift in focus to instead test for statistically significant associations between the presence or absence of cultural resources and specific environmental variables. The results of this study indicate that the sheer number of potenti...
In this study, we compiled unpublished archival documentation of archaeological site locations from the southern part of the Cuyahoga River Valley in northeastern Ohio, USA, registered at the State of Ohio Historic Preservation Office into a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database. Using digitized soil shapefiles to generate a geomorphic data layer, we assessed the spatial and temporal distribution of 79 known archaeological sites by landform association. This digital compilation indicates that Woodland period, Late Prehistoric, and Historic sites occur in most geomorphic settings along the river valley. In contrast, Paleoindian and Archaic sites only occur on Wisconsinan cut terraces and in upland interfluve settings, indicating that most of these documented sites are in primary contexts and have not been reworked. We discuss the distribution of archaeological sites in the study region as a function of various factors, including cultural activities, taphonomic processes, landform development, and the nature and extent of the original archaeological surveys. Observed spatial patterns of known sites clearly reflect local geomorphological controls; artifactual contexts from the earlier prehistoric periods are under-represented in the database. We conclude that additional site surveys, as well as the excavation and documentation of new sites in this part of Ohio, are required to understand local prehistoric economies and to ascertain patterns of culturally mediated land use.
PLOS One, 2022
We report an assessment of the ability of the Locally-Adaptive Model of Archaeological Potential (LAMAP) to estimate archaeological potential in relation to hunter-gatherer sites. The sample comprised 182 known sites in the Tanana Valley, Alaska, which was occupied solely by hunter-gatherers for about 14,500 years. To estimate archaeological potential, we employed physiographic variables such as elevation and slope, rather than variables that are known to vary on short time scales, like vegetation cover. Two tests of LAMAP were carried out. In the first, we used the location of a random selection of 90 sites from all time periods to create a LAMAP model. We then evaluated the model with the remaining 92 sites. In the second test, we built a LAMAP model from 12 sites that pre-date 10,000 cal BP. This model was then tested with sites that postdate 10,000 cal BP. In both analyses, areas predicted to have higher archaeological potential contained higher frequencies of validation sites. The performance of LAMAP in the two tests was comparable to its performance in previous tests using archaeological sites occupied by agricultural societies. Thus, the study extends the use of LAMAP to the task of estimating archaeological potential of landscapes in relation to hunter-gatherer sites.
In this study, we compiled unpublished archival documentation of archaeological site locations from the southern part of the Cuyahoga River Valley in northeastern Ohio, USA, registered at the State of Ohio Historic Preservation Office into a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database. Using digitized soil shapefiles to generate a geomorphic data layer, we assessed the spatial and temporal distribution of 79 known archaeological sites by landform association. This digital compilation indicates that Woodland period, Late Prehistoric, and Historic sites occur in most geomorphic settings along the river valley. In contrast, Paleoindian and Archaic sites only occur on Wisconsinan cut terraces and in upland interfluve settings, indicating that most of these documented sites are in primary contexts and have not been reworked. We discuss the distribution of archaeological sites in the study region as a function of various factors, including cultural activities, taphonomic processes, landform development, and the nature and extent of the original archaeological surveys. Observed spatial patterns of known sites clearly reflect local geomorphological controls; artifactual contexts from the earlier prehistoric periods are underrepresented in the database. We conclude that additional site surveys, as well as the excavation and documentation of new sites in this part of Ohio, are required to understand local prehistoric economies and to ascertain patterns of culturally mediated land use. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Archaeological predictive models are used in two main applications to 1) identify areas of cultural resource sensitivity in an unsurveyed area and 2) better understand historic and prehistoric use of a landscape. The model created here straddles these two applications, serving to predict cultural resource sensitivity in the primarily unsurveyed McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area (MCNCA), and to understand the distribution of known sites in that area. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages the NCA and its resources. The goal of this predictive model is to aid the BLM in the management of the cultural resources within the MCNCA and better understand which areas may have been important prehistorically and historically. McInnis Canyons is a relatively new national conservation area, less than 10% of it has been surveyed for cultural resources. A predictive model is extremely useful to the land managers in this case. Hopefully it will aid in decision making processes and facilitate the creation of new recreation facilities. Predictive models have been met with varying success rates. The predictive model created here was at least partially successful during initial testing, further inventory will prove its utility.
Archaeological Survey and Predictive Modeling in the York-Duncan Valley, Southeastern Arizona
Understanding environmental factors that conditioned prehistoric land use decisions near the upper Gila River in southeastern Arizona offers insights into Mimbres-Mogollon settlement patterns and supports future survey of the understudied York-Duncan Valley area. This paper incorporates a land evaluation aspect in the survey design by first identifying agriculturally productive zones, other relevant ecological variables, and Mimbres-Mogollon site preferences, and then integrating them into a geospatial information system predictive model. Model outputs are then compared to known prehistoric sites in the study area to evaluate the methodology. The model will support proposed dissertation research into prehistoric population aggregation and abandonment processes in the U.S. Southwest by analyzing how communities in Arizona’s York-Duncan Valley nucleated, and then dispersed in or abandoned the region from the end of the Early Agricultural period to the Late Prehistoric period.