C. Reid Ferring

Earth sciences and archaeology

Preface P. Goldberg, et al. 1. Quaternary Geoscience in Archaeology T. Holliday. 2. A Review of Site Formation Processes and Their Relevance to Geoarchaeology J.K. Stein. 3. Evaluating Causality if Landscape Change: Examples from Alluviation C. Frederick. 4. Geoarchaeology in Alluvial Landscapes C.R. Ferring. 5. A Geomorphological Approach to Reconstructing Archaeological Settlement Patterns Based on Surficial Artifact Distribution: Re-placing Humans on the Landscape L. Wells. 6. Archaeoseismology: Shaking Out the History of Humans and Earthquakes J.S. Noller. 7. Use and Analysis of Soils by Archaeologists and Geoscientists: A North American Perspective R.D. Mandel, E.A. Bettis. 8. Micro-facies Analysis Assisting Archaeological Stratigraphy M.-A. Courty. 9. The Soil Micromorphologist as Team Player: A Multianalytical Approach to the Study of European Microstratigraphy R. Macphail, J. Cruise. 10. Buried Artifacts in Sandy Soils: Techniques for Evaluating Pedoturbation versus Sedimentation D. Leigh. 11. The Role of Petrography in the Study of Archaeological Ceramics J.B. Stoltman. 12. Microartifacts S.C. Sherwood. 13. Current Practices In Archaeogeophysics: Magnetics, Resistivity, Conductivity, and Ground Penetrating Radar K.L. Kvamme. 14. Beyond C14 Dating: A Users Guide to Long-range Dating Methods in Archaeology W.J. Rink. 15. Stable Carbon and Oxygen Isotopes in Soils: Applications for Archaeological Research L.C. Nordt. 16. Sourcing Lithic Artifacts by Instrumental Analyses N. Herz. 17. A Personal View of Earth Sciences Contribution to Archaeology O. Bar-Yosef. Index.

Geoarchaeology in Alluvial Landscapes

This chapter is a discussion of geoarchaeology in fluvial environments ranging from temperate to arid. This environmental framework is chosen because of the striking differences in fluvial systems that pertain to alluvial records across different environments. The archaeological objectives in these different settings may differ slightly, owing to unique or specialized forms of adaptation in different environments; for example, the use of irrigation. But in the main, it is the characteristics of alluvial landforms, deposits, and soils that vary across bioclimatic clines, rather than the kinds of archaeological questions and problems that are pursued there. In this sense, geoarchaeological methods employed for defining stratigraphic frameworks, dating deposits and sites, and reconstructing environments and site formation histories are not specific to certain bioclimatic settings.

Defining the provenance of red slipped pottery from Texas and Oklahoma by petrographic methods

Ceramics are among the most important artifacts that archaeologists use to reconstruct patterns of prehistoric trade and exchange. Petrographic analysis of ceramic thin-sections, in addition to providing detailed technological data, enables the identification of sand-tempering agents. These raw materials are potentially important evidence for ceramic provenance, assuming that such common materials themselves would not have been traded. Here we apply methods developed by sedimentary petrographers to the problem of determining the provenance of Red Slipped sherds from late Prehistoric (c. AD 1000–1400) sites in the Caddoan area and contemporaneous Plains Village sites. Modal frequencies of different kinds of quartz, feldspars and lithic grains are used to construct several triangular graphs that reveal compositional patterns indicative of provenance. Sherds from the Plains Village sites exhibit higher frequencies of lithic grains, feldspars and polycrystalline quartz relative to the sherds from sites in eastern Texas and eastern Oklahoma. While anomalous sherds were identified, the longstanding assumption that Red Slipped sherds in Plains Village contexts were traded from the Caddoan area is not supported by these data. These methods have strong application potentials for other, geologically diverse portions of North America.