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Yurii B. Serikov - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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last glacial ecology and Geoarchaeology of the central trans ural area the sosva river upper palaeolithic complex western siberia
Boreas, 2011Co-Authors: Jiri Chlachula, Yurii B. SerikovAbstract:Chlachula, J. & Serikov, Y. B. 2010: Last glacial ecology and Geoarchaeology of the Central Trans-Ural area: the Sosva River Upper Palaeolithic Complex, western Siberia. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2010.00166.x. ISSN 0300-9483. Quaternary and Geoarchaeology studies from the eastern limits of the Ural Mountains provide multiple lines of evidence of the Palaeolithic peopling of this geographically marginal and still poorly explored territory of western Siberia following the mid-last glacial (MIS 3) warming. A complex of investigated open-air localities in the Sosva River basin (the north-central Trans-Ural area) at the periphery of the western Siberian Plain, distinguished by very high concentrations of Pleistocene megafaunal remains previously regarded as ‘mammoth cemeteries’, indicate, in conjunction with the associated diagnostic ivory/bone and stone industry, open occupation sites during the Last Glacial (MIS 2). Fossil faunal remains, dominated by mammoth (98%) together with bird and fish species, indicate various methods of exploitation of the Late Pleistocene natural resources and successful behavioural adaptation to the last glacial sub-polar tundra-steppe environment. The taphonomy and composition of the well-preserved skeletal remains from the main occupation sites suggest both active hunting and anthropogenic ‘scavenging’ practices. The contextual geology and the cultural and biotic multi-proxy records from the Trans-Ural Upper Palaeolithic Complex provide new insights into the timing and palaeoecological conditions of the Pleistocene human occupation of north-central Asia.
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Last glacial ecology and Geoarchaeology of the Central Trans‐Ural area: the Sosva River Upper Palaeolithic Complex, western Siberia
Boreas, 2010Co-Authors: Jiri Chlachula, Yurii B. SerikovAbstract:Chlachula, J. & Serikov, Y. B. 2010: Last glacial ecology and Geoarchaeology of the Central Trans-Ural area: the Sosva River Upper Palaeolithic Complex, western Siberia. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2010.00166.x. ISSN 0300-9483. Quaternary and Geoarchaeology studies from the eastern limits of the Ural Mountains provide multiple lines of evidence of the Palaeolithic peopling of this geographically marginal and still poorly explored territory of western Siberia following the mid-last glacial (MIS 3) warming. A complex of investigated open-air localities in the Sosva River basin (the north-central Trans-Ural area) at the periphery of the western Siberian Plain, distinguished by very high concentrations of Pleistocene megafaunal remains previously regarded as ‘mammoth cemeteries’, indicate, in conjunction with the associated diagnostic ivory/bone and stone industry, open occupation sites during the Last Glacial (MIS 2). Fossil faunal remains, dominated by mammoth (98%) together with bird and fish species, indicate various methods of exploitation of the Late Pleistocene natural resources and successful behavioural adaptation to the last glacial sub-polar tundra-steppe environment. The taphonomy and composition of the well-preserved skeletal remains from the main occupation sites suggest both active hunting and anthropogenic ‘scavenging’ practices. The contextual geology and the cultural and biotic multi-proxy records from the Trans-Ural Upper Palaeolithic Complex provide new insights into the timing and palaeoecological conditions of the Pleistocene human occupation of north-central Asia.
Jiri Chlachula - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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last glacial ecology and Geoarchaeology of the central trans ural area the sosva river upper palaeolithic complex western siberia
Boreas, 2011Co-Authors: Jiri Chlachula, Yurii B. SerikovAbstract:Chlachula, J. & Serikov, Y. B. 2010: Last glacial ecology and Geoarchaeology of the Central Trans-Ural area: the Sosva River Upper Palaeolithic Complex, western Siberia. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2010.00166.x. ISSN 0300-9483. Quaternary and Geoarchaeology studies from the eastern limits of the Ural Mountains provide multiple lines of evidence of the Palaeolithic peopling of this geographically marginal and still poorly explored territory of western Siberia following the mid-last glacial (MIS 3) warming. A complex of investigated open-air localities in the Sosva River basin (the north-central Trans-Ural area) at the periphery of the western Siberian Plain, distinguished by very high concentrations of Pleistocene megafaunal remains previously regarded as ‘mammoth cemeteries’, indicate, in conjunction with the associated diagnostic ivory/bone and stone industry, open occupation sites during the Last Glacial (MIS 2). Fossil faunal remains, dominated by mammoth (98%) together with bird and fish species, indicate various methods of exploitation of the Late Pleistocene natural resources and successful behavioural adaptation to the last glacial sub-polar tundra-steppe environment. The taphonomy and composition of the well-preserved skeletal remains from the main occupation sites suggest both active hunting and anthropogenic ‘scavenging’ practices. The contextual geology and the cultural and biotic multi-proxy records from the Trans-Ural Upper Palaeolithic Complex provide new insights into the timing and palaeoecological conditions of the Pleistocene human occupation of north-central Asia.
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Last glacial ecology and Geoarchaeology of the Central Trans‐Ural area: the Sosva River Upper Palaeolithic Complex, western Siberia
Boreas, 2010Co-Authors: Jiri Chlachula, Yurii B. SerikovAbstract:Chlachula, J. & Serikov, Y. B. 2010: Last glacial ecology and Geoarchaeology of the Central Trans-Ural area: the Sosva River Upper Palaeolithic Complex, western Siberia. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2010.00166.x. ISSN 0300-9483. Quaternary and Geoarchaeology studies from the eastern limits of the Ural Mountains provide multiple lines of evidence of the Palaeolithic peopling of this geographically marginal and still poorly explored territory of western Siberia following the mid-last glacial (MIS 3) warming. A complex of investigated open-air localities in the Sosva River basin (the north-central Trans-Ural area) at the periphery of the western Siberian Plain, distinguished by very high concentrations of Pleistocene megafaunal remains previously regarded as ‘mammoth cemeteries’, indicate, in conjunction with the associated diagnostic ivory/bone and stone industry, open occupation sites during the Last Glacial (MIS 2). Fossil faunal remains, dominated by mammoth (98%) together with bird and fish species, indicate various methods of exploitation of the Late Pleistocene natural resources and successful behavioural adaptation to the last glacial sub-polar tundra-steppe environment. The taphonomy and composition of the well-preserved skeletal remains from the main occupation sites suggest both active hunting and anthropogenic ‘scavenging’ practices. The contextual geology and the cultural and biotic multi-proxy records from the Trans-Ural Upper Palaeolithic Complex provide new insights into the timing and palaeoecological conditions of the Pleistocene human occupation of north-central Asia.
Simon Holdaway - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Geoarchaeology of Aboriginal Landscapes in Semi-arid Australia
2014Co-Authors: Simon Holdaway, Patricia FanningAbstract:This book provides readers with a unique understanding of the ways in which Aboriginal people interacted with their environment in the past at one particular location in western New South Wales. It also provides a statement showing how Geoarchaeology should be conducted in a wide range of locations throughout Australia. One of the key difficulties faced by all those interested in the interaction between humans and their environment in the past is the complex array of processes acting over different spatial and temporal scales. The authors take account of this complexity by integrating three key areas of study – geomorphology, geochronology and archaeology – applied at a landscape scale, with the intention of understanding the record of how Australian Aboriginal people interacted with the environment through time and across space. This analysis is based on the results of archaeological research conducted at the University of New South Wales Fowlers Gap Arid Zone Research Station between 1999 and 2002 as part of the Western New South Wales Archaeology Program. The interdisciplinary geoarchaeological program was targeted at expanding the potential offered by archaeological deposits in western New South Wales, Australia. The book contains six chapters: the first two introduce the study area, then three data analysis chapters deal in turn with the geomorphology, geochronology and archaeology of Fowlers Gap Station. A final chapter considers the results in relation to the history of Aboriginal occupation of Fowlers Gap Station, as well as the insights they provide into Aboriginal ways of life more generally. Analyses are well illustrated through the tabulation of results and the use of figures created through Geographic Information System software. Winner of the 2015 Australian Archaeology Association John Mulvaney Book Award
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Geoarchaeology in Australia: understanding human–environment interactions
Geological Society London Special Publications, 2010Co-Authors: Simon Holdaway, Patricia C. FanningAbstract:This paper reviews the long history of interaction between scientists working in geomorphology, stratigraphy, sedimentology and chronology and those working in archaeology to understand past human–environment interactions in Australia. Despite this close collaboration, differentiating environmental impacts from the influence of human behaviour has proven difficult in research on key topics such as the causes of megafauna extinction, the significance of fire, and the impact of climatic shifts such as the El Nino–Southern Oscillation. Geoarchaeological research focused on depositional environments and post-depositional change in western New South Wales, Australia, provides important examples of how processes acting over different temporal scales affect archaeological deposits. The archaeological record is in some places discontinuous in time because geomorphological activity has removed the record of particular time periods, and it is discontinuous in space because it is preserved only in places that are geomorphologically relatively inactive. Important inferences concerning past human behaviours may be drawn from the record, but the processes responsible for both the presence and absence of the record must be considered. More attention needs to be given to ensuring that datasets with a similar temporal resolution are compared if the causes for behavioural changes in the past are to be correctly understood. Geoarchaeology refers to the application of the geosciences to solve research problems in archaeology (Butzer 1982; Pollard 1999). Although the term was first used relatively recently (Renfrew in Davidson & Shackley 1976), interaction between the geosciences and archaeology goes back to the early nineteenth century, when geology and prehistoric archaeology developed essentially in parallel (Pollard 1999). Other terms such as archaeogeology, archaeological geology and archaeometry have also been used in the same context, although the differences in meaning between them are considered to be trivial (Herz & Garrison 1998). In this paper, the term Geoarchaeology refers to archaeological studies concerned with geomorphology, pedology, stratigraphy, sedimentology and chronology (e.g. Gladfelter 1977; Pollard 1999). Strong interdisciplinary activities have characterized Australian archaeology since its foundation, with geologists, geomorphologists and pedologists making important site-specific contributions to a number of ‘classic’ studies of archaeological research (Shawcross & Kaye 1980; Hughes & Sullivan 1982). However, Geoarchaeology has had little recognition as a distinct sub-discipline of either archaeology or geology in Australian universities, with most archaeology being taught in social, rather than natural, science faculties. Despite this, many contemporary archaeological studies in Australia incorporate geological and geomorphological investigations of archaeological materials and their landscape settings. Hughes & Sullivan (1982) reviewed Australian Geoarchaeology in the proceedings of the first Australasian archaeometry conference held at the Australian Museum in January 1982 (Ambrose & Duerden 1982). The majority of papers at this and later conferences focused on the geoscientific applications to archaeology more commonly recognized as archaeometry, such as the chemistry, provenance and dating of artefacts and archaeological sediments, and conservation of archaeological materials (e.g. Ambrose & Mummery 1987; Fankhauser & Bird 1993). However, there were sufficient papers with a geoarchaeological theme for Hughes & Sullivan (1982) to identify two main groupings: those drawing on the methods and theories of geomorphology, geology and pedology that were largely site-specific in approach, and those drawing additionally on the geographical sciences with a regional focus, utilizing a wide range of environmental and spatial approaches. From the first group, they reviewed investigations of the stratigraphy and chronology of rockshelter sites, the nature and sources of raw materials for stone artefact manufacture, and rock art conservation studies. Two further areas of investigation characterized the second group, namely palaeoenvironmental and From: Bishop, P. & Pillans, B. (eds) Australian Landscapes. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 346, 71–85. DOI: 10.1144/SP346.6 0305-8719/10/$15.00 # The Geological Society of London 2010. chronological investigations of places such as Lake Mungo and river terraces in Victoria, and the impact of Pleistocene and Holocene environmental changes, more closely reflecting the way in which Butzer’s landmark volume on Geoarchaeology, Environment and Archaeology (Butzer 1971), was interpreted in Australia. Published in the same year as Butzer’s work, Mulvaney & Golson (1971) brought together geologists, geomorphologists, biologists and archaeologists in the volume Aboriginal Man and Environment in Australia, to discuss the relationship between humans and the environment. The result was a series of papers that discussed aspects of palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and chronology. Few of the papers, however, dealt specifically with the integration of environmental and archaeological data in ways consistent with Geoarchaeology. As Allen (1992) commented some 20 years later, most of the participants limited themselves to discussion of their own discipline, grappling with the combination of a human presence in Australia that was then thought to be at least 20 000 years old and a range of new techniques that were changing the nature of their own specializations as well as bringing their subject matter closer to that of interest to archaeologists. In Naive Lands, published 20 years later (Dodson 1992), theoretical changes in archaeology had moved the more ecologically minded archaeologists closer to the concerns of Quaternarists. Levels of integration between archaeology and natural science had increased dramatically, as had the body of knowledge concerning the Quaternary. Pancontinental models of cultural change were replaced by a concern with more local sequences, evidenced most clearly in archaeology by the rejection of universal typological schemes for stone artefact classification. The debate concerning chronology was no longer about a 20 000 years sequence but one at least twice that length. Yet, in summing up the Naive Lands volume, Allen (1992) noted that the various disciplines still continued to maintain their own theoretical positions, methods and intellectual agendas. Whereas archaeologists were more interested in environmental explanations than was apparent in the Mulvaney & Golson (1971) volume, Allen felt that natural scientists were less inclined to seek cultural explanations for their data, maintaining an interest in the environment as the locus of change. In 2010, there is ample evidence that natural scientists seek out human, as well as natural, explanations for environmental changes. Both of the important debates about human–environment interactions in Australia, the cause(s) of megafaunal extinction (e.g. Gillespie et al. 1978; Dodson et al. 1992, 1993; Baynes 1999; Field & Dodson 1999; Miller et al. 1999; Roberts et al. 2001; Gillespie 2002; Johnson 2005; Trueman et al. 2005; Wroe & Field 2006) and the human use of fire to modify the environment (e.g. Jones 1968, 1969; Horton 1982; Head 1994, 1996, 2000a; Bowman et al. 2001; Kershaw et al. 2002), continue to receive attention. To these debates may be added a renewed interest in the effect of global environmental change on regional human adaptations, seen most clearly in the work on climate drivers such as the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) (e.g. Haberle & David 2004; Turney & Hobbs 2006; Turney & Palmer 2006; Bourke et al. 2007; Cosgrove et al. 2007). However, disciplinary differences between explanations of human behaviour derived from natural sciences (i.e. environmental impacts on human behaviour) and from social sciences (i.e. cultural change) remain, and although explanations now incorporate new data, disciplinary differences would probably still be recognizable to the authors of papers in both of the previously mentioned volumes from the early 1970s and early 1990s. Here, we argue that one of the key difficulties faced by all Quaternary scientists interested in the interaction between humans and their environment is the complex array of processes acting over different spatial and temporal scales that are responsible for the formation of the archaeological record (e.g. Haberle & Chepstow-Lusty 2000), a problem identified by Dodson et al. (1992). Given that complex causation is increasingly recognized in both archaeological and environmental research, accounts of human–environmental interactions in the past must take account of the complexity of both records. The archaeological record Writing in the volume by Mulvaney & Golson (1971), Peterson presaged many of the problems that interest us today by discussing the different temporal scales at which the ethnographic and archaeological data are constructed. He suggested that archaeologists should change the nature of the questions they pose of the archaeological record. They should ignore the ‘idiosyncrasies’ of human behaviour that concerned anthropologists, and instead consider long-term aspects of the environment that acted to ‘hold fast’ basic regularities of human life. They should incorporate space by investigating areas greater in extent than those occupied by ethnographically defined bands. Long-term continuity in human–environment relationships might, Peterson (1971) argued, be determined by replacing time with space. At the time that they were written, Peterson’s proposals fitted well with contemporaneous S. J. HOLDAWAY & P. C. FANNING 72
Lucy Wilson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Human Interactions with the Geosphere: The Geoarchaeological Perspective
Geological Society London Special Publications, 2011Co-Authors: Lucy WilsonAbstract:Human impact on our environment is not a new phenomenon. For millennia, humans have been coping with – or provoking – environmental change. We have exploited, extracted, over-used, but also in many cases nurtured, the resources that the geosphere offers. Geoarchaeology studies the traces of human interactions with the geosphere and provides the key to recognizing landscape and environmental change, human impacts and the effects of environmental change on human societies. This collection of papers from around the world includes case studies and broader reviews covering the time period since before modern human beings came into existence up until the present day. To understand ourselves, we need to understand that our world is constantly changing, and that change is dynamic and complex. Geoarchaeology provides an inclusive and long-term view of human–geosphere interactions and serves as a valuable aid to those who try to determine sustainable policies for the future.
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The role of Geoarchaeology in extending our perspective
Geological Society London Special Publications, 2011Co-Authors: Lucy WilsonAbstract:Specialists and the general public alike are very aware of human impacts on our environment. Climate change, deforestation, desertification, soil erosion and other topics are currently much in the news, but human influence on the environment is not a new phenomenon. Geoarchaeologists study the traces of human interactions with the geosphere dating back to ancient times, as well as up to and in the present. Geoarchaeological investigations provide the key to recognizing landscape and environmental change within a region, as well as reconstructing ancient landscapes and palaeoclimatic regimes. Such an interdisciplinary approach makes it possible to interpret the ways that humans affect the geosphere, through such things as subsistence and resource exploitation activities, settlement location, and local and regional land-use patterns. This approach also allows us to determine the effects of environmental change on human societies. For millennia, humans have been coping with, or provoking, environmental change. We have exploited, extracted, over-used but also in many cases nurtured the resources that the geosphere offers. In the geoarchaeological perspective, human life has never been separate from nature. Geoarchaeology can thus provide a more inclusive and longer-term view of human–geosphere interactions, and serve as a valuable aid to those who try to determine sustainable policies for
Karl W. Butzer - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Integrating Geoarchaeology with Archaeology for Interdisciplinary Understanding of Societal–Environmental Relations
The Oxford Handbook of Historical Ecology and Applied Archaeology, 2016Co-Authors: Karl W. ButzerAbstract:Despite an early growth of interest in archaeological problems by the science community, systematic application of earth science in a major field project during the 1920s was not directly followed up. But by 1960 environmental archaeology had become a focus of problem formulation, experimentation, and innovation, thanks to excavations led by both Classical and Anthropological archaeologists. Adequate professional training did not follow, given disciplinary hurdles and funding traps, so that Geoarchaeology remained a multidisciplinary goal rather than an interdisciplinary commitment. This chapter lays out how the methods of Geoarchaeology can be applied to retrieving pragmatic rather than deductive data on environmental history, which can contribute to understanding global and regional problems of degradation. This offers an avenue to monitoring human impacts and environmental change, critical for understanding landscape histories, as well as for contemporary or future issues of sustainability in coupled human–environmental systems.
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Challenges for a cross-disciplinary Geoarchaeology: The intersection between environmental history and geomorphology
Geomorphology, 2008Co-Authors: Karl W. ButzerAbstract:Abstract Geoarchaeology is a growing subfield of cross-disciplinary research at the intersection between geomorphology, environmental history, and archaeology. This prospective essay does not aim to analyze the nature or evolution of geoarachaeology, or to review available techniques and methods. Instead it addresses challenges . Exciting challenges confront Geoarchaeology in the form of persistent problems that demand satisfactory solutions, despite improving skills and innovative technologies. Drawing from the full record of human history, a number of practical issues can be highlighted to explicate these challenges: (1) Open-air archaeological sites are the main object of study for the Early to Mid-Pleistocene, even though they represent open systems that raise fundamental questions about archaeo-taphonomic integrity. How were sites buried and then modified by selective preservation, horizontal or vertical disturbance, and the role of carnivores? Is it possible to determine the degree to which such sites accurately record prehistoric human behavior, prior to the Late Pleistocene when hearths and living structures lend better definition to occupation surfaces? Can non-primary open-air sites also shed light on human activities and environmental history? (2) Cave sites have long been favored by archaeologists because of the impression that they represent relatively complete and undisturbed archaeostratigraphic sequences. But serious problems also exist here in regard to the nature of accumulation and the sources of mineral and biogenic sediments in what were open systems, liable to disturbance, despite comparatively low-energy processes. (3) Less familiar are urban and other architectural sites, where processes of formation and degradation mimic natural sedimentation and erosion. Such a Geoarchaeology can be highly informative for urban processes, demographic cycles, or the intersection between sites and their surrounding landscapes. (4) Spatial components of geoarchaeological research need more systematic consideration, for locational strategies and with an appreciation that site presence or absence allows a more dynamic modeling of settlement and procurement strategies. (5) Regional settlement expansion and contraction may also inform on mosaic evolution or Pleistocene dispersals, including the Out of Africa hypothesis. (5) Finally, multiple themes connected with environmental degradation during Holocene times may open new windows to examine specific problems by objective criteria, so contributing to a wider academic discourse about long-term trends, the interfingering of climatic and land-use factors in cause-and-effect dilemmas, or the construction of future scenarios in an era of accelerating planetary change. The focus of archaeology is shifting to later ranges of prehistory so that geoarchaeologists now have a mandate to engage more directly with urban, spatial, and degradation issues. This should be met with a broader and more inclusive agenda, one that optimizes on expertise with historical geomorphology and environmental history, but in collaboration with archaeologists and other social scientists. That would sustain a more prominent role for Geoarchaeology in the university curriculum.
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Geoarchaeological approaches to the environmental history of Cyprus: explication and critical evaluation
Journal of Archaeological Science, 2007Co-Authors: Karl W. Butzer, Sarah E. HarrisAbstract:Geoarchaeology represents crossdisciplinary research focused on environmental issues and human activities, and directed primarily to social scientists. Site micro-studies are central to the enterprise, emphasizing cultural sediments and the taphonomic record of site formation, preservation, or destruction. But when expanded to include off-site investigation and watershed studies, Geoarchaeology can go well beyond stratigraphy and context, to address human impacts on the environment or long-term sustainability. This paper articulates a research agenda to evaluate the largely anecdotal premise that the island of Cyprus has been degraded by millennia of improvident land use. First, it outlines Holocene settlement, land use and forest histories, as a differentiated model against which to apply specific types of investigation, and in conjunction with other archaeological sciences. Second, it applies Quaternary-style watershed study to confront commonplace misunderstandings about possible degradation, to show that most of the slope and stream deposits on Cyprus are of Pleistocene age. Third, it switches to examples of site micro-Geoarchaeology to illustrate the possibilities of understanding detailed change. The purpose is heuristic, in the absence of many more site and off-site studies that incorporate bioarchaeology. Provisional inferences suggest that environmental damage may be limited, that even with heavy land-use stress, climatic triggers were critical to inaugurate change, and that the system may be more resilient than anticipated. Such caveats may encourage greater attention to environmental research design in ongoing and future excavation projects.