{"title":"Anthropogenic impact on a seacoast landscape during the last 1300 years in central Latvia, Northeastern Europe","authors":"Normunds Stivrins, Inga Doniņa, Muntis Auns, Ansis Blaus, Merlin Liiv, Dace Steinberga, Nauris Jasiunas, Ieva Grudzinska","doi":"10.1002/gea.21961","DOIUrl":"10.1002/gea.21961","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Human-induced activities around Lake Lilaste in the central Latvian sandy coastal area have been reconstructed over a 1300-year period. We use a combination of well-established geoarchaeological research methods (<sup>14</sup>C dating, pollen, nonpollen palynomorphs, REVEALS modeling, diatoms, C/N ratio, magnetic susceptibility, loss on ignition) to study the human impact on the environment. Historical context aids focus on records of resource (e.g., timber) exploitation in the area. The continuous record of human indicator pollen and agricultural landscape suggests this area was suitable for habitation well before the studied time period, likely due to the ecosystem services it provided. Our proxy-based study, combined with historical background, reveals a significant human impact on the terrestrial environment since the 14th century. Deficiency of trees in the northern outskirts of Riga during the 17th–19th century was likely. Anthropogenic activity has led to both deforestation and change in species composition. Our paleo records indicate recognizable human-driven legacy in current seacoast landscape.</p>","PeriodicalId":55117,"journal":{"name":"Geoarchaeology-An International Journal","volume":"38 4","pages":"466-481"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41736095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nicholas Crabb, Chris Carey, Andy J. Howard, Matthew Brolly
{"title":"Lidar visualization techniques for the construction of geoarchaeological deposit models: An overview and evaluation in alluvial environments","authors":"Nicholas Crabb, Chris Carey, Andy J. Howard, Matthew Brolly","doi":"10.1002/gea.21959","DOIUrl":"10.1002/gea.21959","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Lidar has become an essential tool for the mapping and interpretation of natural and archaeological features within the landscape. It is also increasingly integrated and visualized within geoarchaeological deposit models, providing valuable topographic and stratigraphic control from the contemporary ground surface downwards. However, there is a wide range of methods available for the visualization of lidar elevation models and a review of existing research suggests that it remains unclear which are most appropriate for geoarchaeological applications. This paper addresses this issue by providing an overview and quantitative evaluation of these techniques with examples from archaeologically resource-rich alluvial environments. Owing to the relatively low-relief nature of the terrain within these temperate lowland flood plain environments, the results show that there is a small number of visualization methods that demonstrably improve the detection of geomorphological landforms that can be related to the variable distribution of archaeological resources. More specifically, a combination of Relative Elevation Models combined with Simple Local Relief Models offered an optimal approach that subsequently allows integration with deposit models. Whilst the presented examples are from a flood plain setting, deposit models are pertinent to a range of landscape contexts and the methodology applied here has wider applicability.</p>","PeriodicalId":55117,"journal":{"name":"Geoarchaeology-An International Journal","volume":"38 4","pages":"420-444"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/gea.21959","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44851925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Susan Lawrence, Peter Davies, Greg Hil, Ian Rutherfurd, James Grove, Jodi Turnbull, Ewen Silvester, Francesco Colombi, Mark Macklin
{"title":"Characterising mine wastes as archaeological landscapes","authors":"Susan Lawrence, Peter Davies, Greg Hil, Ian Rutherfurd, James Grove, Jodi Turnbull, Ewen Silvester, Francesco Colombi, Mark Macklin","doi":"10.1002/gea.21958","DOIUrl":"10.1002/gea.21958","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Industrial-scale metal mining has long been a feature of developing economies. Processing ores to recover minerals has generated large quantities of waste rock, tailings and contaminants. Mining-related deposits, along with associated soil and water geochemistry, river modifications and other environmental changes, are a product of the nature, scale and intensity of past operations. These artefacts of historical mining create anthropogenic landscapes that extend far beyond individual sites due to the dispersal of mine waste by rivers and pose enduring threats to human and ecosystem health. Their presence and significance, however, are often overlooked by heritage and environmental managers. To be acknowledged as artefacts of the historical mining industry, landscape features must be identified and characterised with reference to the human activities that triggered their formation. This requires an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates anthropogenic landscape change at a regional scale. In this paper, we integrate archaeological, geomorphological and geochemical evidence to identify and analyse mining-related changes to the Loddon River valley in Victoria, Australia. Nineteenth-century gold mining caused extensive erosion of creeks and gullies and mobilised sediments that filled channels and spread over floodplains. In addition, tailing deposits concentrated arsenic at levels significantly above environmental background conditions. Recognising these legacies of historical mining is vital to understanding mining heritage and to managing healthy rivers, environments and communities.</p>","PeriodicalId":55117,"journal":{"name":"Geoarchaeology-An International Journal","volume":"38 4","pages":"389-405"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/gea.21958","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46808824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hai Zhang, Wei Li, Andrew Bevan, Hui Wang, Fawei Liang, Yanpeng Cao, Yijie Zhuang
{"title":"Geostatistical and geoarchaeological study of Holocene floodplains and site distributions on the Sha-Ying River Basin, Central China","authors":"Hai Zhang, Wei Li, Andrew Bevan, Hui Wang, Fawei Liang, Yanpeng Cao, Yijie Zhuang","doi":"10.1002/gea.21957","DOIUrl":"10.1002/gea.21957","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Geostatistics has become a powerful method for investigating complex spatial variations of prehistoric settlements in floodplains and other geomorphological settings. A geoarchaeological drilling program that covers most of the Sha-Ying River Basin provides a rare opportunity with unusually detailed environmental data to contest and develop the geostatistics method, which proves to be essential, in combination with archaeological data, to understand long-term (9000–2500 B.P.) patterns of human inhabitation and adaption to volatile floodplain environments in eastern Central China. We analysed the variography and multivariate ordination of the borehole data and explored the complexities of landform evolution, with reference to sedimentation processes and soil development in the floodplain of the Sha-Ying River. The recurrent impact of river floods on regional landforms is manifested by spatial-autocorrelated properties over distances up to 10 km, sometimes with directional trends. We then developed a model of landform evolution through kriging and compared the model with detailed reconstruction of archaeological settlement patterns. Our results illustrate long-term socio-environmental dynamics by which human communities first populated and then adapted in diverse ways to the changing floodplain environments from the early to middle Holocene. This improved method will have far-reaching implications for future studies on similar geomorphological settings across vast floodplains of Central China and other global regions.</p>","PeriodicalId":55117,"journal":{"name":"Geoarchaeology-An International Journal","volume":"38 3","pages":"371-385"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/gea.21957","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49181481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jakub Niebieszczański, Iwona Hildebrandt-Radke, Janusz Czebreszuk, Cezary Bahyrycz, Konstantinos Vouvalidis, Georgios Syrides, Panagiotis Tsourlos, Maria Pappa, Stylianos Andreou
{"title":"Coastal changes and human occupation in the eastern part of Thessaloniki Bay: Geoarchaeological investigations of Toumba Gona","authors":"Jakub Niebieszczański, Iwona Hildebrandt-Radke, Janusz Czebreszuk, Cezary Bahyrycz, Konstantinos Vouvalidis, Georgios Syrides, Panagiotis Tsourlos, Maria Pappa, Stylianos Andreou","doi":"10.1002/gea.21954","DOIUrl":"10.1002/gea.21954","url":null,"abstract":"The Holocene marine transgression in the Aegean Sea area has significantly impacted prehistoric societies. Toumba Gona is a tell site located at the mouth of the Anthemous River, east of Thessaloniki Bay. According to earlier research, the site should be dated at most to the late stage of the Early Bronze Age. Geoarchaeological research by means of electrical resistivity tomography, vibra‐coring, sedimentological analysis, and radiocarbon dating shows, however, that the direct proximity of the site witnessed the maximum marine transgression around 3000–2500 BC and the human habitation phase before the 3rd millennium BC, before the transgression. The coastline began to recede due to the delta progradation, which resulted in the formation of extensive marshes to the south of the Toumba. The increased fluvial activity since the end of the 4th millennium BC is relatable with the progradation of the Anthemous River's bay head delta. Human occupation was recorded before and after the marine transgression thus suggesting human persistence in the coastline environment.","PeriodicalId":55117,"journal":{"name":"Geoarchaeology-An International Journal","volume":"38 4","pages":"406-419"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43530228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Simon Matthias May, Helmut Brückner, Maike Norpoth, Anna Pint, Dennis Wolf, Dominik Brill, César León Martín, Hans-Peter Stika, José Suárez Padilla, Pierre Moret, Dirce Marzoli
{"title":"Holocene coastal evolution and environmental changes in the lower Río Guadiaro valley, with particular focus on the Bronze to Iron Age harbour ‘Montilla’ of Los Castillejos de Alcorrín (Málaga, Andalusia, Spain)","authors":"Simon Matthias May, Helmut Brückner, Maike Norpoth, Anna Pint, Dennis Wolf, Dominik Brill, César León Martín, Hans-Peter Stika, José Suárez Padilla, Pierre Moret, Dirce Marzoli","doi":"10.1002/gea.21943","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21943","url":null,"abstract":"Phoenicians were the first to systematically develop the area surrounding the Strait of Gibraltar at the end of the 9th century B.C. Following pioneering studies in the Río Guadiaro estuary (Málaga/Cádiz) in the 1980s, a German‐Spanish cooperation project focussed on the role of indigenous people in the Phoenician colonisation trading networks at Los Castillejos de Alcorrín (Manilva, Málaga), one of the most important Early Iron Age settlements in southwestern Iberia. In the recent past, combined with systematic archaeological surveys, geoarchaeological research embedded in the interdisciplinary project ‘Archeostraits’ aimed at (i) deciphering palaeoenvironmental and coastal changes in the surroundings of Los Castillejos de Alcorrín throughout the mid‐ to late Holocene; (ii) constraining palaeoenvironmental conditions during early Phoenician colonisation; and (iii) better understanding human–environment interactions during the Final Bronze and Early Iron Age (i.e., end of 9th and 8th centuries B.C.). Coring transects along the Río Guadiaro allowed for differentiating successive palaeoenvironments and for establishing a chrono‐stratigraphy for the Holocene sedimentary infill of the valley. Based on these results, the deposition of shallow marine sands, overlying deltaic deposits of alternating sand and mud, and the subsequent development of lagoonal conditions in the lower Guadiaro valley took place before the Phoenicians established the first settlements along the coast.","PeriodicalId":55117,"journal":{"name":"Geoarchaeology-An International Journal","volume":"38 2","pages":"129 - 155"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/gea.21943","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50145042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tawny L. B. Tibbits, Meaghan M. Peuramaki-Brown, Marieka Brouwer Burg, Matthew A. Tibbits, Eleanor Harrison-Buck
{"title":"Using X-ray fluorescence to examine ancient Maya granite ground stone in Belize","authors":"Tawny L. B. Tibbits, Meaghan M. Peuramaki-Brown, Marieka Brouwer Burg, Matthew A. Tibbits, Eleanor Harrison-Buck","doi":"10.1002/gea.21944","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21944","url":null,"abstract":"While ubiquitous among ancient Maya sites in Mesoamerica, archaeological analysts frequently overlook the interpretive potential of ground stone tools. The ancient Maya often made these heavy, bulky tools of coarse‐grained, heterogeneous materials that are difficult to chemically source, unlike obsidian. This paper describes an application of handheld, energy‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence (XRF) to provenance ground stone artifacts (tools and architectural blocks) composed of granite: a nonhomogenous, phaneritic stone. We present a multicomponent methodology that independently tested whole‐rock, thin‐sectioned, and powdered samples by petrographic microscope, conventional, lab‐based XRF, and portable XRF units, which yielded comparable results. After establishing distinct geochemical signatures for the three geographically restricted granite plutons in Belize, we devised a field‐based XRF application on a whole rock that could replicate the compositional readings of lab‐based XRF on powdered materials with sufficient accuracy and reliability. We applied this multishot XRF technique to granite ground stone items from a range of ancient Maya sites throughout Belize; we discuss two specific case studies herein. Our results underscore the widespread potential of multishot XRF applications for determining the provenance of coarse‐grained, heterogeneous rock materials. These results can help push the boundaries from one‐dimensional, functional explanations of ground stone items to their social and ideological dimensions, alongside deeper understandings of granite resource management.","PeriodicalId":55117,"journal":{"name":"Geoarchaeology-An International Journal","volume":"38 2","pages":"156 - 173"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/gea.21944","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50118931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Katja Kothieringer, Timo Seregély, Doris Jansen, Raphael Steup, Andreas Schäfer, Karsten Lambers, Markus Fuchs
{"title":"Mid- to Late Holocene landscape dynamics and rural settlement in the uplands of northern Bavaria, Germany","authors":"Katja Kothieringer, Timo Seregély, Doris Jansen, Raphael Steup, Andreas Schäfer, Karsten Lambers, Markus Fuchs","doi":"10.1002/gea.21952","DOIUrl":"10.1002/gea.21952","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We present results from a systematic interdisciplinary study on (pre-)historic rural settlement and landscape development in an upland region of northern Bavaria, Germany. The archaeological and geoarchaeological investigations—supported by radiocarbon dating, optically stimulated luminescence dating, and palaeoecological analysis—were performed to (i) identify so far unknown prehistoric rural settlement sites, (ii) determine site-specific soil erosion from colluvial deposits, and (iii) assess the composition of woodland from on- and offsite charcoal finds. The earliest indicators of human activities from the Younger Neolithic (late 5th to early 4th millennium B.C.E.) come from colluvial deposits. Our investigations, for the first time, show Middle to Late Bronze Age (ca. 1400–800 B.C.E.), permanent rural settlement in a German central upland region, with a peak in the Late Bronze Age. Due to the varying thicknesses of Bronze Age colluvial deposits, we assume land use practices to have triggered soil erosion. From the spectrum of wood species, Maloideae, ash, and birch are regarded as successional indicators after fire clearance in that period. Settlement continued until the 5th century B.C.E. After a hiatus of 500 years, it re-flourished in the Late Roman and Migration periods (mid-3rd–5th century C.E.) and went on in the Medieval period.</p>","PeriodicalId":55117,"journal":{"name":"Geoarchaeology-An International Journal","volume":"38 2","pages":"220-245"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/gea.21952","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41423734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
José Luis Peña-Monné, María Marta Sampietro-Vattuone, Uribe Agudo Paula, Rosario García Giménez, Arsenio Muñoz, David Badia Villas, María Ángeles Magallón Botaya
{"title":"Structure, evolutionary context and chronological data of the Monforte de Moyuela Roman dam (Ebro Basin, NE of Spain)","authors":"José Luis Peña-Monné, María Marta Sampietro-Vattuone, Uribe Agudo Paula, Rosario García Giménez, Arsenio Muñoz, David Badia Villas, María Ángeles Magallón Botaya","doi":"10.1002/gea.21953","DOIUrl":"10.1002/gea.21953","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Monforte de Moyuela dam, also known as Ermita de la Virgen del Pilar dam, is a Roman reservoir built on a tributary of the Aguasvivas River (Ebro basin, Spain). A multidisciplinary study has been carried out to investigate this kind of Roman water infrastructure. It is the fifth-highest dam (16.8 m) in the Iberian Peninsula and the seventh in the Roman Empire. The initial dam was built ca. 100 B.C.–10 A.D., probably in the period of Augustus, like other nearby Roman dams. It was quickly filled due to the extreme and generalized anthropic degradation in the basin during the Roman period. During the mid-2nd century, the wall was increased in height and its final silting was dated to the early 7th century. The study of the <i>opus caementicium</i> mortars shows constructive differences between the initial and subsequent phases of the wall. These mortars provided charcoal for dating the two phases. In addition, the stratigraphic and edaphological study of the reservoir's sedimentary fill, together with the <sup>14</sup>C ages, allowed us to reconstruct the two main activity cycles and the final siltation of the dam. Subsequently, the dam broke in two phases, which created the two stepped sections located on the current valley bottom. The data obtained allowed the creation of a geomorphological map and an evolutionary model of the valley showing the main differentiated stages, from the initial construction of the dam to its final opening. Although some remains of canals downstream of the dam have been identified, the use of this dam, which remained active for several centuries, still needs to be investigated in greater detail.</p>","PeriodicalId":55117,"journal":{"name":"Geoarchaeology-An International Journal","volume":"38 4","pages":"482-509"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/gea.21953","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47549562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sylwia Skreczko, Artur Szymczyk, Krzysztof Szopa, Weronika Nadłonek
{"title":"Early medieval human–environment interaction in the context of changes in the hydrological regime in the Upper Vistula valley (Central Europe)","authors":"Sylwia Skreczko, Artur Szymczyk, Krzysztof Szopa, Weronika Nadłonek","doi":"10.1002/gea.21949","DOIUrl":"10.1002/gea.21949","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Human–environment interactions relating to changes in the hydrological system of the Upper Vistula valley are poorly understood. This valley lies in the foreland of the Transcarpathian transition, an area in Central Europe, which is crucial for the migration of people. Using palaeobotanical and geochemical analyses, archaeological data, and data on the river's fluvial activity, we retrace the sequence of environmental changes occurring in the vicinity of the bog in Strumień during the transition between the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages. The stability of changes in the river valley under the influence of human activity is also assessed. It is shown that:</p><p>\u0000 \u0000 </p>","PeriodicalId":55117,"journal":{"name":"Geoarchaeology-An International Journal","volume":"38 2","pages":"199-219"},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43620423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}