Geoarchaeology : the human-environmental approach / Carlos Cordova.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cordova, Carlos E., 1965- author.

Series:

Environmental history and global change series ; 8.

Environmental history and global change series ; 8

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Archaeological geology.

Physical Description:

xxi, 294 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : I.B. Tauris, 2018.

Contents:

1 The Nature of Geoarchaeology p. 5

The nature of geoarchaeology and its practitioners p. 5

The three major traditions in geoarchaeology p. 8

The field and its status in the scientific realm p. 11

Practice, training, and the rapidly evolving subfields p. 16

2 Theoretical and Methodological Foundations p. 22

Theory in geoarchaeology p. 22

The geoarchaeological method p. 25

Geoarchaeological models of inquiry and interpretation p. 28

Reconstructing and reproducing the past p. 32

The explanation of a complex and chaotic world p. 36

3 The Geoarchaeological Record: Concept and Contexts p. 38

An epistemological background p. 38

An all-inclusive geoarchaeological record p. 40

The contextual levels: Site, setting, landscape, and environment p. 44

The interpretation of the record p. 51

4 The Geoarchaeological Record: Interpretation Issues p. 56

Visualizing time, causality, and context p. 56

Causality in natural and cultural transform processes p. 61

Time-transgressive phenomena in the record p. 62

Archaeological visibility, invisibility, and absence p. 64

The virtues of off-site geoarchaeology p. 66

Legacy effects, relicts, and palimpsests p. 67

Modern analogs, reference analogs, and modern references p. 70

Sampling and interpretation of the record p. 71

Correlation and its issues p. 72

5 The Human-Environmental Tradition in Geoarchaeology p. 75

The ecological paradigm p. 75

The ecological context in geoarchaeology p. 77

Geoarchaeology since Archaeology as Human Ecology p. 81

Global climate change and the rise of the Anthropocene p. 82

Perspectives on the human and non-human worlds p. 84

Geoarchaeology and environmental history p. 86

6 Geoarchaeology and Human Evolution p. 88

Geology, climate changes, and biogeography p. 91

Geoarchaeology in paleoanthropologies research p. 94

Contexts and issues p. 95

Case 6.1 Context and scale in the Olduvai hommin record p. 101

7 Geoarchaeology and the Anthropization of the World p. 104

The proto-anthropic period as a "gray zone" p. 104

Geoarchaeology and the pre- and proto-anthropic periods p. 108

Case 7.1 Between paleoontological and archaeological sites: Geoarchaeological issues in Pre-Clovis mammoth localities p. 110

Case 7.2 The geoarchaeology of early Australian human environments at Lake Mungo p. 117

8 The Geoarchaeology of Hunter-Gatherer Landscapes p. 122

Hunter-gatherer societies and their environmental contexts p. 122

Geoarchaeological approaches to hunter-gatherer landscapes p. 125

Case 8.1 Epipaleolithic hunter-gatherers of the Eastern Levant: Sites, settings, and landscapes in a rapidly changing environment p. 126

Case 8.2 The geoarchaeology of the Archaic period in the Great Plains of North America p. 132

9 The Record of Early Agriculture and its Diffusion p. 137

Agricultural beginnings: Contextual models p. 138

Neolithic impacts on the environment at different scales p. 139

Geoarchaeological contexts and research strategies p. 140

Case 9.1 Geoarchaeology of two Near Eastern Neolithic settlements: Ain Ghazal and Ain Abu-Nukhaila, and the first agricultural environmental crisis p. 141

Case 9.2 The arrival of pastoralism around Lake Ngami: Records from sites and lake sediments p. 149

10 Complex Societal-Environmental Systems and the Collapse Phenomenon p. 152

Complex societal-environmental systems p. 152

The collapse phenomenon p. 153

Research contexts p. 157

Case 10.1 Ancient sustainability, risks, management, and centralization in large river basins: Three examples p. 158

Case 10.2 The Classic Maya collapse and the degradation of soils in the Maya lowlands: Geoarchaeological models of landscape transformation p. 162

11 The Geoarchaeology of Rural Landscapes p. 168

The rural landscape: Concepts and environmental approaches p. 168

Geoarchaeological strategies in ancient rural contexts p. 171

Case 11.1 The Ancient Greek rural landscape in southwestern Crimea p. 172

Case 11.2 Xaltocan: The geoarchaeology of a complex lacustrine society before Tenochtitlan p. 178

12 Human-Environmental Approaches to Soils and Paleosols p. 183

Thematic approaches to paleosols p. 184

Natural and anthropic spectra in soil formation p. 187

Case 12.1 Pastureland, cropland, and other past human activities in the geoarchaeological record below Brussels: A look into urban dark earths p. 190

Case 12.2 The understated human influence on North American prairie soils: The concept of bison paleopastures p. 193

13 The Geoarchaeology of Natural Disasters p. 199

Natural disasters in the human-environmental context p. 199

Geoarchaeological approaches to natural disasters p. 200

Contextual levels and issues of interpretation p. 202

Case 13.1 The Xitle Volcano catastrophe and its impact on the Preclassic and Classic environmental contexts in the Basin of Mexico p. 203

Case 13.2 The geoarchaeological record of Hurricane Katrina's disaster in New Orleans p. 210

14 Environmental Crises in the Geoarchaeological Record p. 215

Environmental crises and their relation to societal collapse p. 215

What do environmental crises look like in the geoarchaeological record? p. 218

Case 14.1 The Old World environmental crisis at the end of the Third Millennium BC as seen in the degradation of Levantine flood plains p. 219

Case 14.2 The Dust Bowl in the (future) geoarchaeological record of the Great Plains of North America p. 223

15 Native and Colonial Landscapes p. 228

Human-environmental interactions in the context of colonial encounters p. 229

Environmental response and native and non-native legacies in the landscape p. 230

Case 15.1 The Spanish colonial land system on an Aztec landscape: An example from the Basin of Mexico p. 231

Case 15.2 The transformation of the South African landscapes through colonial encounters: A proposal for researching the geoarchaeological record p. 234

16 Geoarchaeology and Modern Traditional Societies p. 239

Definition of concepts and research fields p. 239

Ethnogeoarchaeology: Definition and scope p. 241

Case 16.1 Modern and ancient irrigation systems in southern Mexico p. 245

17 Geoarchaeology of the Contemporary Past p. 252

The contemporary past defined p. 252

Human-environmental relations as continuous processes p. 253

Towards a geoarchaeology of the contemporary past p. 254

Case 17.1 The legacies of the Soviet period in the geoarchaeological record: The Crimean case p. 256.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-290) and index.

ISBN:

1788313011

9781788313018

OCLC:

1008980594