Geoarchaeology in action: Studies in soil micromorphology and landscape evolution

✍ Scribed by Paul Goldberg

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 50 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0883-6353
• DOI: 10.1002/gea.20030

✦ Synopsis

As stated in the preface "this book is a personal view about what is important in conducting geoarchaeological investigations and in landscapes, irrespective of date and place, backed up by illustrative case studies from around Britain, Europe and the Near East." The volume is indeed personal and in places very helpful in passing on strategies and skills based on years of experience. The first third of the book is more instructive in scope and provides some general insights into landscapes and soils, and the processes that form them. The remaining two-thirds of the book is composed of a number of case studies that are aimed at portraying landscape process models through a presentation of micromorphological and other environmental data.

The first chapter establishes the groundwork of what is geoarchaeology (vs. archaeological geology) and, particularly, how the subject figures into recognizing and interpreting ancient landscapes, be they of natural (e.g., eustatic sea-level change, tectonics) or anthropogenic origin (e.g., forest clearance). Chapter 2, while brief, delves into some of the basics of soil and groundwater chemistry, a knowledge of which is important in being able to understand the preservation of archaeological remains and their associated depositional and post-depositional processes. In addressing soil chemistry, one could question French's assertion that Jenny's Factors of Soil Formation and Kubiena's Soils of Europe are "two of the best textbooks available from which to obtain the basic information" (p. 10). There are other more complete, or informative and undoubtedly more recent works (e.g.