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Geoarchaeology of St. Catherines Island, Georgia

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Geoarchaeology of St. Catherines Island, Georgia 2011 PREFACE 1 GEOARCHAEOLOGY OF ST. CATHERINES ISLAND, GEORGIA GALE A. BISHOP, HAROLD B. ROLLINS, and DAVID HURST THOMAS editors and contributors with contributions by Kathi Beratan, Robert K. Booth, Eleanor J. Camann, Timothy M. Chowns, Timothy Keith-Lucas, Anthony J. Martin, Brian K. Meyer, Fredric L. Pirkle, William A. Pirkle, Donald B. Potter, James E. Pottinger, Andrew K. Rindsberg, Robert S. Prezant, Matthew C. Sanger, Patty A. Stahlman, Fredrick J. Rich, Ronald B. Toll, R. Kelly Vance, Anthony Vega, and Frank J. Vento Proceedings of the Fourth Caldwell Conference St. Catherines Island, Georgia March 27–29, 2009 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY Number 94, 391 pages, 124 figures, 17 tables Issued March 23, 2011 Copyright © American Museum of Natural History 2011 ISSN 0065-9452 2 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY NO . 94 2011 PREFACE 3 CONTENTS Abstract ................................................................................................................................................ 13 Participants in the Fourth Caldwell Conference .................................................................................. 14 Preface. Gale A. Bishop, Harold B. Rollins, and David Hurst Thomas .................................... 15 A word about radiocarbon dating ................................................................................................... 22 Uncalibrated ages: b.p. ................................................................................................................ 23 Calibrated ages: cal b.c., cal a.d., cal b.p. ................................................................................... 23 Reservoir corrections .................................................................................................................. 23 Rounding conventions ................................................................................................................ 23 Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... 23 Chapter 1. Why this archaeologist cares about geoarchaeology: some pasts and futures of St. Catherines Island. David Hurst Thomas .............................................................................. 25 What is Geoarchaeology, anyway? ................................................................................................ 25 First generation geoarchaeology: two seminal principles .............................................................. 27 Steno’s law of superposition ....................................................................................................... 27 Thomas Jefferson: third president and first geomorphologist? ................................................... 27 The index fossil concept ............................................................................................................. 30 Diagnostic artifacts, archaeology’s version of index fossils ....................................................... 31 Horizontal stratigraphy ............................................................................................................... 32 Second generation geoarchaeology and beyond ............................................................................ 34 First question: how did changing sea levels and landforms impact ancient St. Catherines islanders? ................................................................................................................. 35 Current thinking .......................................................................................................................... 35 Holocene sea level changes: fallacies of misplaced concreteness? ............................................ 38 Contemporary approaches to sea level change ........................................................................... 41 Sea level research in the Gulf of Mexico .................................................................................... 43 Some potential new directions in geoarchaeology ..................................................................... 49 Second question: how does the radiocarbon reservoir effect vary across time and space in the Georgia Bight? ............................................................................................................ 50 Current thinking about reservoir effects ..................................................................................... 50 Some potential new directions in geoarchaeology ..................................................................... 51 Third question: what is the relationship between hydrology and lacustrine adaptations on St. Catherines Island? ............................................................................................. 53 Current thinking about hydrology and lacustrine adaptations .................................................... 53 Some potential new directions in geoarchaeology ..................................................................... 55 Fourth question: does the discontinuous cultural radiocarbon record on St. Catherines Island reflect punctuated equilibria? ....................................................................... 57 Current thinking about occupational continuity ......................................................................... 57 Potential new directions in geoarchaeology: paleotempestology ............................................... 58 Fifth question: what happened to white-tailed deer of the Georgia Bight? .................................... 60 Current thinking .......................................................................................................................... 61 Alternative hypotheses and potential new directions in geoarchaeology ................................... 63 Sixth question: did early and middle Holocene foragers live on the St. Catherines landscape? ............................................................................................................... 63 Current thinking .......................................................................................................................... 63 Some potential new directions in geoarchaeology ..................................................................... 64 Summary ........................................................................................................................................ 64 3 4 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY NO . 94 Chapter 2. Evolution of late Pleistocene-Holocene climates and environments of St. Catherines Island and the Georgia Bight. Fredrick J. Rich, Anthony Vega, and Frank J. Vento .................................................................................................................... 67 The most ancient deposits .............................................................................................................. 67 Floras of the full glacial .................................................................................................................. 69 The Early to Late Archaic .............................................................................................................. 73 The St. Catherines Island scenario ................................................................................................. 75 Holocene paleofauna ...................................................................................................................... 75 Little Ice Age (LIA) ........................................................................................................................ 76 The present ..................................................................................................................................... 77 Chapter 3.Geoarchaeological research at St. Catherines Island: defining the geological foundation. Gale A. Bishop, Brian K. Meyer, R. Kelly Vance, and Fredrick J. Rich ................................................................................................................ 79 Recent sea level rise at St. Catherines Island ................................................................................. 83 Sea level history of St. Catherines Island ....................................................................................... 83 Boundaries .................................................................................................................................. 85 Constraints on historical speculation .......................................................................................... 87 Sea turtles, sea levels, and geology ................................................................................................ 90 Observational results ...................................................................................................................... 94 Constructing a scenario of island history ....................................................................................... 95 Conclusions .................................................................................................................................... 98 Chapter 4. Development of a late Pleistocene-Holocene genetic stratigraphic framework for St. Catherines Island: archaeological implications. Frank J. Vento and Patty A. Stahlman .............................................................................................................
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