Earth Science (ePub)

Both earth science and geo-archaeology are two very unique
discipline of science which shares a lot of resemblances to each
other. Although the supposed differences between these two
endeavors continue to be discussed (e.g., Butzer, 1982; Rapp
and Hill, 1998), here we are basically concerned with any
subject that bridges the interface between the earth sciences
and archaeology, with the earth sciences including a wide array
of subjects, such as geomorphology, sedimentology,
geochronology, stratigraphy, geochemistry, geo-physics and
pedology.
Among the earliest of the volumes on geoarchaeology was a
collection of papers from a symposium titled "Sediments in
Archaeology" held in England in the early 1970's [Shackley &
Davidson, 76']. The papers from this groundbreaking effort
were organized into themes that included Techniques, sediments
of biological nature, Sedimentary Environments (coastal,
lacustrine, and terrestrial environments).
Although some of these articles were local in scope, those on
methodology encompassed a number of techniques that
included magnetic properties of sediments as applied to
prospection, stratigraphy, petrography, phosphate chemistry, and
cave sediments. A decade or so later, Rapp and Gifford (1985)
produced a multi authored volume that was very much
methodology oriented. It included a broad array of subjects and
techniques and their applications to archaeological problems,
including the following: geomorphology (including sedimentary
elements), palynology, anthrools, geophysical surveying and
archaeomagnetism, isotope and dating studies, and sourcing of
materials.

The first in the group of recently published scripts on this
subject is by Waters (1992), which takes on a larger scale
perspective, stressing geomorphology and site formation from a
North American viewpoint. Geoarchaeology by Rapp and Hill
(1998) covers most of the topics that are encompassed in
modern geoarchaeological studies, ranging from field-based
geomorphology/sedimentology as applied to laboratory
techniques.

Published at about the same time was Geological Methods for
Archaeology by Herz and Garrison (1998), which considers with
some detail geological techniques in archaeology from a variety
of aspects: geomorphology, sediments and soils, dating
techniques, site exploration, and artifact analysis. What struck us
about these earlier collections- but less so with the most recent
publications-is that articles tended to describe an earth science
tech- nique used in archaeology, provide some theoretical
background, and then discuss the results.

What seemed to be typically lacking were explicit statements of
a number of issues:
(1) the type(s) of problem being solved;
(2) why a particular technique (or techniques) was being
applied in the first place;
(3) why this technique was the most suitable to tackle this
problem; and
(4) the implications of the results to both the archaeological
and the earth science communities.

Any ramifications directed toward these groups were commonly
left to the readers to figure out for themselves. We developed
this script to avoid these shortcomings by making it as didactic
as possible.