Environmental Archaeology: Principles and Practice
Cambridge University Press, 8/21/2008
EAN 9780521310772, ISBN10: 0521310776
Paperback, 620 pages, 24.7 x 17.4 x 3.3 cm
Language: English
Archaeologists today need a wide range of scientific approaches in order to delineate and interpret the ecology of their sites. Dena Dincauze has written an authoritative and essential guide to a variety of archaeological methods, ranging from techniques for measuring time with isotopes and magnetism to the sciences of climate reconstruction, geomorphology, sedimentology, soil science, paleobotany and faunal paleoecology. Professor Dincauze insists that borrowing concepts from other disciplines demands a critical understanding of their theoretical roots. Moreover, the methods that are chosen must be appropriate to particular sets of data. The applications of the methods needed for an holistic human-ecology approach in archaeology are illustrated by examples ranging from the Paleolithic, through classical civilizations, to recent urban archaeology.
Part I. Introduction
1. Environmental archaeology and human ecology
2. Concepts for paleoenvironmental reconstruction
3. Mechanisms of environmental change
4. Human responses to environmental change
Part II
5. Introduction to chronometry and correlation
6. Measuring time with isotopes and magnetism
Part III
7. Climate
the driving forces
8. Climate reconstruction
Part IV. Geomorphology
9. Landforms
10. Landforms of shores and shallow water
Part V. Sediments and Soils
11. Basic principles of sedimentology and soils science
12. Archaeological matrices
Part V. Vegetation
13. Concepts and methods of paleobotany
14. Vegetation in paleoecology
15. Concepts and methods for faunal paleoenvironments
16. Faunal paleoecology
17. Humans among animals
Part VIII. Integration
18. Anthropocentric paleoecology.
'The text is comprehensive ... as an overview of many aspects of environmental archaeology and related subjects it is hard to beat.' Hannah O'Regan, The Palaeontological Association Newsletter