Making the Most of Soils in Archaeology

Autor(en)
Roderick B. Salisbury, Ian D. Bull, Susanna Cereda, Erich Draganits, Katharina Dulias, Kerstin Kowarik, Matthias Meyer, Elena I. Zavala, Katharina Rebay-Salisbury
Abstrakt

Sediments serve as an archive of human and animal activity and environmental conditions through their physical and chemical properties as well as captured biological traces. Archaeologists have been extracting information from archaeological soils and sediments for decades, but recent technological developments, such as the analysis of lipid biomarkers, proteins, and ancient DNA from soil and the diversification of approaches necessitate a re-examination of standard field practice and a renewed emphasis on soil and sediments as archaeological materials. This review paper brings together a range of specialists to introduce cutting-edge approaches to analysing soils and sediments. From the large to the small scale, pioneering methods can complement established soil analytical methods to address issues of soil formation and erosion processes, heritage preservation, mobility, domestication, land use, human-environmental interactions, cultural and biological complexity, and ecosystem legacies. Soil analyses are poised to enable archaeologists to ask new questions and generate innovative hypotheses in an interdisciplinary research framework.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Geologie
Externe Organisation(en)
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW), University of Bristol, Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Technische Universität Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig, Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (NHM), Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave
Journal
Archaeologia Austriaca
Band
106
Seiten
319-334
Anzahl der Seiten
16
ISSN
0003-8008
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1553/archaeologia106s319
Publikationsdatum
2022
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
601021 Urgeschichte, 107010 Geoarchäologie, 601003 Archäologie
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Archaeology, Archaeology
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 15 – Leben an Land
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/ddf02a98-e143-49eb-b350-4cd25675f119