At last week's annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, AZGS scientists presented a number of talks and posters on our technical work. Jill Onken and her co-authors explained how they used radiocarbon dates of archeological sites and pottery shards to constrain the ages of three Holocene terrace surfaces and relate them to ages found by soil development and historical records.
Jill's techniques were applied to the recent AZGS mapping of Holocene-aged sediments along the San Pedro River in Southern Arizona [right, AZGS]. Among the findings? - "The age constraints provided by these archaeological materials suggest that the Qy2r fill was deposited primarily between 3500 and 1000 BP, with only a thin veneer of flood deposits added between 1000 and 100 BP."
This looks to be an important application of geoarcheology.
Ref: GEOARCHAEOLOGICAL DATING OF HOLOCENE STREAM TERRACES ALONG THE SAN PEDRO RIVER AND ITS MAJOR TRIBUTARIES, SOUTHEASTERN ARIZONA
ONKEN, Jill1, COOK, Joseph P.2, and YOUBERG, Ann2, (1) Dept. of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Gould-Simpson Building #77, 1040 E 4th St, Tucson, AZ 85721, jonken@email.arizona.edu, (2) Arizona Geological Survey, 416 W. Congress St, Tucson, AZ 85701
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