A study of landform evolution and archaeological preservation at site 41HY165 San Marcos, Texas
Date
2000-12
Authors
Ringstaff, Christopher W.
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Abstract
Aquarena Center is an eco-tourism and research campus of Southwest Texas State University (SWT) located on Spring Lake, the headwater springs of the San Marcos River. Across this campus, numerous archaeological sites have been recorded. These sites have produced a variety of temporally diagnostic stone tools, which have been the basis of a cultural historical approach of early archaeological excavations in and around the Spring Lake (Shiner 1983). This thesis uses a geoarchaeological approach to examine the landform evolution of site 41HY165 to clarify the interaction between cultural and geomorphic inputs on site formation processes. The geomorphic and archaeological data used for this research were collected in the 1996, 1997, and 1998 SWT archaeological field schools. The resulting geoarchaeological model of 41HY165 developed in this thesis concludes that early Holocene aggradation buried archaeological materials dating from the Late Paleoindian and Early Archaic periods, while erosion during the middle Holocene removed sediments containing archaeological materials dating from the Middle Archaic period. Lastly, the resumpt10n of slow aggradation and soil formation in the late Holocene preserved the archaeological record from the Late Archaic and Late Prehistoric periods.
Description
Keywords
geomorphology, archaeological geology, sedimentation, stratigraphic, landforms, erosion, geological time
Citation
Ringstaff, C. W. (2000). A study of landform evolution and archaeological preservation at site 41HY165 San Marcos, Texas (Unpublished thesis). Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.