Environmental Archaeology
Principles and Practice

Authoritative and essential guide to methods interpreting the ecology of archaeological sites, and their applications.

Dena F. Dincauze (Author)

9780521310772, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 17 August 2000

620 pages, 23 tables
24.7 x 17.6 x 3.7 cm, 1.223 kg

'In short, any archaeologist who seeks to place their cultural studies into an environmental context should read this book, regardless of whether they are practising environmentalists or not.' Adam Gardner, The Holocene

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.

Subject Areas: Environmental archaeology [HDP]