Earth Science

Both earth science and geo-archaeology are two very uniquediscipline of science which shares a lot of resemblances to eachother. Although the supposed differences between these twoendeavors continue to be discussed (e.g., Butzer, 1982; Rappand Hill, 1998), here we are basically concerned with anysubject that bridges the interface between the earth sciencesand archaeology, with the earth sciences including a wide arrayof subjects, such as geomorphology, sedimentology, geochronology, stratigraphy, geochemistry, geo-physics andpedology.
Among the earliest of the volumes on geoarchaeology was acollection of papers from a symposium titled "Sediments inArchaeology" held in England in the early 1970's [Shackley &Davidson, 76']. The papers from this groundbreaking effortwere organized into themes that included Techniques, sedimentsof biological nature, Sedimentary Environments (coastal, lacustrine, and terrestrial environments). Although some of these articles were local in scope, those onmethodology encompassed a number of techniques thatincluded magnetic properties of sediments as applied toprospection, stratigraphy, petrography, phosphate chemistry, andcave sediments.
A decade or so later, Rapp and Gifford (1985)produced a multi authored volume that was very muchmethodology oriented. It included a broad array of subjects andtechniques and their applications to archaeological problems, including the following: geomorphology (including sedimentaryelements), palynology, anthrools, geophysical surveying andarchaeomagnetism, isotope and dating studies, and sourcing ofmaterials. The first in the group of recently published scripts on thissubject is by Waters (1992), which takes on a larger scaleperspective, stressing geomorphology and site formation from aNorth American viewpoint.
Geoarchaeology by Rapp and Hill(1998) covers most of the topics that are encompassed inmodern geoarchaeological studies, ranging from field-basedgeomorphology/sedimentology as applied to laboratorytechniques. Published at about the same time was Geological Methods forArchaeology by Herz and Garrison (1998), which considers withsome detail geological techniques in archaeology from a varietyof aspects: geomorphology, sediments and soils, datingtechniques, site exploration, and artifact analysis.
What struck usabout these earlier collections- but less so with the most recentpublications-is that articles tended to describe an earth sciencetech- nique used in archaeology, provide some theoreticalbackground, and then discuss the results. What seemed to be typically lacking were explicit statements ofa number of issues:(1) the type(s) of problem being solved;(2) why a particular technique (or techniques) was beingapplied in the first place;(3) why this technique was the most suitable to tackle thisproblem; and(4) the implications of the results to both the archaeologicaland the earth science communities. Any ramifications directed toward these groups were commonlyleft to the readers to figure out for themselves.
We developedthis script to avoid these shortcomings by making it as didacticas possible.