Geoarchaeology

Carlos Cordova is Professor of Geography, Oklahoma State University. He obtained his PhD at the University of Texas, under the supervision of Karl Butzer. He has undertaken geoarchaeological research in the North America, Mexico, the Middle East, Southern Africa, and Crimea and the Black Sea Region and is the author of Crimea: An Environmental History (I.B.Tauris, 2016) and Millennial Landscape Change in Jordan: Geoarchaeology and Cultural Ecology (2007).

List of figures
List of tables

Introduction

Chapter 1 The nature of geoarchaeology
The nature of geoarchaeology and its practitioners
The three major traditions in geoarchaeology
The field and its status in and outside science
Practice, training, and rapidly evolving subfields



Chapter 2 Theoretical and methodological foundations
Introduction
Theory in geoarchaeology
The geoarchaeological method
Models of inquiry and interpretation
Reconstructing the past
The explanation of a complex and chaotic world
Concluding remarks

Chapter 3 The geoarchaeological record: Concept and contexts
An epistemological background
An all-inclusive geoarchaeological record
The contextual levels: site, setting, landscape and environment
Models of interpretation

Chapter 4 The geoarchaeological record: Interpretation issues
Visualizing time, causality, and context
Causality in natural and cultural transform processes
Time-transgressive phenomena and multi-causal effects
Archaeological visibility, invisibility, and absence
The virtues of off-site geoarchaeology
Legacy effects, relicts, and palimpsests
Modern analogs, reference analogs, and modern references
Sampling and interpretation of the record
Correlation and its issues

Chapter 5 The human-environmental tradition in geoarchaeology
Introduction
The ecological paradigm
The ecological context in geoarchaeology
Geoarchaeology after Archaeology as Human Ecology
The rise of the Anthropocene and global climate change
Perspectives on the anthropic and non-anthropic worlds
Geoarchaeology and environmental history


Chapter 6 Geoarchaeology and human evolution
Introduction
Geology, climate changes, and biogeography
Geoarchaeology in paleoanthropological research
Contextual and issues
Case 6.1 Context and scale in the Olduvai hominin record

Chapter 7 Geoarchaeology and the anthropization of the world
Introduction
The proto-anthropic period as a gray zone
Geoarchaeology and the pre- and proto-anthropic periods
Case 7.1 Between paleontological and archaeological sites: Geoarchaeological issues in Pre-Clovis mammoth localities
Case 7.2 The geoarchaeology of early Australian human environments at Lake Mungo

Chapter 8 The geoarchaeology of hunter-gatherer landscapes
Introduction
Hunter-gatherer societies and their environmental contexts
Geoarchaeological approaches to hunter-gatherer landscaapes
Case 8.1 Epipaleolithic hunter-gatherers of the Eastern Levant. Sites, settings and landscapes in a rapidly changing environment
Case 8.2: The geoarchaeology of the Archaic period in the Great Plains of North America

Chapter 9 The record of early agriculture and its diffusion
Introduction
Agricultural beginnings: Contextual models
Neolithic impacts at different scales
Geoarchaeological context and research strategies
Case 9.1 Geoarchaeology of two Near Eastern Neolithic settlements: Ain Ghazal and Ain Abu-Nukhaila, and the first agricultural environmental crisis
Case 9.2 The elusive environmental impact of the arrival of pastoralism in Southern Africa.

Chapter 10 Complex societal-environmental systems and the collapse phenomenon
Introduction
Complex societal-environmental systems
The rise and collapse phenomenon
Research contexts
Case 10.1 Ancient sustainability, risks, management, and centralization in large river basins: Three examples.

Case 10.2 The Classic Maya collapse and the degradation of soils in the Maya lowlands: Geoarchaeological models of landscape transformation.

Chapter 11 The geoarchaeology of rural landscapes
Introduction
The rural landscape: concepts and environmental approaches
Geoarchaeological strategies in rural contexts
Case 11.1 The Ancient Greek rural landscape of Crimea
Case 11.2 Xaltocan: The geoarchaeology of a complex lacustrine society before Tenochtitlan.

Chapter 12 Human-environmental approaches to soils and paleosols
Introduction
Thematic approaches to paleosols
The