Wet Site Archaeology

This volume, the result of an International Conference on Wet Site Archaeology funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, explores the rewards and responsibilities of recovering unique assemblages from water-saturated deposits. Characteristics common to all archaeological wet sites are identified from Newfoundland to Chile, Polynesia to Florida, and from the Late Pleistocene to the Twentieth Century. Topics include innovative excavation and preservation methods; the need for adequate funding to preserve and analyze the abundant biological and cultural remains recovered only at archaeological wet sites; expanded knowledge of past environments, subsistence, technologies, artistic expressions, skeletal structure, and pathologies; the urgency to inform developers and governmental bodies about the invisible heritage entombed in wetlands that is often destroyed before it can be investigated; a formula for establishing priorities for excavating wet sites; and how to determine when enough of a wet site has been sampled.Many famous sites and discoveries are described in this volume, including Herculaneum, Hoko River, Hontoon Island, Key Marco, Monte Verde, Ozette, Somerset Levels, Windover, bog bodies of Northern Europe, and lake dwellers of Switzerland. Professional and amateur archaeologists, as well as anyone interested in archaeology or the significance of wet site archaeology will find this book fascinating.

A compilation of thirteen papers dealing with the techniques of excavation, kinds of artifacts recovered and methods of preservation of perishable materials from water-saturated sites of the Northwest Coast, originally presented at the 29th Annual Northwest Anthropological Conference in 1974.

On the Northwest Coast in antiquity, an estimated 85 percent of objects were made entirely from materials that normally do not survive the ravages of time. Fortunately, the region’s wetlands, silt-laden rivers, high groundwater levels, and abundant rainfall provide ideal conditions for long-term preservation of waterlogged wood. Few archaeologists intentionally search for them, yet every Northwest Coast archaeologist may encounter waterlogged cultural remains--even inland, away from the coast. Those who investigate can uncover artifacts, structures, and environmental remains missing from the usual reconstructions of past lifeways. Currently, wet-site archaeology is not widely taught at North American universities. Waterlogged helps bridge that gap. Sixteen archaeologists who work on the Northwest Coast discuss their research in regional and global perspectives, share highlights of their findings, provide guidance on how to locate wet sites, and outline procedures for recovering and caring for perishable waterlogged artifacts. The volume offers practical information about logistics, equipment, and supplies, including a wet-site field kit list. Waterlogged presents previously unpublished original research spanning the past ten thousand years of human presence on the Northwest Coast. Examples include the first fish trap features in the region to be identified as longshore weirs, a complete 750-year-old basket cradle from the lower Fraser Valley, wooden self-armed fishhooks from the Salish Sea, and a paleoethnobotanical study at the 10,500-year-old Kilgii Gwaay wet site on Haida Gwaii. Contributors also discuss insider-vs.-outsider perceptions of wetlands in Cowichan traditional territory on Vancouver Island, a habitation site in a disappearing wetland in the Fraser Valley, a collaborative project on the Babine River in the Fraser Plateau, and Early and Middle Holocene waterlogged materials from British Columbia’s central coast.

"Waterlogged" addresses the practical aspects of wet-site archaeology, filling a gap in the existing literature on archaeological methods and highlighting previously unpublished recent work"--.

Hidden Dimensions is a collection of essays drawn from papers presented at an international conference in Vancouver, British Columbia in April 1995. Scholars from around the globe examine several aspects of wetland archaeology in North America, Mexico, Europe, eastern Siberia, and New Zealand. Some of the essays in this volume explore environmental and historical contexts of wet-sites as well as past human adaptation to wetland environments. Others concentrate on the contributions of wetland archaeology to reconstructions of cultural history and the interpretation of unique perishable materials. In addition to discussions on the dynamic nature of wetlands and concern about the future of the cultural resources they contain, the authors look at practical issues of land management and object conservation. In Hidden Dimensions the authors seek to raise awareness of the significance of wetland archaeology issues at a time when wetlands around the globe are rapidly shrinking and their cultural contents are at risk of disappearing.

This Handbook sets out the key issues and debates in the theory and practice of wetland archaeology which has played a crucial role in studies of our past. Due to the high quantity of preserved organic materials found in humid environments, the study of wetlands has allowed archaeologists to reconstruct people's everyday lives in great detail.

Wetland Archaeology and Beyond offers an appreciative study of the people, and their artefacts, who occupied a large variety of worldwide wetland archaeological sites. The volume also includes a comprehensive explanation of the processes involved in archaeological practice and theory.