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Which agricultural strategies were sustainable, both environmentally and economically, over the long term, and why?
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Farmers, advisors and policymakers are faced with complex choices. They are faced with a wide range of technologies that are either available or under development; they must deal with the uncertainties of both the effects these new technologies will have throughout the agri-food chain and the impact that a whole range of policies will have on the sustainability of farming systems. In addition, there is increasing pressure on agricultural research and advisory budgets that must be accommodated.
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Which country and university is the best one to study environmental archaeology?
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I'm interested in patterns of Palaeoenvironmental variability in the Senegal Valley during the Middle and Upper Pleistocene, particularly in the lower valley after the confluence with the Faleme River. However, I am having trouble finding modern sources of information, and many older sources are not available on-line. Can anyone help direct me to available/key resources that document patterns of environmental variability in the Senegal Valley?
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ممكن اعرف الحقبة التاريخية لهذا العصر الذي اشرت اليه
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Can anyone recommend me a topic for research in the environmental archaeology?
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You may think of studying palaeo-environment and how human have affected the same in yours study area, may be identified/ shortlisted base don previous literature. Similarly, in identified study area, you may study how climate change has taken place and further how man or more precisely anthropogenic activities have affected its pace.
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International Symposium on environmental archaeology or geoarchaeology in 2019?
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Developing International Geoarchaeology (DIG) is held every other year. https://www.developinginternationalgeoarchaeology.org/ The next conference is in 2021.
The Association for Environmental Archaeology (AEA) conference is held every year; see link in answer by Niklas Hausmann.
The European Geosciences Union (EGU) annual conference always has several sessions dedicated to geoarchaeology and quaternary environments. EGU 2020 will be held in Vienna, Austria. https://www.egu2020.eu/
The 2020 Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC) will be held in Madrid. https://lac2020.cchs.csic.es/
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How we can separate the modern and ancient impacts on soils from each others?
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By studying the TIME FACTOR of soil genesis. There are factors that accelerate and those that retard soil profile development. Investigation of resistant and non-resistant parent materials can also give insights on past pedogenic activities.
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I read in a paper that says: Dating ancient water technologies often difficult and published ages are often imprecise.
Why it is difficult to date?
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No is not difficult
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Someone who can help me in Environmental archaeology or Geoarchaeology
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Prof. Dr. Roberto Risch (Autonomous University of Barcelona)
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Landscape history of Dehesa Montado.
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Currently we are working on dehesa in Andalusia (see attached). Further, for your consideration a somewhat older article from dehesa in Extremadura and the most recent historical overview I have come across.
Evidently, we are interest in your experience with P. cinnamomi in dehesa or otherwise in oak, if any.
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I was wondering if there were any publications or data available on the different sea ice zones in the eastern Bering sea and the timing of their formation throughout the year. I'm particularly interested in the types of sea ice found within approximately 200 to 300 km from mainland Alaska. Anything on sea ice in the Kuskokwim Bay would be a bonus. Many thanks. Edouard
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Great thanks Guillermo, do you know of any similar studies for the Bering sea Alaska coast?
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Examples can be from any period or region where sinkholes and similar karst features are common (e.g. SE England, Central America etc.)
I am interested both in the way that people interacted with these types of landscape features in the past, as well as in the implications these have for heritage management and conservation of sites.
Many thanks in advance for your help and wisdom!
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Here in Germany there is an ongoing project on the archaeology of karstic features in gypsum in middle Franconia. Quite a few articles have appeared but alas nearly exclusively in German. You can find the homepages with bibliography of the project (yes, in German again) under the links below.
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scale bar =  5mm
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Indeed it looks like Anomozamites. Is it from the Shemshak Fm or Alburz moutain ? Anomozamites has been repeatdely reported from there. There is plenty of literature about the palaeobotany of this formation.
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I am looking for evidences of the use of Ilex aquifolium wood for making arrow shafts during Bronze Age.
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María, many years ago I processed as student every literary mention at that time accessible about wood use in central Europe prehistory (it is my unpublished thesis in archaeology from 1984). I thing some objects are made from Ilex wood, but I have to check it. I am in field this month...you can send me email at benes.jaromir@gmail.com I beginning of October I will be back in my office and I can send you reference.
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Pollen, spore, dinoflagellate,etc
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Dear Dr Abed
I will send you details within a month.
SKS
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Data can also come from lake water levels or precipitation ratios. I'm mainly interested in getting a curve for relative humidity.
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Thank you very much for your answers. I didn't say it in the question but I'm working on the Iberian peninsula.
I think that Phil is right, looking at pollen assembly is the best thing I can do for reconstructing a quantitative proxy for humidity. In fact, I have found a paper where this issue is somewhat adressed. I give you the reference just in case someone is interested: Fletcher et al. Clim. Past. 6, 245-264, 2010.
Mario.
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I need to present the characteristic of the heritage to some archaeological and paleontological sites, and i need some model for the inventory.
Thanks in advance.
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What are you looking for when you wish to inventorise the "characteristics of the archaeological and paleontological heritage?" Are you trying to classify sites/place or are trying to classify constituent components (artefacts/single fossils)?
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Thanks Erik and James! I appreciate you taking the time to look into this. This is all very interesting and good food for thought. It certainly explains why it is so hard to find examples in the literature.
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I am particularly interested in different types of fire strikers and their archaeoligical evidence. On the other hand I wonder from where ancient romans and greeks got their flint items to light the fire. Was their an import from the baltic regions or from the british coast?
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Hi Frank
Maybe this will be useful:
M. Piotrowski, G. Dąbrowski 2007; Krzesiwa i krzesaki - przyczynek do badań nad krzesaniem ognia w starożytności oraz średniowieczu (na marginesie badań archeologicznych na stan. 22 w Łukawicy, pow. lubaczowski), "Archeologia Polski Środkowowschodniej", 9: 231-242.
Best Regards
Maciej Wawrzczak
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Pocket parks are small urban park where people can meet or do varoius practice in their free time. Ppocket parks are a design tool to re-develop the residual spaces of the city.
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Hello Luigi you might also try 'Pop Up Parks' which could help strengthen your research on pocket parks because it shows the topic opening for the need of these little parks to help out the neighborhood and communities around it.  Inhabitat has a list of through the years. The book Pocket Parks and finally Pinterest shows a few examples with some links to articles.
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this is the SEM photomicrograph of neolithic pottery. How does explain this image?
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If you are interested in firing conditions you should have a read of Maniatis and Tite 1981. Technological examination of Neolithic-Bronze Age pottery from central and southeast Europe and from the Near East. J. of Archaeological Science 8, 59-76. If you are interested in painting technology, I would suggest looking up the work doen by Eleni Aloupi and Maniatis, also by Vassilis Kilikoglou. If you are interested in mechanical properties of ancient pottery look up the work of Anno Hein and also that of Noémi Müller who works mainly on mechanics of cooking pottery through mineralogy, chemical composition and microstructure.
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Do you believe in portable XRF dating of desert varnish?
Do you think that associated dates for single component sites spatially associated with the rock art are reasonable?
What techniques have you used?
How have you attempted to obtain chronological controls?
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Well said, Alicia: Each pictograph or petroglyph must be evaluated for possible dating on its own merits. I chose micro-stratigraphy because most people can do it with very simple equipment. Bryan.
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Several items like this one were collected during excavation on the iron smelting site of undetermined chronology. The material of the imprint most likely was  used as a flux during smelting process. Any suggestion as to the imprint material nature? Thanks.
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 Thanks everyone, I appreciate all your comments and suggestions. As most of archaeologists I assumed this "something" to be the trace of organic material (wood/charcoal), which would be the most logical explanation regarding finding context - iron smelting site. And many of them really are, but wood or charcoal have different pattern. After visual and microscopy inspection the version of organic material was rejected by researchers on wooden material and dendrochronology. The organic material is too soft to leave defined traces like these. Wooden material would leave less regular undefined pattern, which is more similar to fiber or tuft. The item under consideration displays very regular linear texture with strictly paralell lines streaching on both sides of "stem". I added more images of items with similar pattern and also added one which is identified as potential trace of organic (wooden?) material. They look different. Meantime, my latest explanation of this "something" is non-organic material used as flux, potentially some kind of invertebrates? Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything like this.  
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Please provide the reference.
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thank you Massih
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Thanks Vivi Vajda. If possible please provide the reference
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Does anyone know publications, articles of this topic?
I would like to get information about finds, artifacts in Britain who has got close connection, parallel with Sarmatian finds from the Carpathian Basin. Burial customs etc.  
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 For military refs, search the Britannia volumes. You could also try contacting Mike Bishop. For small finds, have you tried checking references in
Life in the limes : studies of the people and objects of the Roman frontiers presented to Lindsay Allason-Jones on the occasion of her birthday and retirement, eds Rob Collins and F Mackintosh, Oxbow Books, 2014.
Better still, join the Roman Finds Group - Lindsay Allason-Jones, Hilary Cool or Birgitte Hofmann, for instance, might help.
Regards, Margaret
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I would like to get age constraints on the deposition of fluvial sediments in a river deposit in the Kenya Rift. Age estimates are Mid to Late Pleistocene. The sources are mostly basaltic, trachytic and phonolitic lava flows. Quarz content is fairly low, so I'm guessing OSL won't be the method of choice. Any ideas?
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I would suggest post-IR IRSL K-feldspar dating: worked fine for the Middle to Late Pleistocene Rhine in The Netherlands. 
More info on the technique can also be found at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jakob_Wallinga
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Does anyone know about protection program in underwater archaeology, or especially in "Baia" (Naples, Italy)??
i need Information (sorry for my bad english)
because i only found information in Unesco page 
thanks! 
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If by 'protection program' is meant coordinated efforts to preserve submerged heritage, I would suggest you refer to the professional societies, such as the Council on Underwater Archaeology - see http://sha.org/underwater/
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I recently sent shallow soil samples taken at two archaeological sites in the Little Karoo, Western Cape Province, South Africa, to be tested for chemical traces such as phosphorus and calcium etc. The results show rather high P values near the actual sites and less further away. However I cannot find anyone who can help interpret them in the light of thousands of years of human habitation. Neither site can have been artificially fertilised in the past being on steep slopes below cliffs in very rugged country.  
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Hello Yvette! You are working on a very interesting problem. As other colleagues have already explained, the matter is very complex and you need to put together data from various disciplines - geology, pedology, climatology, archaeology, chemistry... I have conducted a multi-elemental analysis of soil chemistry in central Europe and in the Mediterranean and increased levels of P are often clearly related to archaeological sites even millenia after their abandonment. But P can be introduced into soil also by other paths than by the past human activities, so a careful analysis of local conditions is always needed. An evaluation of P values together with other elements is usually very helpful and a range of geoarchaeological methods can bring additional facts important for the most plausible interpretation. If your project will continue in the next year we could even offer you assistance with the field survey, detailed mapping of soil chemistry, analysis of data etc. It would be interesting for us to compare results from diverse environmental and cultural settings.
Good luck with your project!
Ladislav
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Field archaeologist.
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Yes, I agree. The geology department at your university may already have one, and if they don't I'm sure they will know where to get one.  I realise that ordering things from the States might be tricky from Pakistan, but I've seen these for sale in India, so they should be too hard to find. Perhaps try the large construction company suppliers in Islamabad or Rawalpindi.
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I want to plot global sea level changes for the past 140,000 to determine trends in marine taxa radiations in the oceans. I have been unable to find data sets from NOAA. 
Peter
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Hi Peter:
Try this publication in the USGS Library. I think you will find what you are looking for in Figure 1.
Past, Present, and Future Sea Level Rise and Effects on Coasts Under Changing Global Climate (Chapter C of Sand Resources, Regional Geology, and Coastal Processes of the Chandeleur Islands Coastal System: an Evaluation of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge). Scientific Investigations report 2009-5252.
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We need reliable reference samples which are well identified on a botanical point of view. Commercial resins so-called styrax seems to be related to dammar therefore samples that are really authentified by botanical data are requested for comparision with archaeological resins found on artefacts
Thanks in advance Best Jacques Connan
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Bonjour Nicolas,
Nous avons les résines d'Elisabeth Dodinet mais la provenance de sa résine de styrax officinalis est sujette à caution. Quelques autres échantillons seront utilisables car bien identifiés. J'ai d'autres pistes pour avoir de la résine botaniquement prouvée et faire la corrélation avec l'échantillon archéologique.
Cordialement
Jacques
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Has anyone tried converting data obtained with a Bruker Tracer III-V+ pXRF to be comparable to data obtained with the new Tracer III-SD? I'm working on obsidian and I have tried both compressing and expanding the spectrum but the numbers do not even come close to being comparable.
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Dear Veerle,
I have not yet contacted Bruker, but that's my next step if the RG community is also unable to help me with this problem :). Thanks for your suggestion.
The issue, as I detailed above, is not that they instruments are yielding different results in terms of elemental counts (same elements are being detected), this is to be expected. But that I was told that you can either expand the channels or compress them to make data collected on two different instruments comparable. But this is just not working out. I have tried making the old data comparable to the new by expanding its spectrum channel from 1024 to 2048 and have tried the reverse and neither work.
Again, thanks for  your suggestion!
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This zoomorphic figurine - a lion - alabaster made, is a fortuitous find on a chalcolithic tell settlement (Gumelnita, ca. 4000 BC) in Teleorman county, southern Romania. This is a quite unusual representation for this period.
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Dear Cristi,
I think you already know the lioness clay figurine from Goljamo Delcevo tell settlement (Bulgaria), belonging to KGK VI cultural complex, published by  Fol, A., J. Lichardus (eds.). 1988. Macht, Herrschaft und Gold: das Graberfeld von Varna (Bulgarien) und die Anfänge einer neuen europäischen Zivilisation. Saarbrücken, Moderne Galerie des Saarland-Museums.
This figurine was republished by  H. Manhart 1998, Vorgeschichtliche Fauna Bulgariens. Die vorgeschichtliche Tierwelt von Koprivec und Durankulak und anderen prähistorischen Fundplätzen in Bulgarien aufgrund von Knochenfunden aus archäologischen Ausgrabungen. Documenta Naturae 116: 3-353 (also with additional data about lion bones in Neolithic and Eneolithic periods from SE Europe) and  N.R. Thomas 2004, The Early Mycenaean Lion up to Date. In: Anne P. Chapin (ed.), Xάρις. Essays in Honor of Sara A. Immerwahr, Hesperia Supplement 33: 161-206 (see attach).
Best wishes,
Catalin
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I am interested in finding out if anyone has done a study on peanuts in southern Africa and can give approximate dates for their arrival in the area.
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Really peanats?
History
The domesticated peanut is an amphidiploid or allotetraploid, meaning that it has two sets of chromosomes from two different species, thought to be A. duranensis and A. ipaensis. These probably combined in the wild to form the tetraploid species A. monticola, which gave rise to the domesticated peanut.[4] This domestication might have taken place in Paraguay or Bolivia, where the wildest strains grow today. Many pre-Columbian cultures, such as the Moche, depicted peanuts in their art.[5]
Archeologists have dated the oldest specimens to about 7,600 years, found in Peru.[6] Cultivation spread as far as Mesoamerica, where the Spanish conquistadors found the tlalcacahuatl (the plant's Nahuatl name, whence Mexican Spanish cacahuate, Castillian Spanish "cacahuete," and French cacahuète) being offered for sale in the marketplace of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). The peanut was later spread worldwide by European traders.
Or do you actually mean Bambara groundnut?
In West Africa farmers were already cultivating a plant from the same family, the Bambara groundnut, which also grows its seed pods underground. Vigna subterranea (also known by its common names Bambara groundnut, Bambara-bean,[2] Congo goober,[2] earth pea,[3] ground-bean,[2] or hog-peanut[2]) is a member of the family Fabaceae. 
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We are going to start building one now in the Archaeobotany Labs of the University SEK and we do have a few guidelines, but besides that we could use all the help we could get.
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I am working on the carbonization of the seeds, to get good results you can burn the seeds on the ground. The important thing is to cover it with two or three inches of the ground seeds and light the fire above, at least 6 hours of fire. I get excellent results for comparison.
Another system is the muffle furnace, but the space is small and you can only burn few seeds.
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Ancient Colombian emeralds.
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If you are talking truly ancient times, next to none. First 'emeralds' in the ancient world could also be peridot just as 'sapphire' also could mean lapis. Second If you are looking for the origin say of Cleopatra's Emeralds (the famous Cleopatra as there were lots of them) both the dark green peridot from the Afghani region and Indian emerald are the leading candidates. Both were known to be mined at the time and would make far more sense than anything from the New World.
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I want to find a method for finding problems in historic urban areas for conservation and regeneration.
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the ICOMOS methodology for conservation of all heritage places is the Burra Charter, which, in brief, applies 4 different conservation methodologies:
Adaptation--making limited changes to existing fabric which guarantee survival of the heritage place put to a new use
Restoration--repairing deteriorated parts of existing heritage fabric
Reconstruction--replacing missing parts of heritage fabric that once existed
Preservation--maintaining heritage fabric in exactly the existing state (and guarding it from further deterioration or destruction)
Each responds to the definition of Significance for a heritage place.  So, which method you choose, and there may be more than one depends on what you have to do with the place.
This was developed in South Australia or Victoria (cannot remember which) to embrace the heritage places of all cultures, including aboriginal Australian ones which are profoundly old by world standards and do not engage much construction or urban settlements any longer.
if you google ICOMOS or Burra Charter you can get details.
good luck
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The Liangzhu city-site, as introduced in my first question put forward several minutes ago, is still to be confirmed, and if that's true.
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Yes, it is. Why not? To us what important is to explain how the city ( earliest civilization) interact with the geomorphic, climatic, sea level environment, and in what way.
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I am conducting a geoarchaeological study on the influence of environmental variables on the spatial distribution of human habitation in a Bulgarian study site from the Prehistoric (over 6000 BP) to the Roman Period (300 AD). At my disposal are soil samples taken from throughout the study site, which will be analysed to assist in studying the potential agricultural productivity of the valley floor.
Which soil characteristics are worth focusing on for studies of ancient agricultural potential? I am currently planning to produce accurate soil texture results using a Malvern, but also have access to XRF geochemistry results for the samples. Will these be useful in such a study? If so, what chemicals should be focused on?
It needs to be kept in mind that soil characteristics and chemicals that control modern soil productivity may not accurately reflect productivity 2-8000 years ago. Consistency over time (and non-modification by modern agricultural processes) are also important considerations in the selection of soil characteristics.
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Virupaxa's comments are on point. It occurred to me after my previous answer, that it may be possible to combine mineralogy (ag vs. underlying/overlying non-ag horizons) with N (illite fixed ammonium) and C (organic matter) isotopic data to get some kind of a handle on when and what was going on, then perhaps get at why (from perspective of folks in those times).
A caution on interpreting too much from C isotopic data. Though there seems to be some changes underway, there has been a long-standing general assumption that organic matter is relatively stable and that C-dating is therefore reliable. My work has indicated, and I apologize none has been published except in my original MS thesis and PhD dissertation, that organic matter stability is actually quite dynamic, with most organic matter being very labile when exposed to underground plant activity whether agricultural or not. In fact, exposure to an active microbiota in the presence of appropriate other substrates can result in remarkable levels of alteration of organic matter that has traditionally been assumed to be stable. My point here is, use considerable caution when interpreting organic matter C isotope data if the profile indicates any periods of substantial biological soil activity, whether agricultural or natural, after agricultural utilization ended. The difficulty this presents is further complicated by the structural status and mineralogy of the soil, which are also impacted by ag vs. natural plant activity. In general, natural vegetation promotes better structure and increased organic matter dynamics, while agriculture tends to burn OM down to its most stable components and substitute, in effect, highly comminuted (microscopic particles), minimally decomposed plant residues. That may be a useful soil diagnostic in some fashion for your purposes. As the amount of those minimally decomposed residues increases, crop yields drop, no matter how favorable the visual and physical appearance of the soil may seem -- unless, of course, there is access to substantial amounts of nutrients from an external source. Fixed ammonium in illites can apparently serve such a nutrient-source role, but those too will eventually deplete. Under agricultural conditions of 2000-8000 years ago, an illitic soil site would presumably sustain productive sedentary agriculture longer than a similar site without a substantial illitic mineralogy.
Which raises another interesting point with regard to your question. I recall that a satisfying (for a soil scientist anyway) explanation of the westward expansion of the original European colonies in the North America (U.S.) was depletion of soils. The mostly upland forest soils along the eastern coast were apparently good for about 20 years of productive farming, at which point they would be abandoned with an associated move westward to a new site with still undisturbed soils. As I recall the standard was when the tree stumps left from clearing the forest were gone from the farm fields, it was time to move on. Illitic soils would probably allow some greater or lesser extension of that kind of time frame, depending on flood cycles, animal management or other factors that might have provided some nutrient recharge of the illites (and organic matter level recovery). In the end, however, even those soils would almost certainly eventually be depleted to the point crop yields became too low to sustain the culture/community.