Geoarchaeology and Quaternary Geology

Introduction and fundamentals
General introduction and topic preview. The Quaternary as geological period of glacial-interglacial cycles. Methods of investigation: basic principles of geology and the proxy concept. Water cycle, delta O18, oceanic and glacial cores - the MIS. Milankovitch cycles, feedback concept, albedo, greenhouse effect, sunspots and cosmic rays

Geomorphology as a proxy
Processes and forms: Principles, processes/agents, structural geomorphology and volcanism; glaciers, glacial valleys, erratic boulders, gelivation; moraine amphitheatres, varved glaciolacustrine deposits, loess; rivers, conoids, terraces, base level concept, canyon formation; coastlines, cliffs, lagoons, isostatic/eustatic adjustments; genesis of caves and clastic deposits, karst, speleothems record; hot arid environments, concept of Biorhexistasy, soils.

Geopedology and Palaeopedology
Soil: definitions and constituents. Soil profiles and horizons and their characteristics. Pedogenetic processes. Factors of soil development. Soils and time. Paleosols: analytical methods, dating and case studies.

Late Quaternary and the Homo
High-resolution periods: the last glacial maximum, exit from MIS 2 and entry into the Holocene. Role of glacial-interglacial cycles in the migrations of the Homo. Holocene innovations: from scattered groups to settled communities, the Neolithic revolution, towards the modern era.

An history of Geoarchaeology
The Archaeological research in the field: the stratigraphic excavation, the survey.

The tools of the geoarchaeology: soils, continental deposits, landscapes in environmental archaeology. Geognostic in geoarchaeology, survey, aerial photographs, remote sensing, core drilling, test pits,

Site forming processes: laboratory analyses, grain size, routine chimica analyses, soil micromorphology for an archaeological context


Dating the evidence: typological sequence for lithics and pottery. Incremetal and radiometric methods.

Geoarchaeology and Archeological research

Earth Sciences and the interpretation of the archaeological record. Evidence of human activities in the geological record: syndepositional and postdepositional processes. Geoarchaeology and the history of the human impact on the environment.

Geoarchaeology of the archeological sites
Poorly preseved sites: sites in which postpedositional processes dominated: Palaeolithic sites in the loes of Northern Italy. The Mesolithic sites of the Tosco-emilian Appennines.

Well preserved archives: Geoarchaeology of the sedimentary fills in late Pleistocene caves and rock shelters at middle latitudes.

Villages and proto-urban centres built up in wood. Geoarchoeology of pile-dwellings and terramare

The towns . Archaeological urban centres: The tells of the Near East. Geoarcheology ed Urban Archaeology: Archaeological heritage of the cities along via Aemilia.

Geoarcheology of the soil use.
Deforestation and early agricolture (case studies from the Neolithic and the Chalcolithic in the Po plain)
Geoarcheology of over exploitation (agricultural practices and irrigation in Mesopotamia ed in the Po plain during the Bronze age)
Geoarchaeology of Pastoralism (The case study of the Holocene sediments in caves and rock-shelters)
Geoarcheologia of arid zones
Climatic changes and strategies of adaptation. Oasis and caravan routes.

Consequence of the human impact on landscape development, the relationship between human activities and climate change, historical and archaeological perspectives


Sourcing.
Archaeometric and geoarchaeological aspect of identification of the source of raw material used during Antiquity.