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Floods and Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

William A. Turnbaugh*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881.

Abstract

This study contends that flooding and related stream-flow phenomena have had an extensive impact on archaeological resources. An analysis of 1972 flood damage on 226 aboriginal sites in a portion of the Susquehanna River drainage indicates a need for special concern about differential preservation, discovery techniques, and interpretation of archaeological data in stream valley areas. Unless archaeologists and cultural resource managers take into account the natural and/or man-induced events and processes which may have affected the fluvial history of a region under study, their prediction and detection of sites-and their description, analysis, and interpretation of those that have been discovered-may be hampered seriously.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1978

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