5/13/09 Waters representing North American geoarchaeology at conference in England

Mike Waters

• Michael R. Waters, professor of anthropology and geography, represented North American geoarchaeology and delivered a keynote address at the Geoarchaeology 2009 conference held at the University of Sheffield, England on April 15-17, 2009.
  
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• The conference was titled “Geoarchaeology: From Landscape to Laboratory and Back Again.”

Waters representing North American geoarchaeology at conference in England

Michael R. Waters, professor of anthropology and geography, represented North American geoarchaeology and delivered a keynote address at the Geoarchaeology 2009 conference held at the University of Sheffield, England on April 15-17, 2009. The conference was titled “Geoarchaeology: From Landscape to Laboratory and Back Again.”

Waters gave the first lecture of the conference titled, “A geoarchaeological approach to the peopling of the Americas: site context and formation at the Gault and Buttermilk Creek sites, Texas, U.S.A.”

Waters gave a brief introduction into the problem of the peopling of the Americas and the Clovis First hypothesis, and then focused his attention on current research at the Gault and Buttermilk Creek archaeological sites in central Texas, U.S.A.

At these two sites, geoarchaeological investigations at different scales were used to understand the earliest occupations. The evidence from Gault and Buttermilk Creek shows that there is a substantial Clovis occupation dating to 13,000 cal yr B.P. and a potentially older occupation below the Clovis horizon. Research continues to define this earlier material and place it within the context of the problem of the peopling of the Americas. Waters concluded that the Clovis First hypothesis no longer fits the archaeological and geoarchaeological data from the Americas, and that a new model needs to be developed to explain the peopling of the Americas.

This new model will use empirical data from archaeological sites, the genetic record, environmental and climatic records, and geoarchaeology. Geoarchaeology will play a critical role in the development of this new understanding because of the importance of stratigraphy and dating of early sites and understanding the processes of site formation.

Waters received his Ph.D. in geosciences from the University of Arizona (1983). He is the director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans (CSFA) and executive director of the North Star Archaeological Program. Waters specializes in geoarchaeology, Late Quaternary geology, PaleoIndian archaeology, and in the study of human-landscape interactions of prehistoric agriculturalists. He has served on more than 50 archaeological field projects in the United States, Yemen, Jamaica and Russia. He has authored or co-authored more than 40 journal articles, 10 book chapters, two books, including The Principles of Geoarchaeology: A North American Perspective (1992), two monographs, and four geologic maps. He received the Kirk Bryan Award of the GSA in 2003, the archaeological geology division Award of the GSA in 2004, and is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America (GSA).

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Contact: Ashley Leathers txgrl6@libarts.tamu.edu 979-862-4879