A site formation model for Cuncaicha rock shelter: Depositional and postdepositional processes at the high‐altitude keysite in the Peruvian Andes

<p>Three principal models exist for iron (oxyhydr)oxide concretion formation in the Navajo Sandstone in southern Utah, USA and the most recent model by Yoshida et al. (2018) suggests that calcite concretions are precursors to iron (oxyhydr)oxide concretions. This model could account for the existence of a gradient of carbonate and iron concretions found in both red diagenetic facies (with primary hematite grains coatings retained) and white diagenetic facies (primary hematite grain coatings removed during diagenesis). However, evidence for calcite precursor minerals and an understanding of the fluid chemistries involved in these diagenetic reactions is lacking. This research focuses on spheroidal concretions in the Navajo Sandstone at Coyote Gulch&#8212;a site that is down gradient, but upsection from Spencer Flat (the focus of previous work) and tests the hypothesis that calcite concretions are precursors to iron (oxyhydr)oxide concretions. Bulk mineralogy, bulk geochemistry, and petrography provide elemental and mineralogical composition of the concretions and show that the concretions are calcite cemented (~40 wt.%) and the host rock is predominately iron (oxyhydr)oxide cemented (~3 wt.%). The host rock surrounding embedded concretions shows secondary iron (oxyhydr)oxide precipitation and decreases in calcite in transects away from the concretion. These relationships suggest that the calcite concretions formed prior to the precipitation of secondary iron (oxyhydr)oxides and may have provided a localized buffering environment for the precipitation of iron (oxyhydr)oxides. This study also represents an opportunity to determine a universal model for carbonate and iron (oxyhydr)oxide spheroidal concretion formation, and to understand the influence of fluid interactions in the search for subsurface redox reactions to power metabolisms on Earth and Mars.</p>

Download Full-text

Geoarchaeology and Bayesian Statistical Modeling of Radiocarbon Dates from 40CH171, a Multicomponent Shell-Bearing Site in Cheatham County, Tennessee

The Cumberland River Archaic of Middle Tennessee ◽

10.5744/florida/9781683400837.003.0005 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 75-90

Author(s):

D. Shane Miller ◽

Thaddeus G. Bissett ◽

Tanya M. Peres ◽

David G. Anderson ◽

Stephen B. Carmody ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Site Formation ◽

State University ◽

Radiocarbon Dates ◽

University Of Tennessee ◽

Middle Tennessee State University ◽

Blue Creek ◽

Middle Archaic ◽

Cumberland River ◽

A Site ◽

The University

Using multiple lines of evidence from 40CH171, including opportunistic sampling, geoarchaeology analysis, and Bayesian radiocarbon modeling, this chapter constructs a site formation process narrative based on fieldwork conducted from 2009 to 2010 by the University of Tennessee, Middle Tennessee State University, and the Tennessee Division of Archaeology. This chapter argues that the shell-bearing strata were deposited relatively close to an active channel of the Cumberland River and/or Blue Creek during the Middle Holocene (ca. 7170–6500 cal BP). This was followed by an abrupt shift to sandier sediments, indicating that deposition after the termination of the shell-bearing deposits at the Middle Archaic/Late Archaic boundary took place in the context of decreasing distance from the site to the Cumberland River and Blue Creek.

Download Full-text

A Fluted Point Site in Utah

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/277319 ◽

1956 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 412-414 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

James H. Gunnerson

Keyword(s):

Alluvial Deposits ◽

Rock Shelter ◽

University Of Utah ◽

Occupation Level ◽

A Site ◽

The University

The Statewide Archeological Survey of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Utah was recently informed of a site 12 miles east of Ferron, Utah, which has yielded at least one fluted point. Homer Behunin, the local collector who reported the site, found the point (Fig. 137 a) protruding from the wall of Silverhorn Wash about 15 feet below the surface.The Silverhorn Site (42EM8) proved, upon examination, to be a shallow rock shelter in a protected bend of the wash. The shelter contains at least 12 occupation levels separated by sterile alluvial deposits. The upper-most occupation level is covered by about 10 feet of hard, compact alluvium which reaches to within about a foot of the shelter roof. The occupation levels are easily detected through the presence of small pieces of charcoal which have been somewhat disturbed by the inundations which brought in the alluvial materials.

Download Full-text

Tropical glaciers, recorders and indicators of climate change, are disappearing globally

Annals of Glaciology ◽

10.3189/172756411799096231 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 52 (59) ◽

pp. 23-34 ◽

Cited By ~ 39

Author(s):

Lonnie G. Thompson ◽

Ellen Mosley-Thompson ◽

Mary E. Davis ◽

Henry H. Brecher

Keyword(s):

High Altitude ◽

Environmental Variability ◽

Southern Oscillation ◽

Ice Cores ◽

Glacier Retreat ◽

Eastern Africa ◽

Societal Implications ◽

Large Measure ◽

Peruvian Andes ◽

Tropical Glaciers

AbstractIn this paper we review the interaction of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability and warming trends recorded in ice-core records from high-altitude tropical glaciers, discuss the implications of the warming trends for the glaciers and consider the societal implications of glacier retreat. ENSO has strong impacts on meteorological phenomena that directly or indirectly affect most regions on the planet and their populations. Many tropical ice fields have provided continuous annually resolved proxy records of climatic and environmental variability preserved in measurable parameters, especially oxygen and hydrogen isotopic ratios (δ18O, δD) and the net mass balance (accumulation). These records present an opportunity to examine the nature of tropical climate variability in greater detail and to extract new information on linkages between rising temperatures on tropical glaciers and equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures in critical ENSO indicator regions. The long-term climate records from a collection of high-altitude tropical ice cores provide the longer-term context essential for assessing the significance of the magnitude and rate of current climate changes that are in large measure driving glacier retreat. The well-documented ice loss on Quelccaya in the Peruvian Andes, Naimona’nyi in the Himalaya, Kilimanjaro in eastern Africa and the ice fields near Puncak Jaya in Papua, Indonesia, presents a grim future for low-latitude glaciers. The ongoing melting of these ice fields (response) is consistent with model predictions for a vertical amplification of temperature in the tropics (driver) and has serious implications for the people who live in these areas.

Download Full-text

Soils and Landscape Evolution

Soils in Archaeological Research ◽

10.1093/oso/9780195149654.003.0012 ◽

2004 ◽

Author(s):

Vance T. Holliday

Keyword(s):

Landscape Evolution ◽

Archaeological Site ◽

Environmental Indicators ◽

Site Formation ◽

Archaeological Sites ◽

Site Formation Processes ◽

Formation Processes ◽

Four Dimensions ◽

External Component ◽

A Site

Soils and archaeological sites are intimately related to the landscape. Investigating soils across past and present landscapes provides a means of reconstructing and understanding the regional environmental and geomorphic context of archaeological site settings and specific site locations, regional site formation processes, and aspects of the resources available to people in a region. Archaeological sites tend to occupy small segments of the landscape, but human activity may affect a much larger area, and in any case, people wander far and wide from sites, interacting with the environment—including the landscape. Thus, no matter whether a site is just a lithic scatter or bone bed or if it is a tell, understanding the regional landscape is an important part of understanding a site and human behavior, and soils are an important means of understanding a landscape. Soils are also important in reconstructing the evolution of landscapes and, consequently, the evolution of archaeological sites. That is, landscape evolution is an important external component of site-formation processes. Landscapes form the physical framework or underpinning for people and their activities and their resulting sites. As landscapes evolve, so do human activities and so do sites. Soils are key to recognizing and interpreting the evolutionary processes that shape the landscape and associated archaeological sites. Furthermore, the concept of landscape evolution also 1) is a logical continuation of the discussion of soil stratigraphy (chapters 5, 6) because it places soil stratigraphy in three or even four dimensions; 2) is a complement to the discussion of soils as environmental indicators (chapter 8), because landscape evolution can be linked to environmental change and because the evolution of the landscape itself, regardless of changes in other factors, represents a change in the environment from a human perspective; and 3) provides yet another means for predicting site locations. The discussion in this section, therefore, represents an integration of some of the principals outlined previously. Some of the studies presented in other chapters, such as the work on the Loess Plateau of China (chapters 6 and 8), and at Harappa and along the Ravi River (chapter 4), are good examples of landscape reconstructions for very large regions and are not repeated here.

Download Full-text

Andean Man & the Astronaut

Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences ◽

10.1525/hsns.2021.51.3.285 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 51 (3) ◽

pp. 285-329

Author(s):

Jordan Bimm

Keyword(s):

Civil Rights ◽

High Altitude ◽

United States Air Force ◽

The United States ◽

Space Medicine ◽

Civil Rights Era ◽

Peruvian Andes ◽

Early American ◽

Oxygen Efficiency ◽

Altitude Tolerance

In 1958, Bruno Balke, a former German Luftwaffe doctor working for the United States Air Force (USAF), led a team of airmen up Colorado’s Mount Evans. Could acclimatization to the thin mountain air boost the oxygen efficiency of future astronauts living in artificial low-pressure spacecraft environments? To judge their improvement, Balke, an expert in the nascent field of space medicine, compared their performance not with military test-pilots, but with high-altitude Indigenous people he had studied in the Peruvian Andes. This article expands discussions of race in space history beyond Black scientists, mathematicians, and pilots in the Civil Rights era to this earlier case of the permanent residents of Morococha, Peru, who participated in efforts to define an ideal spacefaring body. More than recovering the story of a nearly forgotten group of astronaut-adjacent test-subjects, this article shows how racial discrimination in space medicine functioned by inclusion. Balke studied and even celebrated the bodies of Morocochans, but never considered them potential astronauts. This article begins with Balke’s participation in the 1938 Nazi-funded expedition to summit Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas, and his follow-on work acclimatizing Luftwaffe pilots during World War Two. Then it focuses on his USAF work in the 1950s studying miners living and working in Morococha, Peru, and his attempt to replicate their altitude tolerance in American airmen on Mount Evans. Recovering Balke’s work places the high-altitude Indigenous person and the mountaineer alongside the familiar figure of the pilot in the genealogy of the early American astronaut.

Download Full-text

Carbon storage in a high-altitude Polylepis woodland in the Peruvian Andes

Alpine Botany ◽

10.1007/s00035-014-0126-y ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 124 (1) ◽

pp. 71-75 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Ekatherina Vásquez ◽

Brenton Ladd ◽

Nils Borchard

Keyword(s):

High Altitude ◽

Carbon Storage ◽

Peruvian Andes

Download Full-text

High Altitude Exposure Testing of Geotextiles in the Peruvian Andes

Geosynthetics International ◽

10.1680/gein.6.0146 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 119-144 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

D.G. Grubb ◽

W.E. Diesing ◽

S.C.J. Cheng

Keyword(s):

High Altitude ◽

Peruvian Andes ◽

Altitude Exposure ◽

Exposure Testing

Download Full-text

Architecture and life forms of Thymus jenisseensis (Lamiaceae)

BIO Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/bioconf/20202400085 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 24 ◽

pp. 00085

Author(s):

Evgeniya B Talovskaya ◽

Irina N Barsukova ◽

Natalia Yu Kurochkina

Keyword(s):

High Altitude ◽

Life Forms ◽

Dwarf Shrub ◽

Forest Belt ◽

Southern Siberia ◽

Mechanisms Of Adaptation ◽

A Site ◽

Branched Compound ◽

Duration Of Development ◽

Architectural Unit

Thymus jenisseensis is endemic to Southern Siberia. The structure of Thymus jenisseensis were studied with the use of an architectural approach. The architectural unit consist of branched compound skeletal axis of the 1st and 2nd order, and is repeated many times in the structure of adults. As a result of studying the architectural units of individuals growing in different sites of a coenopopulation, in the upper border of the forest belt (Tsagan-Shibetu, Republic of Tuva), differences were identified. An architectural unit consisting of branched orthotropic or ascending basisympodially accreting compound skeletal axes develops on a site of a dry riverbed; an architectural unit consisting of branched orthotropic or ascending acrosympodially accreting compound skeletal axes develops on a site of high-altitude steppe on a plain. The diversity of compound skeletal axes in the structure of architectural units contributes to the formation of two biomorphs (dwarf subshrub and dwarf shrub), changes in the vitality and duration of development of T. jenisseensis individuals. The identified features of architecture are morphological mechanisms of adaptation of the species to living conditions.

Download Full-text

Archaeomorphological Mapping

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190607357.013.46 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Jean-Jacques Delannoy ◽

Bruno David ◽

Robert G. Gunn ◽

Jean-Michel Geneste ◽

Stéphane Jaillet

Keyword(s):

Social Engagement ◽

Rock Art ◽

Site Formation ◽

Site Formation Processes ◽

Formation Processes ◽

New Approach ◽

Performative Space ◽

History Of ◽

Temporal Dimensions ◽

A Site

Understanding the rock art of a cave or rock shelter requires positioning the art in its landscape setting. This involves both spatial and temporal dimensions because a site’s layout changes through time, necessitating an examination of site formation processes. In this chapter, the authors present a new approach—archaeomorphology—that unites archaeological and geomorphological methods to explore the history of the objects and spaces that make up a site. Archaeomorphological mapping allows researchers to track through time the changing configuration of sites, including rock surfaces, the morphogenic forces at work, and, with this, the changing spatial contexts of the art on its surfaces. Archaeomorphology shifts attention away from the site as a ‘natural’ canvas upon which inscriptions were made to its social engagement as an actively constructed architectural and performative space.

Download Full-text