EMBRACE-EAR-Growth: From Places to Peoples: A survey of geological materials and human-environment interaction on the Edwards Plateau that prioritizes student learning.

Texas State University - San Marcos, San Marcos TX

Investigators

Abstract

The QuESTS (Quaternary Environments and Societies at Texas State) lab group is an interdisciplinary group of geoscientists and geoarchaeologists at many different career levels, from student researchers to senior scholars. The goal of this lab group is to better understand the types of geologic resources and environments that early inhabitants of Texas used and occupied over time. Past peoples in Texas were technologically reliant on stone resources, so tracking and understanding Texas’ geologic materials provides us with a window to the past. The researchers of this project focus not only on how humans have adapted to changing natural environments over the last several thousand years, but also how to best train students in geoscience using real-world data in the field and laboratory. Through this project, the QuESTS team is surveying, mapping and analyzing the geologic resources of Texas to better understand their use by past people. The team is also identifying new areas for archaeological excavation as well as palaeoecological and geoarchaeological research on the Edwards Plateau, Texas. This project is important because archaeological and environmental data are vulnerable, and this region is threatened by erosional degradation, wildfire risk, and modern land-use pressures. The results of the project will include an archive of what the environment was like in the past, which can further help to conserve and wisely use resources in the future. This project will produce new geochemical datasets comparing chert (aka flint) sources and artifacts. These datasets will be compared with regional geomorphic and archaeological data to address the project’s targeted research questions and foci. The main research question asks: “What geological resources were prioritized at different time periods throughout human history across the Edwards Plateau in Texas, USA, and can these geological resources be distinguished geochemically?”. The team will first stratigraphically map and collect raw materials from varied chert-bearing outcrops in the study area and obtain artifacts left by the region's early occupants. Then, the team will use geochemical testing (XRF and ICP-MS) on the chert samples and artifacts to characterize materials and understand what chert sources were prioritized during different stages of cultural development. Following this, the researchers will also use evidence from soils associated with archaeological zones and artifacts to determine whether preferred lithic sources were impacted by climatological/environmental changes. With this, a new geochemical database will be generated for the Edwards Plateau and novel palaeoclimatological and palaeoecological information will be created through the study of floodplain and terrace alluvial sequences that provide a record of past environmental regimes during relevant cultural periods. All of these lines of evidence elucidate human decision making and resource prioritization in response to regional scale climate shifts during different cultural periods. Most importantly, this project provides students at Texas State with the proper training and scaffolding to promote and achieve success within the shared disciplines of geoscience and geoarchaeology. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.