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| List of figures | |
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| List of tables | |
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| Preface | |
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| Acknowledgments | |
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| Glossary | |
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| Introduction | |
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| Environmental Archaeology and Human Ecology | |
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| Organization of this volume | |
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| Interdependence | |
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| Elaborating culture | |
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| Goals of paleoenvironmental studies | |
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| Concepts for Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction | |
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| Paleoenvironmental reconstruction in archaeology | |
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| Causation and systemic relationships | |
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| The emerging challenge to causal thinking | |
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| Mechanisms of Environmental Change | |
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| Geographic concepts | |
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| Climatic concepts | |
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| Environmental change in external factors | |
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| Environmental change in the five spheres | |
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| Human Responses to Environmental Change | |
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| Scales of environmental change | |
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| Human strategic options | |
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| Implications for environmental archaeology | |
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| Chronology | |
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| Introduction to Chronometry and Correlation | |
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| Measuring time | |
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| Calibration | |
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| Seasonal clocks and biological rhythms | |
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| Stratification and stratigraphy | |
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| Chronometry based on diagenetic changes | |
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| Summary | |
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| Measuring Time with Isotopes and Magnetism | |
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| Chronometry based on radioactive decay | |
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| Chronometry based on radiation damage | |
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| Chronometry based on cosmogenic nuclides | |
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| Chronometry based on the Earth's magnetic field | |
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| Summary | |
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| Case Study: The elusiveness of time | |
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| Climate | |
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| Climate: The Driving Forces | |
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| Scales in time and space | |
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| Factors operating at large (mega- and macro-) scales | |
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| Factors at macro- to micro-scales | |
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| Mechanisms involved in a meso-scale climatic reversal | |
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| Coda | |
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| Climate Reconstruction | |
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| Defining climate at large scales | |
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| Defining climate at meso- and micro-scales | |
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| Coda | |
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| Case Study: When is an environmental change a climatic change? | |
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| Geomorphology | |
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| Landforms | |
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| Introduction to geomorphology | |
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| Scales of landform analyses | |
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| Processes and concepts in landform analyses | |
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| Basic geomorphological methods | |
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| Landforms at mega- and macro-scales (]10[superscript 4]km[superscript 2]; 10[superscript 6-9] years) | |
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| Landforms at meso-scales ([10[superscript 4]km[superscript 2]) | |
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| Landforms at micro-scale ([1km[superscript 2]) | |
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| Landforms of Shores and Shallow Water | |
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| Coastal geomorphic concepts and processes | |
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| Methods of landform reconstruction | |
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| Coastal landforms with archaeological sites | |
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| Coda | |
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| Case Study: Landform reconstruction at Laetoli, Tanzania | |
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| Sediments and Soils | |
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| Basic Principles of Sedimentology and Soils Science | |
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| Introductory concepts | |
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| Study techniques in sedimentology | |
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| Pedogenesis and diagenesis | |
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| Soil science | |
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| Coda | |
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| Archaeological Matrices | |
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| Messages in the matrix | |
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| Terrestrial matrices | |
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| Wet and frozen site environments | |
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| Coda | |
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| Case Study: Did the Classical civilizations destroy their own agricultural lands? | |
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| Vegetation | |
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| Concepts and Methods in Paleobotany | |
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| Macrobotanical remains (Plantae and Fungi) | |
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| Microbotanical remains: pollen and spores | |
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| Microbotanical remains in mineral form | |
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| Chemical traces and proxy data | |
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| Coda | |
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| Vegetation in Paleoecology | |
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| Assembling the database | |
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| Scales of reconstruction | |
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| Communities in paleoecology | |
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| Landscapes with people | |
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| Plants in people | |
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| Discussion | |
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| Case Study: The paleoecology of the elm decline | |
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| Fauna | |
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| Faunal Paleoenvironments: Concepts and Methods | |
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| Animal Kingdom | |
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| Vertebrates | |
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| Invertebrates | |
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| Coda | |
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| Faunal Paleoecology | |
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| Reconstructing faunal environments | |
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| From assemblages to associations | |
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| Responses to habitat change: behavior and physiology | |
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| Coda | |
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| Humans Among Animals | |
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| Human effects in animal ecosystems | |
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| Animals as human foods | |
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| Paleopathology | |
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| Coda | |
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| Case Study: How do we read these bones? Seasons of use at Star Carr | |
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| Integration | |
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| Anthropocentric Paleoecology | |
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| The many variables of environmental studies | |
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| Implications for research practice | |
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| Example of successful integration and interpretation | |
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| A future for paleoenvironmental studies | |
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| References | |
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| Index | |