Christopher LePre, assistant instructor in the Department of
Geological Sciences, announced yesterday that the Department of Earth
and Planetary Science plans to offer a fluvial geology graduate seminar
in the spring.
LePre and Craig Feibel, associate professor in the Department of Geological Sciences, will teach the seminar, which will focus on the geology of rivers and flood plains, LePre said at the Department of Earth and Planetary Science’s colloquium at the Wright-Rieman Auditorium on Busch campus.
“We’re not going to incorporate a lot of archeology to the class — it’s going to be a geology class,” he said.
He said he wanted to incorporate topics like fluvial architecture and stratigraphy interpretation of archaeological sites because the information can build a better understanding of how artifacts get deposited and shifted through time.
“This prospect of predictability is really attractive to a geologists,” LePre said “We like to know where the artifacts are right off the back, instead of going to survey them.”
Artifacts that exist in the accumulation of sediments caused by erosion are beneficial to archeologists because it helps them understand the history of items found in dig sites, he said.
LePre said the value of the collection contains useful artifacts of human occupancy from a particular period in time.
“One of the most difficult things about looking at archeological sites is understanding what they mean,” he said.
Interpreting behavior from an archeological site is important because the artifacts give insight to what human behavior was like years ago, LePre said.
“It’s not [a] one-to-one relationship between what humans were doing at a particular moment in time and what the archeological site is made up of,” he said. “There’s a lot of distortion that has gone on, a lot of transformation that has gone on as a result of natural processes.”
Archeological records can be distorted through environmental causes, like an earthquake and weathering at the Earth’s surface, LePre said.
“What a site may have looked like 100 years ago — 1,000 years ago is not what you find when you start excavating it,” he said.
The further back in time the sites go, the more transformative factors will have distorted the archeological record, he said.
Although records get distorted over time, the Pompeii exhibit serves as an example of a site that remained preserved over time, LePre said.
There were dense accumulations of stone tools found to have cut marked bones and smashed bones, which archeologists since interpreted the site as a cluster of artifacts that could reflect human behavior, he said.
“What you’re looking at something that they call living floors or home bases, places where humans were congregating on landscape,” he said.
Other archeologists hypothesized the idea of the clustered artifacts to have formed through hydrologic means, he said.
“You have rivers coming by and basically reworking and concentrating all the artifacts as a lag deposit, and this lag gives the impression [of] your living floor or a place that was repeatedly occupied by humans,” LePre said.
Rapid sedimentation influences rapid burial of artifacts, which affected the preservation of archeological records, he said.
“As a consequence, we have a different [perspective] on the archeological record,” LePre said.
The archeological records of Pompeii leave LePre questioning how it survived erosion better through time than the artifacts did, which were accumulated over a short time.
Ben Schuber, a School of Environmental and Biological Sciences senior, said though the lecture did not interest him, he would attend other colloquiums because it has to do with his field of study.
Ying Reinfelder, an associate professor in the Department of Geological Sciences, said there would be weekly colloquiums that introduce top-of-the-line scientists and the most recent scientific discoveries to the University.
LePre and Craig Feibel, associate professor in the Department of Geological Sciences, will teach the seminar, which will focus on the geology of rivers and flood plains, LePre said at the Department of Earth and Planetary Science’s colloquium at the Wright-Rieman Auditorium on Busch campus.
He said he wanted to incorporate topics like fluvial architecture and stratigraphy interpretation of archaeological sites because the information can build a better understanding of how artifacts get deposited and shifted through time.
“This prospect of predictability is really attractive to a geologists,” LePre said “We like to know where the artifacts are right off the back, instead of going to survey them.”
Artifacts that exist in the accumulation of sediments caused by erosion are beneficial to archeologists because it helps them understand the history of items found in dig sites, he said.
LePre said the value of the collection contains useful artifacts of human occupancy from a particular period in time.
“One of the most difficult things about looking at archeological sites is understanding what they mean,” he said.
Interpreting behavior from an archeological site is important because the artifacts give insight to what human behavior was like years ago, LePre said.
“It’s not [a] one-to-one relationship between what humans were doing at a particular moment in time and what the archeological site is made up of,” he said. “There’s a lot of distortion that has gone on, a lot of transformation that has gone on as a result of natural processes.”
Archeological records can be distorted through environmental causes, like an earthquake and weathering at the Earth’s surface, LePre said.
“What a site may have looked like 100 years ago — 1,000 years ago is not what you find when you start excavating it,” he said.
The further back in time the sites go, the more transformative factors will have distorted the archeological record, he said.
Although records get distorted over time, the Pompeii exhibit serves as an example of a site that remained preserved over time, LePre said.
There were dense accumulations of stone tools found to have cut marked bones and smashed bones, which archeologists since interpreted the site as a cluster of artifacts that could reflect human behavior, he said.
“What you’re looking at something that they call living floors or home bases, places where humans were congregating on landscape,” he said.
Other archeologists hypothesized the idea of the clustered artifacts to have formed through hydrologic means, he said.
“You have rivers coming by and basically reworking and concentrating all the artifacts as a lag deposit, and this lag gives the impression [of] your living floor or a place that was repeatedly occupied by humans,” LePre said.
Rapid sedimentation influences rapid burial of artifacts, which affected the preservation of archeological records, he said.
“As a consequence, we have a different [perspective] on the archeological record,” LePre said.
The archeological records of Pompeii leave LePre questioning how it survived erosion better through time than the artifacts did, which were accumulated over a short time.
Ben Schuber, a School of Environmental and Biological Sciences senior, said though the lecture did not interest him, he would attend other colloquiums because it has to do with his field of study.
Ying Reinfelder, an associate professor in the Department of Geological Sciences, said there would be weekly colloquiums that introduce top-of-the-line scientists and the most recent scientific discoveries to the University.
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