Session: #492

Session, made up of a combination of papers, max. 15 minutes each

Research into climatic and biological proxies from marine and lake cores is now becoming useable in archaeology. These new techniques include a wide range of isotopes and biomarkers as well as sedaDNA. The potential of these techniques has grown as it has been shown that a) there is preservation of informative biomolecules well outside the cool temperate and Arctic biomes, b) the costs are reducing (slowly), c) the number of laboratories has grown, and most importantly, d) the techniques are becoming more robust (both in reliability and specificity). At present, and probably for some considerable time to come, these techniques will be used alongside traditional proxies such as pollen, diatoms and insects but they have the potential to be far more specific about both human activites (e.g. fecal sterols and bile acids) and on-site biotic conditions (species or even below species level local vegetation and plant resources). Important questions remain concerning the taphonomy of the biomolecules, spatial representation and the detection of human vs natural variation. However, the potential of waterlogged or sealed deposits, from lakes to latrines, on and adjacent to archaeological sites is huge to both answer existing and raise new archaeological questions. Contributions are invited from any studies of wetland, lake alluvial or other sites where multiple proxies and/or new biomolecular methods are being used.

environment, DNA, biomarkers, pollen, archaeobotany

no

no

no

Professor Antony Brown (United Kingdom) ¹

Dr Ben Gearey (Ireland) ²
Dr Satu Koivisto (Finland) ³
Prof. Nicola Whitehouse (United Kingdom) ⁴