ARCUS | Arctic Research Consortium of the United States

7th Annual ARCUS Award for Arctic Research Excellence


Submitted by   Michael R. Hilton
Authors  
Category   Interdisciplinary Research
Title   Preliminary Results of a Long-term Geoarchaeological Experiment Designed to Quantify Postdepositional Disturbances Produced by Freeze-Thaw Mechanisms
Affiliation   Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, Rapid City, SD, USA

Abstract

Archaeologists place significant emphasis on decoding patterns in the archaeological record. A plethora of literature devoted to intra-site spatial analysis substantiates this statement. The potential for postdepositional disturbances in those patterns is generally acknowledged, and freeze/thaw cycles are regularly cited as a transport agent in cold-climate environments. Attempts to quantify the scale of frost-related disturbances, however, are few. In 1999 I established a long term experiment on the Alaska Peninsula designed to gauge surface and subsurface translocation of test objects. In this paper I evaluate movement after the first three winters. One of two surface plots was configured to minimize mechanisms unrelated to frost activity (e.g., wind). After three years, test objects positioned in the control plot demonstrated an average lateral displacement of 7.8 cm. In a second plot that lacked restraints on other variables, test objects exhibited an average movement of 31.8 cm over the same period, making the original arrangement of test objects unintelligible. These data have important implications for the interpretation of spatial patterning in the archaeological record.