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ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE FORMATION PROCESSES ON A TERRACE OF THE LITTLE TALLAPOOSA RIVER, CARROLL COUNTY, GEORGIA**

Abstract

An archaeological site on University of West Georgia campus contains shallowly buried artifacts, likely late-Archaic in age. The aim of this study is to evaluate site formation processes and to reconstruct environmental conditions at time of occupation. We initially hypothesized that the artifacts were buried on a natural levee, with active deposition roughly contemporaneous with, and subsequent to, site occupation. Examination of a lidar-based DEM to compare the site to other fluvial features elsewhere along the river valley support the interpretation of the site as a natural levee. Detailed particle size analysis was done to determine sand, silt, and clay fraction percentages. We looked for breaks in sedimentation and evaluated several tests for lithologic discontinuities that would indicate a buried surface. The results tend to suggest post-depositional artifact burial due to bioturbation, given the lack of clear lithostratigraphic breaks in size characteristics of the clay-free fraction. We also sampled for portable luminescence measurements, which promise to add more information for evaluating the hypothesis. The presence of artifacts on similar terraces in the basin suggests that these were preferred locations for human activity in prehistory. Using ArcGIS Pro, we created maps of terraces in Carroll County based on USDA SSURGO (Soil Survey Geographic Database) map units. We then used lidar-based DEMs to evaluate the reliability of fluvial soil map units and their ostensible distinction between high terrace, low terrace, and floodplain.

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