Archaeological sites on the North American continental shelf

Melanie J. Stright

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Maritime and Coastal Archaeology Archaeological Research and Protection Archaeology and ancient environmental studies

Abstract

Abstract The oral history of the Alsea Indians in Oregon describes the use of a large peninsula for hunting and gathering on the coast "a long time ago." The Chumash Indians of southern California have a myth that describes "offshore houses" in the Santa Barbara area. In New England, some of the inland tribes, when questioned by the early settlers concerning their origin, replied that they were descended from inhabitants of the sea coast. Although long-held oral traditions among the American Indians allude to man's use of the now-submerged continental shelf, only within the last 20 years have we seriously considered the possibility of prehistoric archaeological sites on the continental shelf. In 1966, the first well-recognized treatise on continental shelf archaeology appeared (Emery and Edwards, 1966), although several researchers recognized the archaeological potential of the continental shelf much earlier. The methods and technology to actively search for and evaluate these sites have been employed only within the last decade. Archaeological sites are inundated as a result of glacioeustatic and glacio-isostatic adjustments, and local tectonics (for example, faulting and subduction). During the Holocene, eustatic sea-level rise and subsidence of coastal areas caused inundation of the basal portions of many Late Archaic coastal sites. Many older sites are now completely inundated as a result of eustatic and isostatic adjustments following the late Wisconsinan glacial epoch. While some sites appear to be completely in situ, other sites consist of only redeposited material. The original geologic context of inundated archaeological sites discovered through dredging activities

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References

1979Routes: Alternate Migration Corridors for Early Man in North America 1986Environments and Extinctions: Man in Late Glacial North America 1983Quaternary coastlines and marine archaeology : towards the prehistory of land bridges and continental shelves 1983Indians of the Upper Texas Coast 1966Archaeological Potential of the Atlantic Continental Shelf

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2003Peopling of North America 2018The next frontiers in research on submerged prehistoric sites and landscapes on the continental shelf 2003Coastal and marine palaeo-environments and human dispersal points across the Africa-Eurasia boundary 2011Early Environments and Archaeology of Coastal British Columbia 2015The Initial Colonization of North America: Sea Level Change, Shoreline Movement, and Great Migrations 2011Submerged Prehistory in the Americas 1999Archaeological evidence for vertical movement on the continental shelf during the Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age periods 1993The Geoarchaeology of Beach Ridges and Cheniers: Studies of Coastal Evolution Using Archaeological Data

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