Historical Archaeology of Battery Freeman (ca. 1900-1940), Fort Stevens, Oregon

This research focuses on events surrounding the activities of Battery Freeman, a coastal defense facility constructed within the earthworks of "old" Fort Stevens near Astoria, OR, in 1900 and destroyed in 1939. Archival data are used in conjunction with nearly 5,000 artifacts that were recovered from archaeological excavations in 1989 by the Oregon State University Field School, to reconstruct the history of the facility. Archival information provided a detailed representation of the spatial setting of Battery Freeman with respect to the original earthworks of Old Fort Stevens. In addition, this information detailed the timing and progress of and materials used in the construction of the battery. Spatial, temporal, and typological analyses were conducted on the artifacts. The great majority of the artifacts are associated with Battery Freeman architecture. Many of these artifacts were homogenously distributed throughout a "fill unit" reflecting the leveling and bulldozing of the site. However, several primary features were preserved, including a remnant of the east bulkhead wall of the pre-1900 structure and an incinerator feature apparently used in the battery. The spatial context of artifacts associated with these features could be interpreted with greater confidence

Coastal paleogeography of the Pacific Northwest, USA, for the last 12,000 years accounting for three-dimensional earth structure

Predictive modeling of submerged archaeological sites requires accurate sea-level predictions in order to reconstruct coastal paleogeography and associated geographic features that may have influenced the locations of occupation sites such as rivers and embayments. Earlier reconstructions of the paleogeography of parts of the western U.S. coast used an assumption of eustatic sea level, but this neglects the large spatial variations in relative sea level (RSL) associated with glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) and tectonics. Subsequent work using a one-dimensional (1-D) solid Earth model showed that reconstructions that accounted for GIA result in significant differences from those based on eustatic sea level. However, these analyses neglected the complex three-dimensional (3-D) solid Earth structure associated with the Cascadia subduction zone that has also strongly influenced RSL along the Oregon-Washington (OR-WA) coast, requiring that the paleogeographic reconstructions must also account for this effect. Here we use RSL predictions from a 3-D solid Earth model that have been validated by RSL data to update previous paleogeographic reconstructions of the OR-WA coast for the last 12 kyr based on a 1-D solid Earth model. The large differences in the spatial variations in RSL on the OR-WA continental shelves predicted by the 3-D model relative to eustatic and 1-D models demonstrate that accurate reconstructions of coastal paleogeography for predictive modeling of submerged archaeological sites need to account for 3-D viscoelastic Earth structure in areas of complex tectonics

Akimiski Island, Nunavut, Canada: The Use of Cree Oral History and Sea-Level Retrodiction to Resolve Aboriginal Title

On 1 April 1999, Akimiski Island of the western James Bay region of northern Ontario, Canada, was included in the newly formed territory of Nunavut, Canada—an Inuit-dominated territory—even though the Inuit had never asserted Aboriginal title to the island. By contrast, the Omushkegowuk Cree of the western James Bay region have asserted Aboriginal title to Akimiski Island. The Government of Canada by their action (or inaction) has reversed the onus of responsibility for proof of Aboriginal title from the Inuit to the Cree. In other words, the Government of Canada did not follow their own guidelines and the common-law test for proof of Aboriginal title. In this paper, we documented and employed Cree oral history as well as a sea-level retrodiction (based on state-of-the-art numerical modeling of past sea-level changes in James Bay), which incorporated a modified ICE-6G ice history and a 3-D model of Earth structure, to establish that criterion 2 of the test for Aboriginal title has now been fully met. In other words, Cree traditional use and occupancy of Akimiski Island was considered sufficiently factual at the time of assertion of sovereignty by European nations. As all the criteria of the common-law test for proof of Aboriginal title in Canada, with respect to Akimiski Island, have now been addressed, the Cree have sufficient basis to initiate the process of a formal land claim.Le 1er avril 1999, l’île Akimiski, située dans la région ouest de la baie James, dans le nord de l’Ontario, au Canada, a été intégrée au nouveau territoire du Nunavut, territoire dominé par les Inuits, même si ceux-ci n’avaient jamais revendiqué le titre ancestral de cette île. En revanche, les Cris omushkegowuk de la région ouest de la baie James ont revendiqué leur titre ancestral à l’égard de l’île Akimiski. Le geste (ou l’absence de geste) du gouvernement du Canada a eu pour effet d’inverser la responsabilité de prouver le titre ancestral des Inuits aux Cris. Autrement dit, le gouvernement du Canada n’a pas respecté ses propres directives et les critères de droit commun comme preuve de titre ancestral. Dans cet article, nous avons documenté et employé l’histoire orale crie ainsi qu’une rétrodiction du niveau de la mer (d’après une modélisation numérique perfectionnée d’anciens changements du niveau de la mer de la baie James), contenant un historique modifié de la glace ICE-6G et une modélisation en trois dimensions de la structure de la Terre, afin d’établir que le critère 2 des critères du titre ancestral est maintenant entièrement atteint. Autrement dit, l’usage et l’occupation traditionnels de l’île Akimiski par les Cris ont été considérés comme des faits suffisants au moment de la revendication de la souveraineté par les nations européennes. Puisque tous les critères de droit commun permettant de prouver le titre ancestral de l’île Akimiski au Canada ont maintenant été respectés, les Cris disposent de fondements suffisants pour entreprendre une revendication territoriale officielle

Palaeo-sea-level and palaeo-ice-sheet databases: Problems, strategies, and perspectives

Sea-level and ice-sheet databases have driven numerous advances in understanding the Earth system. We describe the challenges and offer best strategies that can be adopted to build self-consistent and standardised databases of geological and geochemical information used to archive palaeo-sea-levels and palaeo-ice-sheets. There are three phases in the development of a database: (i) measurement, (ii) interpretation, and (iii) database creation. Measurement should include the objective description of the position and age of a sample, description of associated geological features, and quantification of uncertainties. Interpretation of the sample may have a subjective component, but it should always include uncertainties and alternative or contrasting interpretations, with any exclusion of existing interpretations requiring a full justification. During the creation of a database, an approach based on accessibility, transparency, trust, availability, continuity, completeness, and communication of content (ATTAC3) must be adopted. It is essential to consider the community that creates and benefits from a database. We conclude that funding agencies should not only consider the creation of original data in specific research-question-oriented projects, but also include the possibility of using part of the funding for IT-related and database creation tasks, which are essential to guarantee accessibility and maintenance of the collected data

Palaeo-sea-level and palaeo-ice-sheet databases: problems, strategies, and perspectives

Sea-level and ice-sheet databases have driven numerous advances in understanding the Earth system. We describe the challenges and offer best strategies that can be adopted to build self-consistent and standardised databases of geological and geochemical information used to archive palaeo-sea-levels and palaeo-ice-sheets. There are three phases in the development of a database: (i) measurement, (ii) interpretation, and (iii) database creation. Measurement should include the objective description of the position and age of a sample, description of associated geological features, and quantification of uncertainties Interpretation of the sample may have a subjective component, but it should always include uncertainties and alternative or contrasting interpretations, with any exclusion of existing interpretations requiring a full justification. During the creation of a database, an approach based on accessibility, transparency, trust, availability, continuity, completeness, and communication of content (ATTAC³) must be adopted. It is essential to consider the community that creates and benefits from a database. We conclude that funding agencies should not only consider the creation of original data in specific research question-oriented projects, but also include the possibility of using part of the funding for IT -related and database creation tasks, which are essential to guarantee accessibility and maintenance of the collected data

Global climate evolution during the last deglaciation

Deciphering the evolution of global climate from the end of the Last Glacial Maximum approximately 19 ka to the early Holocene 11 ka presents an outstanding opportunity for understanding the transient response of Earth's climate system to external and internal forcings. During this interval of global warming, the decay of ice sheets caused global mean sea level to rise by approximately 80 m; terrestrial and marine ecosystems experienced large disturbances and range shifts; perturbations to the carbon cycle resulted in a net release of the greenhouse gases CO₂ and CH₄ to the atmosphere; and changes in atmosphere and ocean circulation affected the global distribution and fluxes of water and heat. Here we summarize a major effort by the paleoclimate research community to characterize these changes through the development of well-dated, high-resolution records of the deep and intermediate ocean as well as surface climate. Our synthesis indicates that the super-position of two modes explains much of the variability in regional and global climate during the last deglaciation, with a strong association between the first mode and variations in greenhouse gases, and between the second mode and variations in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation

SNAPSHOT USA 2019 : a coordinated national camera trap survey of the United States

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.With the accelerating pace of global change, it is imperative that we obtain rapid inventories of the status and distribution of wildlife for ecological inferences and conservation planning. To address this challenge, we launched the SNAPSHOT USA project, a collaborative survey of terrestrial wildlife populations using camera traps across the United States. For our first annual survey, we compiled data across all 50 states during a 14-week period (17 August - 24 November of 2019). We sampled wildlife at 1509 camera trap sites from 110 camera trap arrays covering 12 different ecoregions across four development zones. This effort resulted in 166,036 unique detections of 83 species of mammals and 17 species of birds. All images were processed through the Smithsonian's eMammal camera trap data repository and included an expert review phase to ensure taxonomic accuracy of data, resulting in each picture being reviewed at least twice. The results represent a timely and standardized camera trap survey of the USA. All of the 2019 survey data are made available herein. We are currently repeating surveys in fall 2020, opening up the opportunity to other institutions and cooperators to expand coverage of all the urban-wild gradients and ecophysiographic regions of the country. Future data will be available as the database is updated at eMammal.si.edu/snapshot-usa, as well as future data paper submissions. These data will be useful for local and macroecological research including the examination of community assembly, effects of environmental and anthropogenic landscape variables, effects of fragmentation and extinction debt dynamics, as well as species-specific population dynamics and conservation action plans. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this paper when using the data for publication.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

New constraints on the deglaciation of the Irish Ice Sheet from 10Be and 36C1 dating

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

New constraints on the deglaciation of the Irish Ice Sheet from 10Be and 36C1 dating

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

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This research focuses on events surrounding the activities of Battery Freeman, a coastal defense facility constructed within the earthworks of "old" Fort Stevens near Astoria, OR, in 1900 and destroyed in 1939. Archival data are used in conjunction with nearly 5,000 artifacts that were recovered from archaeological excavations in 1989 by the Oregon State University Field School, to reconstruct the history of the facility. Archival information provided a detailed representation of the spatial setting of Battery Freeman with respect to the original earthworks of Old Fort Stevens. In addition, this information detailed the timing and progress of and materials used in the construction of the battery. Spatial, temporal, and typological analyses were conducted on the artifacts. The great majority of the artifacts are associated with Battery Freeman architecture. Many of these artifacts were homogenously distributed throughout a "fill unit" reflecting the leveling and bulldozing of the site. However, several primary features were preserved, including a remnant of the east bulkhead wall of the pre-1900 structure and an incinerator feature apparently used in the battery. The spatial context of artifacts associated with these features could be interpreted with greater confidence