David J. Cranford Geoarchaeology and the CrossTimbers

This monograph primarily results from a University of Oklahoma graduate course in geoarchaeology. Offered in the rail of 2005, the class was designed to teach students the fundamentals of geoarchaeological research and expose them to various settings where different soils and erosional processes might affect the ability to stud y prehistory. One of the major emphases of this class was the examination of settings for clues to where buried archaeological deposits might be found. Many of the locations described in this study suggest that throughout the northern extent of the Cross Timbers the archaeological record may be deeply buried and out of reach of conventional surveying techniques. Such a conclusion can also be drawn from the contribution of Stance Hurst and Lee Bement and their colleagues. This contribution is found in Chapter 7, and, while e presenting pedological and palynological results of trenching at archaeological l site 34GR4 in southwestern Oklahoma, these findings are also relevant to our knowledge about past environments near the Cross Timbers. In fact, a noticeable part of the vegetation found among this westernmost reaches of the Wichita Mountains are diminutive growths of the scrub oak woodlands common to the Cross Timbers.