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Using GIS and remote sensing to monitor industrial impacts to archaeological sites in the Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta

Description

The Athabasca Oil Sands region of Alberta has one of the densest accumulations of known archaeological sites in the country. Until recently, there has been little quantitative evidence to assess... More ≫

Description

The Athabasca Oil Sands region of Alberta has one of the densest accumulations of known archaeological sites in the country. Until recently, there has been little quantitative evidence to assess human impact on archaeological resources in the region. The goal of this paper is to raise awareness of the critical need to incorporate new archaeological remote sensing strategies to improve site monitoring approaches. We present methods and results from our GIS-based analysis that seeks to locate and partially characterize impacted sites.

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Topographic setting of archaeological survey in the Boreal Forest of Alberta

Description

The archaeological record of the Canadian Boreal Forest is dominated by shallowly buried sites with little to no datable artifacts or stratigraphy. However, the factors that underlie this skew to... More ≫

Description

The archaeological record of the Canadian Boreal Forest is dominated by shallowly buried sites with little to no datable artifacts or stratigraphy. However, the factors that underlie this skew to shallow sites are rarely formally examined. Here we use a geomorphon-based terrain classification to assess the role of topographic setting in the placement of archaeological survey points. Our results show that there is considerable bias in current archaeological survey methods towards landforms that disperse sediment. This reduces the likelihood of finding deeply buried or stratified sites and calls into question the assertion that datable sites are largely absent from the region.

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