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Geoarchaeological research captures dimensions of the past at an unprecedented level of detail and multiple spatial and temporal scales. The record of the past held by soils and sediments is an archive for past environments, climate change, resource use, settlement lifeways, and societal development and resilience over time. When the McDonald Institute was established at Cambridge, geoarchaeology was one of the priority fields for a new research and teaching environment. An opportunity to develop the legacy of Charles McBurney was bestowed upon Charles French, whose ‘geoarchaeology in action’ approach has had an enormous impact in advancing knowledge, principles and practices across academic, teaching and professional sectors. Many journeys that began at Cambridge have since proliferated into dozens of inspired geoarchaeologies worldwide. This volume presents research and reflection from across the globe by colleagues in tribute to Charly, under whose leadership the Charles McBurney Laboratory became a beacon of geoarchaeology.

Environmental change has been cited as a key factor in controlling dispersals throughout human evolution. Shifting environments potentially controlled movements of late Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Later Stone Age (LSA) modern human populations during Marine Isotope Stages 5–2 (MIS5–2) both within, and out of, Africa. Understanding the environmental context of the occupations at the Haua Fteah rockshelter, Libya (one of the key cultural sequences in North Africa), will allow the assessment of environmental controls on the replacement of populations carrying MSA technologies by those with LSA industries, and the analysis of their relative abilities to adapt to a range of environments. Cave sediments result from the complex interplay between anthropogenic and ‘natural’ influences, and thus potentially contain high-resolution histories of environmental change which can be directly linked to the archaeology they contain. This thesis combines geoarchaeological techniques of bulk sedimentology (percent loss on ignition organics, magnetic susceptibility, particle size and percent calcium carbonate) and thin section soil micromorphology to produce a multi-scalar robust site formation history. Through field descriptions and bulk sedimentology, it traces the response of the shelter to global environmental change over the last glacial cycle. Within this long-term framework, micromorphological analysis is used to examine specifically the conditions leading up to and during the replacement of the later MSA with the early LSA Dabban. The results demonstrate the potential for integrating such analyses into rockshelter investigations, both for environmental reconstruction as well as for highlighting the major taphonomic issues integral to all on-site palaeoenvironmental analyses and archaeological excavations. The sedimentary history of the shelter appears to show that relatively high-density MSA occupation at the Haua Fteah during the later part of MIS5a in mesic conditions was curtailed by the onset of cooling in the glacial conditions of MIS4. Environmental and landscape fluctuations in MIS3, reflecting rapid global climatic shifts, were accompanied by even lower occupation density for both MSA populations and the LSA Dabban, which appears during this period, indicating that this period was inhospitable to populations with both industries. Subsequently, the occupation intensity of the Dabban increases markedly with the onset of MIS2, indicating that the Jebel Akhdar acted as a refuge during full glacial conditions for LSA populations, yet not for MSA populations during MIS4. This geoarchaeological study of the Haua Fteah therefore potentially highlights a technological advantage of LSA industries which allowed modern human populations to adapt to a wider range of environments than was possible with MSA technology, an ability which may potentially have aided their global dispersal.

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Surface artifacts dominate the archaeological record of arid landscapes, particularly the Saharo‐Arabian belt, a pivotal region in dispersals out of Africa. Discarded by hominins, these artifacts are key to understanding past landscape use and dispersals, yet behavioral interpretation of present‐day artifact distributions cannot be carried out without understanding how geomorphological processes have controlled, and continue to control, artifact preservation, exposure and visibility at multiple scales. We employ a geoarchaeological approach to unraveling the formation of a surface assemblage of 2,970 Palaeolithic and later lithic artifacts at Wadi Dabsa, Saudi Arabia, the richest locality recorded to date in the southwestern Red Sea coastal region. Wadi Dabsa basin, within the volcanic Harrat Al Birk, contains extensive tufa deposits formed during wetter conditions. We employ regional landscape mapping and automatic classification of surface conditions using satellite imagery, field observations, local landform mapping, archaeological survey, excavation, and sedimentological analyses to develop a multiscalar model of landscape evolution and geomorphological controls acting on artifact distributions in the basin. The main artifact assemblage is identified as a palimpsest of activity, actively forming on a deflating surface, a model with significant implications for future study and interpretation of this, and other, surface artifact assemblages.

This resource is a single blog post created as part of the Day of Archaeology initiative. The Day of Archaeology project aimed to provide a window into the daily lives of archaeologists from all over the world. The project asked people working, studying or volunteering in the archaeological world to participate in a 'Day of Archaeology' each year by recording their day and sharing it through text, images or video on the Day of Archaeology blog.The project asked anyone with a personal, professional or voluntary interest in archaeology to get involved, and help highlight the reasons why archaeology is vital to protect the past and inform our futures. The resulting Day of Archaeology project archive demonstrates the wide variety of work the archaeological profession undertakes day-to-day across the globe, and helps to raise public awareness of the relevance and importance of archaeology to the modern world.The first ever Day of Archaeology was held in 2011 and, since then, the project had thousands of archaeologists take part in the event, from those working in the field through to specialists working in laboratories and behind computers. The last Day of Archaeology was on Friday 28th July 2017.

This resource is a single blog post created as part of the Day of Archaeology initiative. The Day of Archaeology project aimed to provide a window into the daily lives of archaeologists from all over the world. The project asked people working, studying or volunteering in the archaeological world to participate in a 'Day of Archaeology' each year by recording their day and sharing it through text, images or video on the Day of Archaeology blog.The project asked anyone with a personal, professional or voluntary interest in archaeology to get involved, and help highlight the reasons why archaeology is vital to protect the past and inform our futures. The resulting Day of Archaeology project archive demonstrates the wide variety of work the archaeological profession undertakes day-to-day across the globe, and helps to raise public awareness of the relevance and importance of archaeology to the modern world.The first ever Day of Archaeology was held in 2011 and, since then, the project had thousands of archaeologists take part in the event, from those working in the field through to specialists working in laboratories and behind computers. The last Day of Archaeology was on Friday 28th July 2017.

The role of coastal regions and coastlines in the dispersal of human populations from Africa and across the globe has been highlighted by the recent polarisation between coastal and interior models. The debate has been clouded by the use of the single term ‘coastal dispersal’ to embrace what is in fact a wide spectrum of possibilities, ranging from seafaring populations who spend most of their time at sea living off marine resources, to land-based populations in coastal regions with little or no reliance on marine foods. An additional complicating factor is the fact of Pleistocene and early Holocene sea-level change, which exposed an extensive coastal region that is now submerged, and may have afforded very different conditions from the modern coastal environment. We examine these factors in the Arabian context and use the term ‘Blue’ to draw attention to the fertile coastal rim of the Arabian Peninsula, and to the now submerged offshore landscape, which is especially extensive in some regions. We further emphasise that the attractions of the coastal rim are a product of two quite different factors, ecological diversity and abundant water on land, which have created persistently ‘Green’ conditions throughout the vagaries of Pleistocene climate change in some coastal regions, especially along parts of the western Arabian escarpment, and potentially productive marine environments around its coastline, which include some of the most fertile in the world. We examine the interplay of these factors in the Southwest region of Saudi Arabia and the southern Red Sea, and summarise some of the results of recent DISPERSE field investigations, including survey for Palaeolithic sites on the mainland, and underwater survey of the continental shelf in the vicinity of the Farasan Islands. We conclude that coastlines are neither uniformly attractive nor uniformly marginal to human dispersal, that they offer diverse opportunities that were spatially and temporally variable at scales from the local to the continental, and that investigating Blue Arabia in relation to its episodically Green interior is a key factor in the fuller understanding of long-term human population dynamics within Arabia and their global implications.

Mediterranean Geoarchaeology Workshop, Shaping the Mediterranean basin: islands, coastlines and cultures across time

The archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula is pivotal to understanding the timing and mode of dispersals of hominin populations from Africa, with growing evidence supporting a Southern Route across the Hanish Sill in the Southern Red Sea. Yet, despite recent key discoveries, our understanding of the hominin occupation of the peninsula remains patchy. This situation is particularly marked in coastal Southwestern Saudi Arabia, a region key in dispersal debates given its proximity to the proposed Southern Route. Identification of the routes and conditions of hominin dispersals from Africa has focussed on reconstructing broad-scale climatic and vegetation zones. Yet physical landscapes are also critical to palaeoenvironmental reconstruction at the local scale. They can moderate or amplify climatic influence, and modify the distribution of plant and animal resources. The DISPERSE project aims to develop systematic methods for reconstructing Palaeolithic landscapes at a variety of geographical scales, and their impact on patterns of human evolution and dispersal. This paper reports the preliminary results of archaeological and geomorphological survey carried out in February-March 2013 in the Jizan and Asir regions, Southwestern Saudi Arabia. Satellite imagery was used to identify areas of potential preservation and visibility of Palaeolithic sites, as well as key geomorphological features to inform landscape reconstruction. ESA, MSA and potentially later artefacts were recorded at a number of locations and geographical settings in the region. These sites are placed within the developing model of landscape evolution, and preliminary hypotheses of hominin landscape use and technological aspects are outlined. These hypotheses will be tested through future survey seasons, ultimately allowing assessment of the factors controlling human occupation and dispersal.