Introduction - Reconstructing Human-Landscape Interactions: Interpreting Desert and Fluvial Environments - page 1

Introduction

Michelle Goman

The Holocene is unique when compared to earlier geological time in that humans
began to alter and manipulate the natural environment for their own needs.
Domestication of crops and animals and the resultant intensification of agriculture
lead to profound changes in the impact humans have on the environment.
Conversely, as human populations began to increase, geologic and climatic factors
began to have a greater impact on civilizations. To understand and reconstruct the
complex interplay between humans and the environment requires examination of
multiple differing but interconnected aspects of the environment and involves
geomorphology, paleoecology, geoarchaeology and paleoclimatology.
During the Geological Society of America 2010 annual meeting in Denver,
Colorado, a special session was convened entitled ''Reconstructing Interactions
between Humans and the Natural Environment during the Holocene''. The moti-
vation for this stimulating oral and poster session was to examine the dynamic
interplay between humans and the natural environment as reconstructed by the
many and varied sub-fields of the Earth Sciences. The session was interdisciplinary
as shown by its sponsorship by the Archaeological Geology Division, Limnology
Division and Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Divisions of the Geolog-
ical Society of America. This volume is the first of several SpringerBriefs
presenting selected papers from this session.
In Springer Briefs Reconstructing Human-Landscape Interactions: Interpreting
Desert and Fluvial Environments, three chapters explore vastly different geo-
morphic settings and landform development through the late Pleistocene to recent
historic period. The first two chapters examine the geomorphic and geoarchaeo-
logical setting of La Playa archaeological site located in the northern Sonoran