GEOARCHAEOLOGY OF THE CONTEMPORARY PAST: APPLICABILITY AND INTELLECTUAL MERIT

The development of the so-called archaeology of the contemporary past is opening the possibilities for geoarchaeology to study processes of the recent past and the present. This new trend is consolidating a research approach in geoarchaeology numerous applications to forensic research, ecological restoration projects, and the reconstruction and preservation of heritage sites. This approach represents also a way to advance the advance geoarchaeology to a more visible discipline with applicability to current problems of social and environmental concern.

Beyond their applicability, the geoarchaeology of the contemporary past has an intellectual value: First, it provides an insight on how our legacy will be seen in the geoarchaeological record of the future. Second, it offers possibilitiest to observe and experience processes in a way similar to experimental geoarchaeology and ethnogeoarchaeology. Such processes are numerous as different forms of environmental change occur. The eolian sediments deposited on abandoned features during the 1930s Dust Bowl and the flood sediments deposited in the urban setting of New Orleans as a result of the breaching of levees during the Hurricane Katrina event in 2005 are examples that can be of help for illustrating processes and their consequences on human society. At a larger scale the cited examples can also be shown as a complex relationship between human transformation of the environment and natural phenomena.