THE ENVIRONMENTAL THEATER AND THE HUMBOLDT RIVER SEDIMENTS AT THE IRISH-AMERICAN DAM

Geoarchaeology and Geomorphology have been pursued since the time of Israel Russell and horse travel in the Upper Valley of the Humboldt River Basin. The link to archaeology has been observational, the interface of artifacts, sediments and the transformations. This presentation is an argument for linking Geoarchaeology with Binford's (2001) method of archaeological science. Binford develops Hutchinson’s (1965) proposal to present biological work as a scientific “play”. Our stage is the Upper River Valley, Humboldt River Basin. The actors in our play are the human use of the Humboldt River in the area of the Irish American Dam and the natural transformations of the sediments in the larger area. Our question is the structuring of scientific research that strives to develop dimensionalized data, derivative patterning and frameworks of reference to build scientific knowledge. Use of a structured scientific approach to the observational geomorphic and archaeological data shows that recent and surficial artifact deposition by cultural transformations on the surface of a single depostional sand event, likely overbank flooding.