Applications of Isotope in Geoarchaeology

Dear Colleagues,

While stable isotope applications have been used extensively in biology, geology, hydrology, and climatology for decades, stable isotope signatures are relatively new to archaeology. The combination of isotopic applications of geology and archaeology is by definition cross-disciplinary research and may provide crucial information on the following:

• Assessing the evolution of archaeological sites;
• Reconstructing archaeological sites while taking into account stratigraphic content and human-induced effects;
• Reconstructing the archeological environment by taking into account available food resources for human consumption;
• Understanding the formation of sites and the relation of land use;
• Potentially addressing fundamental questions of archaeology.

Specifically, the availability, spacing, and seasonality of plants, food resources, animals, and mineral resources in prehistoric site locations can provide new perspectives in the transition from hunter–gatherer to farmer economies.

Oxygen isotope analysis of deep sea sediment cores can trace the history of the global continental ice volume and, as a consequence, the glacio-eustatic component of sea level change.

Combination of drill core data, radiocarbon dating, isotope tracer, geomorphological indicators, and archaeological evidence can reveal the paleogeographic setting, which is extremely important for archaeological sites.

A record of colder and drier conditions (e.g., isotopes from speleothem records) can also be traced by isotopes and can correlate erosional events or how climatic stress—in the form of unusually arid conditions affecting agricultural productivity—might have contributed to social changes and settlement patterns.

The proposed aim for this Special Issue is paleoenvironmental and paleogeographic reconstructions and understanding of past socio-cultural developments triggered by geomorphological, diet evolution, ecological, and paleoclimatic processes.

Dr. Elissavet Dotsika
Dr. Georgios Diamantopoulos
Dr. Giovanni Zanchetta
Dr. Maura Pellegrini
Guest Editors

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• paleoenvironmental reconstruction
• paleogeographic reconstruction
• paleoclimatic reconstruction
• coastal line reconstruction
• speleothem records
• sea level reconstruction
• diet evolution

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