DEEPLY ROOTED: A FEASIBILITY STUDY TESTING THE POTENTIAL FOR AMS DATING THROUGH PALEOETHNOBOTANICAL RECOVERY METHODS AT THE TOPPER SITE (38AL23)

Archaeologists often make limiting operational choices that — though considered and logical — are (sometimes) necessarily selective in nature. One such a priori framework posits that costly paleoethnobotanical recovery and associated analyses are not worthwhile when working in sandy, acidic soils; as dateable organic remains are too rapidly destroyed by inherent chemical and mechanical processes to allow for differential preservation. This research demonstrates that these destructive processes are largely misunderstood. Indeed, the successful collection of significant paleoethnobotanical material is possible from certain types of sandy soils previously thought to be organically sterile. Moreover, such paleoethnobotanical recovery efforts can yield viable, datable material needed to establish an absolute chronology where not otherwise possible. Clovis, Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian, and Historic-aged carbonized plant remains were recovered from the late Quaternary sediments at the Topper Site (38AL23) (a chert-quarry based archaeological site located in South Carolina) and were dated via Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS). Additional supplementary chemical testing was also undertaken in support of the paleoethnobotanical recovery. The resulting data are shown to: (1) quantify the age of the associated lithic deposits; and (2) independently corroborate Topper’s vertical stratigraphic integrity. Too often, the utility of paleoethnobotany is narrowly conceived as only able to address matters of subsistence. Paleoethnobotanical recovery, however, can address a greater range of questions — the answers to which better inform the largely unresolved debates surrounding the archaeological questions of our time.