[Sasnet] Rothenberg wins SAS Student Poster Award @ ASAS 2009

[AJ Vonarx]

Rothenberg wins SAS’s R. E. Taylor Student Poster Award
Archaeological Sciences of the Americas Symposium 2009 (ASAS 2009)
Tampa, Florida, USA
October 2-4, 2009

Congratulations go out to Kara Rothenberg, the most recent winner of the R. E.
Taylor Student Poster Award, sponsored by the Society for Archaeological
Sciences.  Kara, a graduate student in Anthropology at the University of South
Florida, received the award for a poster presentation entitled “Interlinking
Soil Properties to Prospect for Ancient Activity Loci: An Example from
Palmarejo, Honduras.”  The poster was co-authored by Donald Storer (Southern
State Community College) and E. Christian Wells (University of South Florida). 
For her efforts, Kara received a cash award of $100 and a complimentary one-year
membership in the SAS, including the quarterly Bulletin.  Special thanks to the
student organizers of ASAS 2009 (Daniel Seinfeld, Hanneke Hoekman-Sites, and
Michelle Markovics), their faculty consultants (Dr. Lynne Schepartz and Dr.
Robert Tykot), and the three anonymous judges who assisted with the contest.

ABSTRACT
Interlinking Soil Properties to Prospect for Ancient Activity Loci:  An Example
from Palmarejo, Honduras
Kara Rothenberg, Donald Storer, and E. Christian Wells

This poster compares various soil properties, including soil pH, organic matter,
and extractable phosphate, from a prehispanic archaeological site in Honduras to
broaden our reach in prospecting for activity loci using soil chemistry.  Recent
studies tend to rely on spatial differences in elemental concentrations for
identifying activity patterns in the archaeological record.  However, other
related soil properties, including soil pH and organic matter, sometimes
correlate with chemical residues, especially phosphates.  The research
presented here explores these interconnections with the greater goal of
identifying the ways and extent to which various soil properties are linked in
the formation and preservation of ancient activity loci.  For this study, we
collected roughly 300 soil samples from a 40 m x 40 m plaza at the site of
Palmerajo in northwest Honduras.  We used an electronic pH meter with glass
electrode to measure hydrogen potential, the loss-on-ignition method to
determine organic matter, and molybdate colorimetry using Mehlich-3 extraction
to characterize phosphate concentrations.  Linear correlations and regression
analyses of the resulting data suggest that certain activity zones share
particular signatures of multiple soil properties.  We conclude that future
soil chemical studies in archaeological prospection can benefit by
incorporating pH and organic matter into their research designs.

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AJ Vonarx
Membership Liaison
Society for Archaeological Sciences

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PhD Student, University of Arizona
Tucson AZ USA