Ervan Garrison

Professor
Department Head
Ph.D. Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Missouri, Columbia, 1979
egarriso@uga.edu

Over the past two decades I have endeavored to promote the use of the sciences as a viable and exciting aspect of archaeology. My own natural and bioscience training is integrated into a research methodology for prehistory. Today I work in both terrestrial and underwater contexts. Using earth science techniques I and my students in geoarchaeology are examining the paleoenvironments and ecologies of historic and prehistoric human landscapes in the U. S. and Europe. The climatic ballet of vast cold eras and salubrious warm episodes have alternately challenged and promoted humanity. Archaeological sediments and the things that they hide bring out the detective in all archaeologists - the use of earth science to tease out the hints and clues of these ancient puzzles illuminate my own understanding, however imperfect.

Gray's Reef, a National Marine Sanctuary, 30 kilometers off Georgia's barrier coast, characterizes modern underwater archaeological research into the paleoecology of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. Scattered across the limestone outcrops and drowned estuaries now 20 meters below the Atlantic are the remains of the scattered and infrequent debris of animal and human communities that once exploited 16 millenia of access to extinct coastal forests and plains. With the breaking of the "Clovis Barrier", New World archaeology has been recently freed to examine a new paradigm of earlier settlement of the Americas. The coasts, past and present, are potentially rich locales for evidence of ancient coastal maritime groups.

American archaeology has entered a new era of an enhanced awareness of the rights of American Indians to the remains of their patrimony. The future of prehistoric enquiry in the U. S. relies on new and less destructive means of assessing the pertinent elements of the archaeological site. One way of doing this is to use the tools of geophysics and geochemistry to locate and characterize the subsurface remains of human habitation. UGA has led in this area using digital radar, magnetics, GIS, stable isotopes in portable and laboratory settings to characterize archaeological finds. Having been fortunate enough to have grown up in a rich Indian cultural setting, I am excited to participate in new, creative and respectful ways to study the history and humanity of that part of our heritage.

Recent publications:

• Garrison, E. Techniques for Archaeological Geology. Springer Verlag.
• Garrison, E. 1998. A History of Engineering and Technology: Artful Methods. CRC Press LLC.
• Herz, Norman, and E. Garrison. 1998. Geological Methods for Archaeology. Oxford University Press.
• Garrison, E. 1995. Three Ironclad Warships - The Archaeology of Industrial Process and Historical Myth. Historical Archaeology 29(4):26-38.
• Garrison, E. 1996. Archaeogeophysical and Geochemical Studies at George Washington Carver Natural Monument, Diamond Missouri, USA. Historical Archaeology 30(1).