John Anderton (Geography) has received a $94,000 grant from the National Park Service for a geoarchaeological study in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The funding will be distributed over two years, with the first installment earmarked for mapping the ancient shorelines of the park. "There are extensive areas of the park that contain evidence of former beaches, old wave-cut caves, and ancient barriers and lagoons," Anderton said. "This information will be used to generate a GIS [geographic information system] model of a prehistoric Native American settlement that will be used to predict the location of archaeological sites. Students are a very important part of this research and are assisting with the field work and computer-generated end of things." Anderton is the principal investigator. Robert Regis (Geography) is lending expertise in remote sensing. New faculty member Robert Legg will also be involved in the project. Anderton said it marks the first attempt to use a geoarchaeological approach to an archaeological survey in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. |
