Two Acres of Time : : Unearthing the Ice Age at the Byron Dig / / Richard S. Laub.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Columbia University Press Complete eBook-Package 2022
• VerfasserIn: Laub, Richard S.,
• MitwirkendeR: Owsley, Douglas W.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : Columbia University Press, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource :; 68 images, 9 tables

In 1959, what appeared to be the bones of a mastodon were found in a western New York pasture. When researchers began to investigate further in the early 1980s, the site proved to hold far more. Known as the Hiscock Site, it contained an astonishingly rich trove of fossils and artifacts dating from the late Ice Age through the onset of European settlement. For nearly three decades, work at the site—the “Byron Dig”—unearthed new evidence of changing fauna, flora, cultures, and environments over the past 13,000 years.In Two Acres of Time, Richard S. Laub—the principal investigator of the project—tells the story of the Byron Dig. Recounting twenty-nine years of intensive excavation involving more than a thousand participants, he provides a comprehensive account of a working paleontological and archaeological field project and its contributions to our knowledge of the past. Laub explores how understanding of the site evolved through the years, the surprises that came to light along the way, and how contributions from numerous researchers helped achieve a fuller picture of the significance of the findings. The book also shows how people from all walks of life—not only scientists but also volunteers and local small-town residents—worked together to unearth and interpret the site’s contents and to preserve them for future generations. This extensively illustrated book connects life at a scientific excavation project to the grand sweep of long-ago epochs, and is a compelling read and resource for researchers and general readers alike.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- In Appreciation -- Introduction -- Prologue -- PART I Getting There -- Chapter 1 Discovery -- Interlude 1 The American Mastodon -- Chapter 2 First Steps -- Chapter 3 Brigadoon -- PART II The Heroic Age (1983–1990) -- Chapter 4 First Try, 1983 -- Chapter 5 Emerging Patterns -- Chapter 6 Friday’s Footprint -- Interlude 2 The Clovis People -- Chapter 7 Steady Going, and First Symposium -- Chapter 8 The Dig Matures (I) -- Chapter 9 The Dig Matures (II) -- Chapter 10 Calling Cards of Stone -- PART III New Terrain (1991–2001) -- Chapter 11 A Lucky Drought -- Chapter 12 Tools! -- Chapter 13 More Discoveries (I) -- Chapter 14 More Discoveries (II) -- Chapter 15 Of Death and Life -- Chapter 16 Second Symposium -- PART IV Exploding Pits (2002–2005) -- Chapter 17 Bonanza (I) -- Chapter 18 Bonanza (II) -- Chapter 19 Money Worries -- PART V Winding Down (2006–2011) -- Chapter 20 Into the Shallows I—Disappointment -- Chapter 21 Into the Shallows II—A Stirring of Hope -- Chapter 22 A Bolt from the Blue -- Chapter 23 To Where All Things Must Come -- Chapter 24 Some Parting Thoughts -- Appendix A: Human Teeth and a Rib from the Hiscock Site -- Appendix B: Hiscock Radiocarbon Dates, Corrected for Isotopic Fractionation -- Appendix C: Uncorrected Radiocarbon Dates for Hiscock Samples Cited in Appendix A -- Appendix D: Bibliography of Scientific Publications About the Hiscock Site -- Notes -- Specimen Number Index -- Index