All the Small Things: The Refinement of Formaniniferal Analysis to Determine Site Formation Processes in Archaeological Sediments

This research assessed the efficacy of foraminiferal analysis to distinguish natural from cultural marine shell deposits using the Mort Creek Site Complex, central Queensland, as a case study. Foraminifera are single cell protozoa that are ubiquitous in all marine environments. Although foraminiferal analysis is widely employed in the natural sciences (Murray 1991; Sen Gupta 1999), particularly in palaeoenvironmental studies (Cann et al. 2000), there have only been limited attempts to use this form of analysis in archaeological applications. Marine shell deposits are the dominant coastal archaeological site type in Australia requiring the development of robust methods to differentiate site formation processes for the advancement of research in coastal archaeology. One solution lies in the determination of the density and taxa of foraminifera found in cultural and non-cultural layers of archaeological sites. Although foraminifera are not exclusive to marine deposited sediments, natural deposits created or redeposited by ocean currents or storm surges would be expected to exhibit an abundance of forminifera whereas sites formed by cultural processes will contain very few if any foraminifera