Abstract
Pollen analysis of subsoil, slopewash, episodic fill, plowzone, and archaeological backdirt deposits in a core from a ditch associated with the 1665 Turf (earthwork) Fort at Jamestown, Virginia, record bare, slightly weedy local conditions around 17th-century artisan dwellings on the Jamestown waterfront and register the Virginia forest in the background before construction of the fort. Goosefoot dominated the earthwork slope; close relatives of the goldenrods were initially the most prominent plants in the open-ditch period. Pollen percolation rates adjusted for plowing and applied to ragweed-type (Ambrosia-type) percentages suggest that cultivation over the ditch began ca. 1729. Cultural matrix depostition, slopewash, and pollen percolation were crticial to the preservation of this record, and serve to emphasize the importance of evaluating pollen record formation processes in cultural landscape studies.
DOI
10.22191/neha/vol27/iss1/8
Recommended Citation
Kelso, Gerald K.; Horning, Audrey J.; Edwards, Andrew C.; Brown, Marley R. III; and McCarthy, Martha W.
(1998)
"Exploratory Pollen Analysis of the Ditch of the 1665 Turf Fort, Jamestown, Virginia,"
Northeast Historical Archaeology:
Vol.
27
27, Article 8.
https://doi.org/10.22191/neha/vol27/iss1/8
Available at:
https://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol27/iss1/8
