M.Sc. Jared David May

Currently I am part of a loose group of mostly German scientists that are interested in reconstructing erosion & sedimentation cycles throughout the Holocene and especially documenting the Anthropogenic influences upon these cycles through landuse.I am responsible for one of these projects in northern Mississippi where we are working on 4 sites which span the anthropogenic times of Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian Period North Americans as well as Modern landuses. The geomorphological landscapes include head, up, side, and toe slopes as well as fluvial flood plain and their associated landforms.

In 2006 & 7 we collaborated with Ed Jackson at Winterville Mounds and provided the study with soil science and geomorphological expertise in order to answer some of the archeologists’ most pressing questions.

The materials and methods that we use are described in detail by Hans-Rudolf Bork in “Landschaftsentwicklung in Mitteleuropa”, 1998. However, bellow is a brief description of our main methods:

• GPS survey of eroded sites, gullies, historical and recent landuse, and hydrology features.

• Identification and analysis of soils and sediment stratigraphy.

• Chemical and physical soil analysis.

• Sample soil, artifacts, and organic material for dating (artifact correlation, C¹⁴, OSL, and CS¹³⁷).

• Environmental reconstruction using pollen & spore analysis, micromorphology, dendrochronology, and macroscopic plant remains.

• Reconstruction of former surfaces and calculating long term soil loss and water balances.

• Examine historical documents, historical data, archaeological excavations, and aerial images.

• Interview land users and owners.

Our long term goals are to incorporate the lessons from North Mississippi into a collection of global data which we use to model and reconstruct long tem soil erosion processes. These models aim at increasing our understanding of man’s past and future influence in the emergence of fluvial systems.

My interests include: Soil Science, Holocene Landscape Reconstruction, Pollen & Spore Analysis, Micromorphology, and Forestry.