Archaeology · Geoscience · Historical Ecology
How societies build—and are rebuilt by—changing waterscapes.
GeoArches investigates how people have inhabited and transformed wetlands, rivers, and coasts, from South Carolina’s former rice plantations to the cities of ancient Mesopotamia.
Archaeology and historical ecology at Clemson University’s Baruch Institute.
Between the waters
Water, labor, and the making of landscapes.
Along South Carolina’s tidal rivers, embankments and canals built for rice cultivation still direct the movement of water. In southern Iraq, the remains of early cities lie within a delta whose rivers and shorelines have shifted over millennia.
We study these material traces alongside sediment records and historical documents to establish when environments changed, how people responded, and where older interventions continue to shape conditions today.
The histories differ substantially. In the colonial and antebellum Lowcountry, rice cultivation depended on enslaved labor; Mesopotamian cities developed within much older agricultural and political systems. Comparing them allows us to ask how control over water became bound up with access to land, the organization of labor, and the authority of institutions.
Research projects
Wetlands, floodplains, and early cities.
01
RICE · South Carolina
The afterlives of tidal rice landscapes
RICE examines how canals and embankments built through enslaved labor continue to shape Lowcountry wetlands, and what those histories mean for their conservation.
Enter RICE
02
CORE · South Carolina
Environmental history beneath the floodplain
CORE examines sediments preserved in former river channels to investigate the history of flooding, vegetation, and land use.
Enter CORE
03
EDEN · Mesopotamia
Rivers, tides, and the making of urban Mesopotamia
EDEN reconstructs changing rivers, coastlines, and wetlands in southern Mesopotamia to understand how people organized agriculture and urban life within them.
Enter EDEN
Hobcaw Barony · RICE
Reading Between the Tides
Hobcaw Barony and the Historical Ecology of Estuarine Futures
At Hobcaw Barony, we are investigating how rice cultivation and later management have shaped the wetlands present today. Sediment records, tree rings, and historical evidence help trace that sequence and assess what it means for future management.
South Carolina and southern Mesopotamia
Who controlled the water?
Canals and embankments had to be built, maintained, and repaired. Tracing that work connects changes in a river or marsh to the people who organized labor, claimed land, and made decisions about its use. The comparison asks how those arrangements endured, and what changed when waterways moved or maintenance ceased.
How we read landscapes
From sediment cores to landscape histories.
01
Sediments as archives
Layers of sediment preserve evidence of past environments. Their composition and age help us reconstruct changes in water conditions, vegetation, and land use.
02
Landscapes from above
Maps and aerial images help us trace former channels, field boundaries, and settlements, placing individual observations within the wider landscape.
03
Archaeology and historical records
Archaeological remains, historical maps, and written records connect changes in the physical landscape to cultivation, labor, and landownership.
04
Local and descendant knowledge
People who live and work in these landscapes hold knowledge of their use and history. Their questions and observations can change how research is framed and how its findings are interpreted.
From evidence to action
What should conservation retain?
A wetland’s current condition may reflect centuries of cultivation and water management as well as recent environmental change.
Reconstructing that sequence helps clarify what a proposed intervention would preserve, restore, or remove. It also makes visible the labor and knowledge through which these landscapes were created, and the choices now facing the people responsible for them.
From the field
Field observations and work in progress.
Notes on where we sample, how we interpret the evidence, and the questions that remain as research develops.
Scholarship
Selected publications
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The Flooding of Lagash (Iraq)
Geoarchaeological evidence for a late Early Dynastic flood at Lagash and its relationship to conflict, infrastructure failure, and urban reorganization.
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Morphodynamic Foundations of Sumer
A reconstruction of Sumer’s changing delta and coastline, examining how rivers, tides, and sediment shaped the conditions of agriculture and settlement.
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Dense Urbanism and Economic Multi-centrism at Third-Millennium BC Lagash
A multi-scalar account of urban density, differentiated neighborhoods, production, and the environmental mosaic surrounding ancient Lagash.
People and opportunities
The lab and its collaborators
GeoArches is based at Clemson University’s Baruch Institute of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science.
Reed Goodman leads the lab with graduate students Caleb Yon and Reade Ward. On Reading Between the Tides, they work with collaborators in archaeology, ecology, and coastal geomorphology.