Clemson University
About GeoArches
GeoArches is Reed Goodman’s research program in archaeology and environmental history, based at Clemson University’s Baruch Institute of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science. It examines how people have shaped wetlands, rivers, and coasts, and how those environments have shaped human history.
How past land use shapes present environments.
A marsh crossed by former rice-field canals carries a history of cultivation into the present. Its vegetation and patterns of flooding reflect both ecological processes and decisions about how water should move.
To reconstruct that history, we combine archaeology with geoscience. Survey and sediment records help establish the sequence of change; historical documents can identify who directed the work, who carried it out, and what it was meant to achieve. Read together, these sources place the physical changes in the marsh within a history of human decisions and work.
As sea level rises and patterns of land and water management change, those histories help us assess which landscape features support present ecological functions, which depend on continuing maintenance, and how conservation choices might alter them again.
Read about the researchThe lab
Reed Goodman is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Social Science in Clemson’s Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation.
Trained as an anthropologist, Reed studies the cultural and historical ecology of wetlands and coastlines, following the connections among environmental change, population, and the ways people make a living. The organization of labor and social institutions are central to that inquiry.