A Geoarchaeological Analysis of Adobe from the Presidio, San Francisco
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This thesis is a comparative study of adobe from two different sites in the Presidio de San Francisco: the Officer's Club, in the main quadrangle, and El Polin Springs, an extramural site in the Tennessee Hollow Watershed. By combining macroscopic descriptions of the texture and plant content of adobe samples with petrographic analysis and a review of the local geology, this study focuses on intersite and intrasite variability in texture and source materials to understand more about the history of the individual buildings and the social relationships surrounding architectural production in the Presidio. Because the adobe from El Polin Springs was found with fired soil in burnt building rubble at the site, analysis of this rubble also seeks to contribute to knowledge about the fire episode. Findings indicate that there is compositional and textural variation between the adobe from these two sites, which may be due to the use of different source materials, variation within a single source location, or, in the case of the mineralogical variation, high-temperature alteration of minerals during the fire at El Polin Springs.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | May 17, 2006 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Simmons, Erica Kathleen |
|---|---|
| Advisor | Voss, Barbara |
Subjects
| Subject | School of Earth Energy & Environmental Sciences |
|---|---|
| Subject | adobe construction |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- Theses courtesy of Stanford University Libraries. If you have questions, please contact the Branner Earth Science Library & Map Collections at brannerlibrary@stanford.edu.
Collection
Undergraduate Research Papers, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University.
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