Once every four years Quaternary researchers from all over the world meet at the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) Congress to exchange the latest research results and develop agendas for the years to come. In 2015 the Congress will take place in Nagoya, Japan. COARS are very proud to announce that they will be convening a special session during the congress entitled Geoarchaeology of submerged and deeply buried landscapes: methodological and interpretative approaches. The abstract for the session is:

Accessing deeply buried and/or submerged sedimentary sequences can be very costly, often resulting in the recovery of only sparsely distributed datasets across a large geographical area. However, within the past few decades, some geographical areas have benefited from the generation of vast geophysical and geotechnical datasets in response to major infrastructure developments, particularly within the offshore and coastal zone. Consequently, researchers and sovereign state governments across the world are beginning to recognise the considerable archaeological and Quaternary science potential that these areas may represent (and legislating as such), resulting in a greater need for a better understanding of the submerged palaeogeography. Although data collection has progressed rapidly in some areas, consideration of the implications and synthesis of this new data, for our understanding of past societies and palaeolandscape interpretation, has not necessarily kept pace. Spatio-temporal uncertainty associated with difficult to access sequences is often seen as a major limiting factor during investigations. However this also presents a notable opportunity for the development of new methodological and interpretative approaches to enhance our interpretation of stratigraphy, chronology, palaeoecology and sea-level histories. Seizing such opportunities will ultimately enhance our ability to move beyond site-specific investigations and towards an integrated regional / landscape interpretive basis. This session will present methodological and interpretative approaches, from studies across the world, that aim to better understand deeply buried and submerged landscapes in order to promote interdisciplinary communication and understanding, notably between the Quaternary science, archaeological and geological communities.

If you would like to be involved with this session please submit an abstract for either an oral or poster presentation. Abstracts submission is now open until 20^th December 2014; details can be found at: http://convention.jtbcom.co.jp/inqua2015/call_for_abstracts.html.