ABSTRACT
Introduction: Cultural and Natural Formation Processes .......................................509 Natural Formation Processes under the Water and off the Earth ........................... 511 Case Study of Exoatmospheric Natural Formation Processes: The Moon ............ 513 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 518 Notes and References ............................................................................................ 519
Archaeological formation processes are all the factors responsible for creating the archaeological record, whether on the Earth or not.1 Cultural formation processes are those that result from human behavior; while not the subject of this chapter, the potential of certain cultural formation processes to have adverse impacts on archaeological resources in space is what initiated much of what we currently identify as space archaeology (see Chapter 2). Natural formation processes are those that result from the conditions and forces of nature; the natural formation processes that operate in various exoatmospheric environments and that have impacts on various exoatmospheric archaeological resources, are the subject of this chapter.
