Material Culture and Technology (Other Keyword)

326-350 (563 Records)

Measuring Reduction Intensity in Laminar Cores: An Experimental Approach and Archaeological Application (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Armando Falcucci. Diego Lombao.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Reduction intensity analysis plays a key role in understanding the formation of lithic assemblages and the occupation patterns of Paleolithic sites. Furthermore, technological variability and core classifications can be better understood if the diachronic component of the reduction is taken into consideration. The Volumetric Reconstruction Method (VRM),...


The medieval Basque iron industry, cultural traits in technological traditions (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only David Larreina-Garcia. Juan Antonio Quirós-Castillo.

This is an abstract from the "The Movement of Technical Knowledge: Cross-Craft Perspectives on Mobility and Knowledge in Production Technologies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Basquesmith project investigates ironworking production during Early Medieval times ‒mostly utilitarian iron implements such as ladles or keys‒ excavated in rural settlements in the Basque Country (northern Spain), focusing on the characterisation of the manufacture...


Memes of Hohokam Pottery: the Spread of Ceramic Traditions from the Middle Gila River, Arizona (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Lack. Mary Ownby.

This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The idea of memes, as coined by Dawkins, originally referred to an element of a culture or behavior that is passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means. It was used to examine how cultural phenomenon replicate, mutate, survive, or become extinct. This has clear applications to ceramic traditions where the cultural...


Memory-Dependent Practices at a Chaco Outlier: Insights from the Ceremonial Deposition of Shell Ornaments at Salmon Pueblo, New Mexico (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jade Robison.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the late Pueblo II period, around A.D. 1090, migrants from Chaco Canyon constructed Salmon Pueblo, which would become an important ceremonial and political outlier in the Middle San Juan region of New Mexico. Salmon Pueblo rivals the size of canyon great houses, boasting three stories and nearly 300 rooms, as well as a tower kiva and great kiva. The...


Metal and vitreous production technologies at the Early Bronze Age Resuloğlu (Central Anatolia, Turkey) (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Gonca Dardeniz Arikan. Tayfun Yildirim.

Modern day Çorum is the homeland of the Hatti people, the culture that later formed the Hittite Empire. Resuloğlu, dated to the Early Bronze Age (ca. 2500–2100 BC), is one of the few Hatti sites being systematically excavated. The site, located on a hilltop near the Delice River, consists of a cemetery area and settlement that spreads over two opposing–once connected–ridges with numerous extraordinary metal and vitreous artifacts. The settlement exemplifies well the self-sustaining pre-Hittite...


Metallic Motivations? Using GIS to Determine the Role of Metal and Mineral Resources in Changing Settlement Location Preferences between the Bronze and Iron Ages in Evora, Portugal (2200 BCE–400 CE) (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Soares. Rui Mataloto.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bronze Age settlements in the Evora district of Portugal are typically located in rocky terrain with an apparent preference for locations in the highlands. During the Iron Age we see a shift of this settlement pattern, as highland sites are abandoned and new settlements appear at lower altitudes. Was the initial selection of highland sites influenced by the...


The Metallurgical Cycle and Human Responses to Material Fatigue (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Lehner.

Innovations in metallurgy had and continue to have significant and transformative effects on society. From mineral exploration and mining to primary metal production, manufacturing, and consumption across a range of social contexts, metallurgy influenced a wide range of distinctly human conditions. However, while metals are particularly transmutable, they also rapidly corrode back into increasingly stable mineral compounds in processes that people tried to mitigate and often unsuccessfully...


A Metallurgical Study of Early Bronzes from Northern Vietnam: Some Thoughts on Methodology, Local Practices and Inter-regional Interaction (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Francis Allard. Wengcheong Lam. Nam Kim.

This is an abstract from the "The Current State of Archaeological Research across Southeast Asia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the results of the metallurgical analysis of 43 fragments of bronze artifacts recovered from Bronze Age sites in northern Vietnam. It represents the largest systematic study undertaken so far of early north Vietnamese bronzes using a range of archeo-metallurgical techniques. The artifacts, which are...


Methods for the Application of Structure from Motion (SfM) 3D models for the Recording and Consolidation of Archaeological Architecture. (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Mario Borrero. Luke Stroth.

This is an abstract from the "Towards a Standardization of Photogrammetric Methods in Archaeology: A Conversation about 'Best Practices' in An Emerging Methodology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Photogrammetry is the process of generating 3-Dimensional digital models from still photographs. The process is applied in a variety of field and lab settings for documenting the archaeological record. Currently, there is a need for focus on individual...


Mexico’s Heritage through Pixar’s Film *Coco (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandra Lopez Varela.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeology of media frames the analysis of the film *Coco, a 3D, animated, fictional movie inspired by Day of the Dead, or Día de Muertos, in Mexico, released by Pixar Animation Studios in 2017, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios. This paper analyzes the tensions and contradictions within Pixar’s most successful movie at the box office in taking a stand...


Microanalytical Insights into Pigment Selection and Preparation in British Columbia Rock Art (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandi Lee MacDonald. David Stalla. Xiaoqing He. Tommi White.

Pictographs are important archaeological locales that can provide insight into histories of mineral use and pigment preparation. We present the results of a series of microanalytical explorations of a pictograph panel at Boling Point, Babine Lake, British Columbia. Examination by high-resolution microanalysis (SEM-EDS, TEM, FTIR, micro-Raman) has revealed evidence pertaining to source selection of the iron-oxides used to produce the pictographs, the weathering and condition of the panels, and...


The Middle Horizon Occupation of Pan de Azúcar de Nivín, Middle Casma Valley, Peru (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Cruzado Carranza.

This is an abstract from the "Casma State Material Culture and Society: Organizing, Analyzing, and Interpreting Archaeological Evidence of a Re-emergent Ancient Polity" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2017, the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica Nivín has conducted architectural mapping, limited test excavations, surface collection, and analysis of associated materials from sites located in the middle Casma Valley. The research goals are...


Middle Paleolithic Land Use in the Northern Adriatic: Preliminary Data from the Open-Air Site of Campanož (Croatia) (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Marko Banda.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Research on the Paleolithic in the Mediterranean Region" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Campanož, located in the south of the Istrian peninsula, is a relatively new discovery of the Middle Paleolithic record of Croatia. Because it is a stratified open-air site, its discovery has opened questions regarding Middle Paleolithic land use in a region that has until now been heavily biased toward cave...


Mineralogy Without Minerals: A Proposed Methodology for Reconstructing the Original Compositions of Highly Altered Ceramic Bodies Using Thin Section Petrography (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Howie. Jillian Jordan. Heather McKillop.

The rock and mineral fragments present in archaeological pottery, whether naturally occurring in the clay component or intentionally added as a temper, often serve as the primary geologic basis for provenance ascription in petrographic analysis. In certain contexts, however, the original compositional characteristics of pottery have been highly altered through technological or postdepositional processes. In these situations, accurate characterization and sourcing of original raw material...


Miniature Folsom Points from the Lindenmeier Site, Colorado (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Frederic Sellet. Michael Guarino.

Among the Folsom artifacts excavated by Frank Roberts at the Lindenmeier site in Colorado are several unusually small projectile points, both fluted and unfluted. This paper explores the hypothesis that these miniature points are toys. To do so, we review the ethnographic literature on miniature weapons and contextualize the production and use of such objects. Second, we compare the small Folsom artifacts to full-size points from a typological and technological point of view. Finally, we discuss...


Miskwabik’s Journey beyond Minong: Copper Production Systems among Hunger-Gatherers in the Northern Lake Superior Basin 4,000–6,000 Years Ago (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Peterson.

This is an abstract from the "From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past 10,000 years, hunter-gathers in the Lake Superior Basin have utilized primary and secondary deposits of native (elemental) copper in a production and exchange network that spanned across and beyond the North American Midcontinent. The production system that...


Mobility, Land Use, and Technological Organization at the Site of Yangshang, Gansu, China (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Yu-chao Zhao. Li Feng.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The excavation in Yangshang site generated a high-resolution record in the West Loess Plateau of China, and demonstrated that ancient human occupied this region at least since MIS7. In looking for evidence of possible changes in the mobility, land use, and organization of lithic technology that may have been concurrent with the paleoenvironment changes...


Molecular Characterization of Pine Pitch on Treated Water Vessels in the Four Corners Region (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Maitland.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of pitch to coat historic water vessels represents the complex relationships between indigenous peoples and native plants in the American Southwest. Chemical analyses and comparisons were conducted with the intention of sourcing the pitch coating to a specific conifer species. Ponderosa (Pinus ponderosa) and Piñon (Pinus edilus), two species of the...


A Morphometric Comparison of Copper versus Stone Weapon Tips from the Old Copper Culture (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Metin Eren. Grace Conrad. Stephen Lycett. Michelle Bebber.

This is an abstract from the "From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Old Copper Culture in the western North American Great Lakes region is one of the few areas in the world in which people produced both copper and stone weapon tips. However, a robust quantitative comparison of these implements has, to our knowledge, never been conducted....


Multifunctional Obsidian Blades: Exploring Use-Wear of Maya Blades from the Quiché Basin, Guatemala (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Kirsty Escalante.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Use-wear analysis is a valuable method for understanding the various functions of stone tools, a central concern in lithic analysis. This poster focuses on the results of a use-wear study of 50 Late Postclassic (AD 1250-1525) prismatic obsidian blades from two Maya sites in the Utatlan/Q'umarkaj region of the Quiché Basin in highland Guatemala: Ismachi and...


Music and Sound Practices in the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Katrina Kosyk.

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Puebla/Tlaxcala Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. More than a means for communication, sound, and music contributed to the formation of identities in the Puebla-Tlaxcala valley during the Late Postclassic to early colonial period. In particular, sonic assemblages contain multisensorial data that can be used to identify how knowledge and musical practices are shared among communities. These...


The Narrow Point Tradition and Long-Term Continuity in the Northeast (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Donta.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Narrow Point tradition extends across a wide area of eastern North America and its signature point type is one of the most frequently found in Archaic contexts in New England. Decades of research on the relationship between Narrow Points and other types of the Late Archaic Period has not yet produced a consensus regarding their use and origins. However,...


Neolithic Resource Use and Adaptation in the Eastern Gobi Desert: A Functional Analysis of Axes and Adzes (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Angela Evoy.

This is an abstract from the "New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Flaked and ground stone axes and adzes first appeared in the eastern Gobi Desert at 8.0 cal BP and were incorporated into the technological package. At the same time, changes in local ecological conditions reflect a transition from continuous grass/shrub-steppe across the Mongolian Plateau to the development of dispersed patches of dune-field...


Neolithic Tales from the Eastern Mediterranean Basin: A Graduate Student’s Experience under Dr. Alan H. Simmons at the University of Nevada Las Vegas in the 1990s (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason Cooper.

This is an abstract from the "Pushing the Envelope, Chasing Stone Age Sailors and Early Agriculture: Papers in Honor of the Career of Alan H. Simmons" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Las Vegas Valley in southern Nevada experienced unprecedented growth in the 1990's. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) was not immune to this progress and as a result began to attract the attention of top researchers, professors, and graduate students out...


Nephrite Jade Mapping in Southeast Asian Prehistory: Petrological and Mineralogical Study of Stone Artifacts (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Yoshiyuki Iizuka.

This is an abstract from the "Two Approaches to Archaeological Jades: Source Characterization and Social Valuation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. On-site and laboratory geochemical analyses have been carried out on jade and jade-like artifacts including unfinished pieces in the mainland of Southeast Asia by p-XRF and SEM-EDS respectively. In Vietnam, the results from more than 100 analyses show that the lingling-Os and double animal-headed...