Republic of Guatemala (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
2,476-2,500 (2,537 Records)
This is an abstract from the "When the Wild Winds Blow: Micronesia Colonization in Pacific Context" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous archaeological research on islands in eastern Micronesia hint at possible early human migration from Melanesia by the descendants of Lapita groups. However, hard archaeological evidence has remained largely ephemeral. In this paper, we discuss recent findings from new archaeological excavations on Lenger, a...
When Irish Eyes View Maya Classic Period Political Systems (2018)
Several debates have endured for decades within the field of anthropological archaeology as to the character of lowland Classic period Maya political organization. Scholars have been struck by the contrast between Maya regal-ritual centers possessed of impressive monumental architecture with the minimal references from the documentary record to any kind of bureaucratic organization. There is disagreement as to the scale of the larger Maya polities and whether or not some polities had begun to...
When Provenience is Lost: Achievements and Challenges in Conserving the Historical St. John’s, Belize Skeletal Collection (2017)
Funding in small developing countries like Belize for archaeological research and post excavation curation remains one of our greatest challenges to preserving our tangible cultural heritage. The state of curation of human remains and artefact collections at St. John’s College in Belize City is a perfect example of what can go wrong when there is not established a properly funded and managed curation program both at the national level or the institutional level. This paper highlights the...
When Technological Analysis Becomes a Setback: The Case of the Points in the Interior of São Paulo State, Brazil (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Historically, the shift from the study of form to the study of techniques was guided by the transition from the Cultural History approach to the New Archeology. This theoretical readjustment was incorporated into Brazilian archeology decades later, strongly impacting the way that the collections was studied. Today the reality is that, although lithic...
When the Volcano Erupts: Lessons from the Archaeological Record on Human Adaptation to Catastrophic Environments (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How do repeated disasters shape and strengthen communities? The Tilarán-Arenal region of Costa Rica is one of the most volcanically active regions in the world, but despite the risk, from the advent of sedentary villages during the Tronodora phase (2000-500 BC) until the arrival of Spanish in the 16th century, people demonstrated remarkable resilience. Using...
When Traditions Are Manufactured, Used and Broken: examples from Tupian contexts in Amazonia. (2017)
One of the most insightful contributions recently put forward by Anthropology and Ethnoarchaeology is related to the concept of the "communities of practice". It is naturally connected to issues such as the relation between language and material culture, transmission, identity, persistence, structure as well as the limits of socially permitted restructuring of practices, and even the possible contingencies which might cause deep change and break the structure and, therefore, Tradition. The...
When Window Mesh is Worth It: Assessing the Potential of Microrefuse in Spatial Analysis of Hunter-Gatherer Sites (2018)
The smallest pieces of chipped stone flaking debris are often overlooked in the analysis of hunter-gatherer camps. Several factors account for this, including recovery methods, research focus, and time and cost allotted for a project. At shallowly-buried sites where features have been obliterated, concentrations of microrefuse have the potential to reveal in situ activity areas or secondary deposits formed by batch dumping. This paper presents a case study of the Mountaineer Folsom site near...
Where are the camelids? II: contributions from the stable isotope ecology to understand mobility and exchange patterns in the South Central Andes (2017)
There is a growing volume of literature arguing that camelids were a local resource for Prehispanic societies that inhabited the coastal and intermediate Andean valleys from Peru. Indeed, existing evidences show uninterrupted herding practices along the Peruvian lowlands (>2,000 masl) at 8°S-16.5°S during the interval 800 BC-1100 AD. Although camelids archeofaunal remains, textiles and iconographic representations are recurrent in low-elevation sites from the northernmost Chile (17°-19°S), the...
Where are the camelids? Mobility models and caravanning during the Late Intermediate Period (ca. 1000-1400 A.D.) in the northernmost Chile, South Central Andes (2017)
Llamas were one of the most valued animals in the Andes. Their importance has transcended the subsistence sphere as they were not only used as a source of food but also served for medicinal and ritual purposes; their fiber was fundamental for manufacturing textiles, and they were a source of symbolism and "food" for thought and ideologies. Nevertheless, their use as pack animals in exchange caravans has been prominent, stimulating intense mobility and long distance traffic between diverse...
Where condors reign: Methodological challenges in the bioarchaeology of Chachapoya cliff tombs in Peru (2017)
Traditional archaeological practice involves horizontal mapping and excavations of ancient settlements and cemeteries, but bioarchaeological research of mortuary practices in the Chachapoyas region of northeastern Peru is stymied by the challenging vertical slopes, almost constant rain, and the placement of burial structures on seemingly impossible to reach ledges on exposed rock escarpments. Exploring and registering archaeological vestiges of these cliff cemeteries requires the combination of...
Where did the Sacrificial Subjects Live? An Oxygen Isotope Study of Individuals Sacrificed by the Aztecs during the Late Postclassic Period (2017)
We present preliminary interpretations of the residential patterns of Aztec sacrificial subjects from the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan and the Templo R of Tlatelolco (present-day Mexico City) who died during the Late Postclassic period (A.D. 1400–1519). The study uses oxygen isotope analysis of bioapatite phosphate to assess whether these individuals lived in the Valley of Mexico during the last years of their lives or were brought in from distant Aztec provinces. Tissues analyzed also include...
Where Have All the Collections Gone? Mexican Archaeology in World Museums (2018)
In the second half of the nineteenth century, before the era of professional archaeology, those interested in the evidence of the past collected, and on an unprecedented scale. Most of these massive holdings have been since acquired by public museums around the world, where they have been co-mingled with other collections, and in the process, objects have been severed from their historic moorings. Focusing on Mexican collections, this talk looks back on a decade of work in museums and archives...
Where Have All the Women in Archaeology Gone: Gender (In)Equity in Tenure-Track / Tenured Academic Jobs (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Leaky Pipelines: Exploring Gender Inequalities in Archaeological Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent studies have shown that the proportion of female faculty members in anthropological archaeology—while still below the proportion of women receiving doctoral degrees in the discipline—has increased over time. Nevertheless, there has been little consideration of the types of tenure-track / tenured...
Where is Tak’alik Ab’aj Within the Fabric of Preclassic Interrelations? (2017)
Three decades of research at Tak’alik Ab’aj have repeatedly confirmed that this ancient site at the southwestern piedmont of Guatemala was an important link of the transcultural trade-network along the Pacific littoral of Mesoamerica. This presumes strong and functional interactions among the stronghold-players of this hanseatic system operating during a given timespan by means of a common shared concept proposed as "market of rituality", permeated in each case according their own local nature...
Where My Ladies At? The Fight to Erase the Gender Gap in Publication (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Feminist scholars have observed the gender disparity in archaeological knowledge production since the 1980s. Since then, both broad, discipline-wide, and smaller regionally focused studies have repeatedly demonstrated the same pattern of male-dominated publication trends. The lack of diverse voices in archaeological research has implications for the questions...
Where the Land Meets the Sea: Preceramic Complexities on the North Coast of Peru (2017)
Interdisciplinary investigation of the large coastal mounds of Huaca Prieta and Paredones and their associated domestic settlements represent Preceramic human occupation as far back as ∼14000 cal BP. Research at these sites has documented a long Preceramic sequence from the activities of the first maritime/terrestrial foragers from the late Pleistocene to early Holocene to the construction of the mounds and the introduction and development of agriculture and monumentality from the middle to late...
Where We Are Five Years Later: A Reexamination of Gender Disparities in Publication Trends in North American Archaeological Journals (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This project builds on the work of Dr. Bardolph's 2014 gender research, where she analyzed gender publication trends across 11 major archaeological journals from 1995 to 2014, assessing disparities between men and women in their number of publications. Her research put statistical value on what many researchers had before found to be true—men had higher rates...
Who Are the Olmec in Eastern Guerrero? From Grafitti to Monuments in the Caves of Guerrero (2017)
The caves of Cauadzidziqui and Techan offer contrasting views of how Olmec style appears in eastern Guerrero. Cauadzidziqui presents large-scale paintings of individuals with Olmec style symbols and objects plastered over what is believed to be local late Archaic paintings—essentially graffiti placed in a sacred locale along a primary route between the highlands and coast. The Cave of the Governors presents 3 or possibly 4 jaguar sculptures carved out of living rock, flanking the interior...
Who owns the cosmogram? Adaptations in ritual activity in the wake of political transformation at Dainzú, Oaxaca Valley of Mexico (2017)
Dainzú, located in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, has a long history of religious-ceremonial significance. In the Classic Period (A.D. 200 – 900), the site expanded significantly from its once small core into an urban settlement covering around 4 km2. Our mapping project reveals that the new site construction was carefully planned out to represent a "cosmogram", or spatial representation of the ancient Zapotec ritual calendar. After the decline of Monte Albán, Dainzú was slowly abandoned as people...
Whole Vessel Caches: A Comparison of Offerings at Cerro de la Virgen with lower Río Verde Valley Public Space Offerings (2017)
Previous archaeological excavations in the lower Río Verde Valley in Oaxaca, Mexico have provided evidence for communal ceremonies since the Late Formative (400-150 BCE). The Terminal Formative (150 BCE-250 CE) period saw a continuation of communal ceremonies at hinterland sites along with the emergence of the region’s first polity, Río Viejo. The maintenance of these practices in the hinterland during the increasing urbanization occurring at Río Viejo suggests their importance in community...
Why did people begin to make rock art?: A study case from Central North of Chile (2017)
The origin of rock art has frequently asked from an evolutionary and cognitive perspective to understand the dawn of making images in the Paleolithic. But in many regions of the world the beginnings of rock art production occurred later. The Central North of Chile is one of these places. In this area, the practice of marking and chipping rocks surfaces started around 2.000 BCE in coherence with the transition from the Middle to the Late Holocene and the start of many transformations in the...
Why did they leave? The Wari Withdrawal from Moquegua (2017)
In Moquegua the monumental provincial center of Cerro Baúl was ritually abandoned circa 1050CE. It is at this time that Wari affiliated occupation of the sacred summit ended and production of imperial Wari goods ceased in the region. This evidence does not indicate that the empire collapsed at this time, but instead suggests when Wari officials chose to withdraw from this frontier region. Why did they leave? In this paper we discuss the changing population dynamics in Moquegua at 1050CE and how...
Why Is There Math in My Archaeology? The Modern Foundations of Quantitative Archaeology Written Decades Too Soon (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Coffee, Clever T-Shirts, and Papers in Honor of John S. Justeson" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fifty years ago, what was arguably the most important paper ever written for modern work in quantitative archaeology was published in “American Antiquity.” Unfortunately for its author, and generations of archaeologists, few took notice of it at the time. With few citations, more than half of which have occurred in just...
Why Pacific Nicaragua Should Not Be Considered Mesoamerican during Prehistory (2017)
During Pre-Columbian times, it is well-known that the societies of Mesoamerica developed monumental architecture with a high level of complexity. During this same period, much if not all of lower Central America never achieved higher complexity other than that of chiefdom level. Honduras is the one major exception. While the societies of Nicaragua had similar gods and ceramics much of this can be explained through other means. The gods that were similar were "lesser" gods and not the main gods...
"Why those old fellas stopped using them?" Spiritual and ritual dimensions of stone-walled fish trap use amongst the Yanyuwa of northern Australia (2017)
Archaeological approaches to stone-walled tidal fish traps of Indigenous Australians focus on the technology and subsistence, with chronological development linked to demands of increased food production associated with demographic change and social intensification. For the Yanyuwa ‘Saltwater People’ of tropical northern Australia, old stone-walled fish traps found within the intertidal zone are associated with the creative acts of ancestral spirit beings. As such, these fish traps are imbued...