Republic of Honduras (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,801-1,825 (1,869 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Cordage, Yarn, and Associated Paraphernalia" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In Bribri myth, the Creator God Sibó commanded Sál, the head of the spider clan, to weave cane and thatch to cover the cosmic house, which was built to encapsulate the world order. The house was supported by a central pole with eight surrounding posts representing each of the major clans. In 20+ years of archaeological research in Pacific...
Were Hutia Domesticated in the Caribbean? (2017)
The Caribbean islands had limited endemic terrestrial fauna and they lacked any of the New World domesticated animals until fairly late in prehistory. Given the depauperate terrestrial fauna of these islands the early Native American inhabitants relied on marine resources and endemic rodents for a significant proportion of the animals in their diet. It has been argued that rodents from the family Capromyidae, various species of hutia, were managed and perhaps domesticated in the Caribbean. In...
Were the Lucayans a Creole Society? (2018)
"Were the Lucayans a creole society?" Can creolization be inferred from Lucayan material culture during the Early and Late Lucayan Periods? Through the examination of ceramics and other remains, such as duhos and shell and stone artifacts, we will attempt to determine whether this was the case. Can Lucayan cultural expressions, unique to the Bahama archipelago, be viewed as byproducts of the processes of creolization, and if so, why?
The Western Stemmed Tradition During the Younger Dryas: The Newest Evidence from Connley Caves, Oregon (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Perspectives on the Western Stemmed Tradition-Clovis Debate in the Far West" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent excavations at the Paisley and Connley Caves have uncovered coeval Younger Dryas occupations with different but complementary Western Stemmed Tradition artifact assemblages. Whereas the perishable artifact assemblage at Paisley Caves provides important health and subsistence data, the large lithic...
What 35 Students Tell Us: Re-evaluating Traditional Field School Delivery Methods (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2019, the University of Idaho offered a field school in an alternative way – by having the field school incorporated into the regular academic year curriculum. With the cooperation of our registrar the class was folded into the regular fall semester class schedule. Four years later we did it again, resulting in 35 students enrolling in an eight week...
What Archaeologists Can’t See: contrasting ethnohistorical and archaeological data in Talamanca, Costa Rica in the 16th century (2018)
Archaeologist Francisco Corrales and myself recently undertook the study of the exploitation of natural resources and their exchange in the areas close to Juan Vázquez de Coronado´s route in 1564, traced from the Pacific coast to the Caribbean in Southeastern and Southwestern Costa Rica. This presentation aims to underline how resources of the different altitudes on both slopes formed an important part of the various activities carried out by the inhabitants during the 16th. century and...
What Are the Chances? Estimating the Probability of Coincidental Artifact Association with Megafauna Remains (2018)
There has long been a debate about the frequency of megafauna hunting or dismemberment by early Paleoindians in North America. Proposed megafauna kill sites are heavily scrutinized. Sites which contain limited artifacts, but no projectile points are often discounted or classified as ‘possible’ kill sites due to their limited cultural materials. This begs the question, just how likely (or unlikely) are artifacts to be accidentally associated with megafauna remains? Using a computer model, the...
What Do Archaeological Networks Reveal? Comparing New Guinean Material Culture with Ethnographic Network Structure (2021)
This is an abstract from the "People and Space: Defining Communities and Neighborhoods with Social Network Analysis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Network analysis has become increasingly common within archaeological practice during the last decade, yet little consensus exists as to what networks based on material culture actually reveal about ancient social life. Archaeologists have variably interpreted communities or cliques derived from...
What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Precolonial Sites in Chontales, Central Nicaragua? (2017)
The Proyecto Arqueológico Centro de Nicaragua (PACEN), directed by Alexander Geurds, has recently conducted archaeological research in Chontales, Central Nicaragua. The main focuses of the study include the identification of the different types of settlements, understanding site and mound morphologies, as well as re-defining the regional pottery sequence. Therefore, the authors of this paper carried out a systematic full-coverage high intensity survey of a 52 square kilometer area, a complete...
What Does a Fire Giant Eat? A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Surtshellir's Burnt Faunal Remains (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the ninth and tenth centuries CE, a very distinctive and unique site was established inside the cave of Surtshellir. This lava tube was reputed to be the home of the mythological fire giant, Surtur and has been studied over the course of several years by a team led by the...
What Happens in the Ivory Tower: The Academic Trade of Archaeological Human Remains (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Human Remains in the Marketplace and Beyond: Myths and Realities of Monitoring, Grappling With, and Anthropologizing the Illicit Trade in a Post-Harvard World" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While much of the recent discussion around the trafficking and illicit trade of human remains focuses on the black market and sales utilizing sites such as eBay or various social media platforms, we examine the historical practice...
What Is at Stake in Archaeological Knowledge Production (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Presidential Session: What Is at Stake? The Impacts of Inequity and Harassment on the Practice of Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent years have witnessed a sea change in anthropological discourse concerning how gender bias and a lack of diversity has affected the work that archaeologists produce, interest that dovetails with current concerns about equity and safety issues. More broadly, Black,...
What Is CRM’s Origin Story: How Did We Get to the System We Have Now and What Does It Say about Our Future? (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Transformations in Professional Archaeology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How did the current regulatory archaeology system form? What lessons can we learn from how the system was set up? What do these past accounts say about the future of cultural resource management? As part of a historical review stemming from the SAA Government Affairs Committee's survey regarding the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and...
What Is Good to Eat Is Good to Translocate: The Intangible Dimension of Non-Native Animal Introduction and Consumption in the Pre-Columbian Caribbean (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Intangible Dimensions of Food in the Caribbean Ancient and Recent Past" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite occupying the Caribbean since ca. 6500-6000 BP, Amerindians did not introduce continental animals to the islands until approximately 2000 years ago. In most cases, non-native taxa, while consumed, did not rival local marine resources in dietary importance; yet there is limited evidence to support an...
What Lovely Teeth You Have: An Examination of Canid Dental Anomalies and Their Use in Archaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Approaches in Zooarchaeology: Addressing Big Questions with Ancient Animals" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A survey of over 200 published sources on archaeological domestic dogs in the Americas reveals that dental anomalies, particularly the absence of the first mandibular premolar, are mentioned in Native American domestic dogs with some frequency. They have even been promoted as a means of...
What Would Larry Do: Archaeological Practice with, by, and for Native American Communities (2018)
The fight for inclusion of Native Americans in archaeology and anthropology hasn’t been an easy road; it has been divisive, contested, and sometimes violent. The need for allies and advocates for Native American inclusion in the field has become apparent through the tireless work of Larry Zimmerman. His scholarship has shaped generations of archaeologists and anthropologists in numerous ways. The ethical dimensions of his work are a testament to the need for change in the field and are a...
When Archaeology Meets History: Documenting the Conquest and Transition Period at Pachacamac, Peru. (2017)
Traditional accounts of the conquest of Peru are well known and universally accepted: in 1535, Francisco Pizarro – who had arrived two years earlier – decided to create a new capital in the neighbouring Rimac river valley, which would one day become the current city of Lima. In order to achieve this, Pizarro forcibly displaced all the contemporary inhabitants of Pachacamac, leaving this major Inka pilgrimage site completely abandoned. However, new finds recovered during the 2016 excavations at...
When Did Early Migrants Reach Pohnpei? Human Migration, Interisland Networks, and Resource Use in Eastern Micronesia (2021)
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 Is Creolization? (2018)
Multiple episodes of identity transformation can be seen in the archaeology of Mona island. From the emergence of "Taino-ness" (cf. R. Rodríguez) in the 12th century, to the catastrophic (after S. Mintz) eruption of colonial identities in the 16th century. We contrast the dynamics and character of creolizations from a diachronic and material perspective by looking at the archaeology of 500 years of subterranean ritual landscapes of Mona. We ask whether an expanded use of the term creolization is...
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 Survey Is Not an Option: Comprehensive Archeological Monitoring Standards in Texas (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological monitoring is generally considered a secondary investigative methodology, to be used when necessary after proactive archeological work has already occurred. However, monitoring is increasingly relied upon as a primary form of investigation within archaeological compliance, particularly in highly urban settings where proactive work is...
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...