Jamaica (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,176-1,200 (1,413 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sugar production was integral to European colonization during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but the archaeology of sugar has almost exclusively focused on industrial-level, surplus, and profit centered production at large plantations. This has resulted in a lack of data related to small-scale productive activities centered on localized sales and...
Social and Cultural Influences on Weaning Practices (2017)
Much of the research done on weaning practices among ancient societies is directed toward biological aspects of the weaning process. Some researchers have, for example, attempted to identify a ‘natural’ weaning age determined by human primate origins. Surveys of weaning age among modern and ethnohistoric populations, however, demonstrate that weaning age is highly variable across diverse economies and categories of social organization. This pattern (or lack of pattern) suggests that a range of...
Social Differentiation and Hierarchy at a Central Place in the Eastern Andes of Ecuador (2017)
This paper focuses on the development of a central place in the Quijos Valley, Eastern Andes of Ecuador. Based on an intensive survey of the site complemented by small excavations, I offer a spatial, demographic, social and economic characterization of this central place with the goal of discussing and contrasting views on the development of social differentiation, hierarchy, and centralized political authority in ancient chiefdoms. Contextualizing this in a body of regional settlement pattern...
Social Dynamics of the Past through the Body of the Camelid: Utilizing Evidence from Late Moche Peru (2017)
Assessing social dynamics in the past through archaeometry is more readily possible by constructing questions that more actively engage with issues beyond subsistence and technology. As archaeologists we are capable of reaching these higher-level interpretations of the past. In this paper, the use of camelid age profiles will bring insights into the kinds of value placed on the camelid body and the kinds of constrains and affordances that camelid herds would have placed on the Late Moche...
Social inequality as reflected in dietary and mobility practices of South American maritime chiefdom societies: Contextual and isotopic analysis of burials excavated in La Tolita, Ecuador (2017)
This project explores social inequality in relation to dietary and mobility practices of maritime Pacific polities in La Tolita (600 BC-200 AD) of Ecuador and Colombia. The research question driving this project aims to identify: How is social inequality reflected in the diet and spatial mobility as practiced by maritime chiefdom societies through time and space? A cross-site comparison between the dietary and mobility practices of individuals buried in mounds associated with the chiefly class...
Social Memory and the Development of Monumental Architecture in the Southern Jequetepeque Valley, Peru (2017)
Numerous theoretical concepts associated with social memory have been employed by archaeologists working throughout the world as a means of explaining continuities and discontinuities in the archaeological record. These social memory-based approaches are varied and include specific avenues of inquiry such as how social memories were actively manipulated for political gain; the role played by monumental architecture in the coalescing of shared memories; and the interrelationship between social...
Social Memory and the Re-Use of Archaeological Ruins: Preliminary Insights from a Chimú-Inka Elite Gravesite at Samanco, Nepeña Valley, Peru ca. 1470-1534 CE (2017)
Social memory and ancestor veneration are recurring themes throughout Andean belief systems. Yet, the relationship between ancient Andeans and the archaeological ruins they encountered remains an underexplored research topic. Recent fieldwork at Samanco, an Early Horizon coastal settlement in the Nepeña Valley, shows intriguing mortuary practices of reutilizing site ruins as cemeteries. After an abandonment hiatus over several centuries, Samanco’s ruins of stone enclosures were reutilized as a...
Social Networks and Community Features: Identifying Neighborhoods in a World War II Japanese American Incarceration Center (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. Socially defined neighborhoods develop through frequent face-to-face interactions among residents and their self-identification as neighbors. Archaeological evidence of neighborhoods is usually dependent on artifact frequencies, boundaries, or shared features. This paper explores how effectively...
Social Transition at Tumilaca la Chimba: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Terminal Middle Horizon and Late Intermediate Period Mortuary Contexts (2017)
The centuries following Tiwanaku state decline circa AD 1000 were characterized by political fragmentation and social flux. In the Moquegua Valley, Peru, the first 250 years following the state’s demise are referred to as the terminal Middle Horizon (AD 1000-1250), a period during which considerable cultural continuity with Tiwanaku is evident despite political collapse. The following Late Intermediate Period (LIP) (AD 1250-1450) is marked by major changes in material culture, domestic...
The Socio-economic Dynamics of Iron Production in Viking Age Northern Iceland (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SANNA v2.2: Case Studies in the Social Archaeology of the North and North Atlantic" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Understanding how an agricultural society organized the production of iron and the trade of farming implements allows us to describe how they managed natural resources and non-agricultural activities as a community. In the North Atlantic region known for its ephemeral material culture, slags and other...
Socio-spatiality of an Antiguan Plantationscape (2018)
Caribbean Sugar production during the 18th and 19th centuries expanded rapidly, fueled by increasing proletariat consumption across the globe. In response, sugar planters in 18th century Antigua, West Indies, deforested over 90 percent of the landscape, carving the island into proto-industrialized plantations defined by sugarcane monoculture and labored by enslaved Africans. New World plantation organization was once ascribed as a balance between profit and surveillance: simultaneously...
Sociocultural Changes in Cajamarca Region during the Early Intermediate Period and the Middle Horizon (2017)
In this paper we discuss the chronology of the Cajamarca culture of the Peruvian Northern Highlands to consider the social dynamics during the Early Intermediate Period and the Middle Horizon. We present the excavation data from the two archaeological sites, Complejo Turístico Baños del Inca and El Palacio that correspond to the period from the final part of the Early Cajamarca Phase to the Middle Cajamarca Phase. The Cajamarca culture during the Middle Cajamarca Phase A (A.D. 600-750) presents...
Soil and Water Management in the South Kohala Field System, Hawai‘i Island (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Geospatial Studies in the Archaeology of Oceania" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The South Kohala Field System (SKFS), Hawai‘i Island, is a network of contoured and sloping field borders first constructed in the prehistoric period but utilized into the 19th century. Many features are located below the 750 mm rainfall isohyet, the lower boundary for rainfed agriculture in Hawai‘i. In order to sustain agriculture in...
Soil Fertility and Chronology at the RapaNui Rano Raraku Megalithic Statue Quarry (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Middens to Museums: Papers in Honor of Julie K. Stein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rano Raraku on Easter Island (RapaNui) is famous as the source of the megalithic moai statues. Past research by the Easter Island Statue Project (EISP) documented and mapped the statues. Other studies, based on coring the freshwater lake in Rano Raraku, identified microbotanical evidence of a cultivated landscape inside the...
Soil Nutrient Variability in the South Kohala Field System, Hawai‘i Island (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The uplands of Kawaihae 1 ahupua‘a, Hawai‘i Island, contain a dense fixed-field agricultural field system built, utilized, and occupied by Hawaiians from as early as the 17th century into the 19th – early 20th century. This field system includes a diverse array of agricultural practices including fixed-field agriculture, planting mounds, terracing, and water...
Solutions for Stabilizing and Caring for Organic Archaeological Collections (2018)
Care of archaeological materials should begin in the field. Care and stabilizing of objects, if started in the field, will greatly increase the objects research and exhibit potential when it finally finds a home in a museum. How do you identify problems and then what do you do? Proper care and stabilization of objects can and should be a priority for all object users—excavators, lab analysts, museum staff, and researchers. In this paper, object care, conservation environments and stabilizing...
Solutions to Drift on Small and Isolated Populations (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Defining and Measuring Diversity in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Due to the effects of drift on small and isolated populations, island environments pose particular evolutionary challenges in the retention of richness and diversity of cultural information. Such variation, however, can have significant fitness consequences particularly when environmental conditions change in an unpredictable fashion:...
Some Thoughts on "Clovis": Where Were They From, Where Did They Go, Where Do They Fit in the Peopling of the Western Hemisphere (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This talk will present some opinions I have about Clovis - woven with facts to convince the skeptical. I will define what I mean by "Clovis", show what some others mean by "Clovis", and add some additional ways to think about "Clovis" in both synchronic and diachronic directions. I will present what I think about its origins and about where we might be finding...
Some Thoughts on Altar 3, Pacbitun, Belize (2017)
The rise of public monumental architecture in the Maya Middle Preclassic (900-400 BC) and the eventual development of divine kingship during the Early Classic (AD 250-550) constitute social processes that remain comparatively obscure. Nevertheless, they are increasingly illuminated as new empirical evidence is uncovered from research projects such as the Pacbitun Regional Archaeology Project. Ongoing work at Pacbitun, Belize, has brought to light considerable new information that can clarify...
Something About Kutau-Bao: Understanding Dominant Obsidian Sources (2019)
This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. After c. 50 years of research using a diverse range of geochemical techniques, patterns of movement for obsidian in the Pacific region, dating from the Pleistocene up to the historic period, have been documented comprehensively. Although there are eight high quality obsidian sources, by far the largest quantity of...
Sources of Variations in Breastfeeding and Weaning Practices among Caribbean Populations (2017)
Breastfeeding in humans is a biocultural process shaped by complex interactions of beliefs about health and nutrition, construction of childhood and parental identities, religious values, and lifestyle. While some studies have stated that the type of subsistence does not determine weaning ages in a population, these factors could have affected weaning food choices. This paper analyzes carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in bone collagen of four pre-colonial Caribbean populations: Paso del Indio...
The South Gap Site: A 9,000-Year-Old Submerged Hunting Site in Lake Huron with Far Reaching Connections (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Liquid Landscapes: Recent Developments in Submerged Landscape Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The South Gap site is at a depth of 105 feet beneath Lake Huron on a submerged landscape referred to as the Alpena Amberly Ridge (AAR). Once exposed as dry land between 11,000 and 8000 cal BP, the AAR provided a causeway for migrating animals, such as caribou, to cross the Lake Huron basin. The landform also...
The Southern Deseado Massif (Patagonia, Argentina): Spatial Knowledge and Changes in its Use from the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition to the Late Holocene (2017)
The semiarid Southern Deseado Massif (SDM) is highly variable in geology, geomorphology and the spatial and temporal availability of water. To the south it transitions into open lowlands and basaltic plateaus dissected by canyons that extend to the Chico River. The La Gruta 1 rock shelter in the extreme south of the SDM has provided the oldest evidence of human logistic occupation in the area, with ages between ca. 12,800 and 12,000 cal yrBP, when conditions were wetter than today. Human use...
Southern Patagonia:coastal versus interior human migration (2017)
In spite of the ca. 14,000 Cal BP or more at 41º S, the oldest human occupations in southern Chile below 52º S are not easy to explain as a result of a Pacific coastal migration. The oldest Late Pleistocene occupations recorded at Ultima Esperanza and Tierra del Fuego are all focused on the exploitation of terrestrial resources and have ties with sites located in the eastern steppes, such as Fell Cave, Piedra Museo or Cerro Tres Tetas. The oldest maritime oriented human occupations of the...
Space is the place: integrating context through GIS and geophysical surveys at Santa Cruz de Tuti, Peru (2017)
The reducción of Santa Cruz de Tuti (AKA Espinar de Tuti) in the Colca Valley is a complex archaeological site in the high Andes with occupational phases representing the Inka, colonial, and republican periods. Multiple geophysical instrument surveys conducted during planning phases, as well as concurrently with a large-scale excavation program in 2016, provided critical information on site use and depositional environment. Spatial, pattern and visual analyses reveal how domestic, public, and...