Republic of Nicaragua (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,076-1,100 (1,860 Records)
The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) allows analyzing the space as an integral part of any social phenomenon and produce interdisciplinary explanatory models with quantifiable basis. As it is known, the spatial organization of the incas was scheduled under certain political and religious principles materialized in the landscape through various features such as rocks, water bodies, mountains, celestial bodies, plazas, ushnus, roads and kanchas, among other. In the case of the inca site...
Modeling Demographic Change in the Precolumbian Caribbean (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A recent synthesis of radiocarbon dates in the Caribbean indicated two major population dispersals that correspond to the longstanding cultural divisions of the region's Archaic and Ceramic Ages. Using the most reliable dates from this dataset, we constructed both region-wide and local summed probability distributions...
Modeling Hazard Risk, Vulnerability, Recovery, and Adaptation in Tilarán-Arenal, Costa Rica: An Integrative Approach to Disaster Studies (2018)
The Tilarán -Arenal region of Costa Rica is one of the most volcanically active regions in the world. Despite the inherent hazard, people have occupied this region since the Paleo-Indian period (7000 B.C.). Numerous studies have explored volcanic eruptions as forcing mechanism that lead to culture; however, starting with the advent of sedentary villages during the Tronodora phase (2000-500 B.C.) until the arrival of Spanish in the 16th century, people maintained relatively small-scale,...
Modeling Mobility in Inland Waters (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Modeling Mobility across Waterbodies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While rivers, lakes, lagoons, and estuaries were commonly navigated in prehistory, the only well-established methods for modeling aquatic human movement are restricted to the open sea. A small handful of researchers have proposed methods and/or attempted to simulate travel in rivers and lakes, but these methods have not been consolidated into a...
Modeling the Early Settlement of Yap, Western Caroline Islands (2018)
In recent decades, increased research on the early human settlement of islands in western Micronesia (northwest tropical Pacific) has resulted in a relatively clear picture of the Palau and the Mariana Islands being settled between ca. 3200-2800 years cal BP. Despite an increased understanding of when the two major archipelagos were settled, human arrival in Yap, a group of four small islands situated between the two other islands groups, remains unclear. New radiocarbon dates from the southern...
Modeling the Past: Using Structure from Motion (SfM) Photogrammetry to Record the Sugar Works of a Statian Plantation (2021)
This is an abstract from the "NSF REU Site: Exploring Globalization through Archaeology 2019–2020 Session, St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study utilizes structure from motion (SfM) photogrammetry as a documentation tool to understand the layout and usage of Site SE095, a sugar works, on the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius. The research goals are to create a spatially referenced 3D model of SE095;...
Modeling Water Routes Through a Divide: Retracing Movement from the Greater Antilles to the Lesser Antilles in the Late Ceramic Age. (2017)
This paper focuses on modeling hypothetical sea routes between islands within the Caribbean Sea to try and redraw the map of social mobility and material exchange that existed during the Late Ceramic Age (A.D. 1250–1400). With the emphasis for modeling canoe pathways more focused on uncovering possible colonization routes, this map has yet to be thoroughly explored. However, analyzing the back and forth of travel between two sites known to be occupied during the same period can open up ideas on...
Modeling White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) Responses to Human Population Change and Ecosystem Engineering in Precolonial and Colonial Eastern North America (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. White-tailed deer were an important resource for both Native peoples and European colonists in precolonial and early colonial North America. Yet, evidence for possible overexploitation of deer prior to European colonization remains inconclusive. Some have argued that the species was resilient to human predation due in part to anthropogenic fire, which...
Mohammed’s Paradise: indigenous society and natural surroundings in southern Central America (2017)
Human-environment relations are a point of interest in the archaeology of indigenous southern Central America, defined here to encompass Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. As such, it does not seem to deviate from other world regions. This focus in past and contemporary research reflects the weight given to the idea of natural surroundings as resource endowments, following the cultural ecology approach. Elsewhere, such emphases on material, and indeed economic, sides of human...
A Molecular Anthropological Re-examination of the Human Remains from La Galgada, Peru (2017)
The archaeological site of La Galgada is located on the eastern bank of the Tablachaca River in the highlands of Northern Peru. The site was dated to both the Preceramic period and Initial period through a combination of detailed archaeological investigation of the site complex, and the use of radiocarbon dating of material collected stratigraphically. Human remains found at the site were also categorized into these two periods based on stratigraphic location. However, recent radiocarbon dating...
Molecular Disease characterization in a pre-Columbian Indigenous population of Punta Candelero, Puerto Rico. (2017)
Skeletal remains belonging to a Late Saladoid population from Punta Candelero site (AD 640-1200), southeast Puerto Rico were used for the detection of Pathogens. Previous studies have established the presence of trace genetic indicators of molecular disease in skeletal remains, such as syphilis and tuberculosis, with associated history or pathology. In this study, we are investigating the presence of various pathogens associated with pre-Columbian Indigenous populations of Puerto Rico....
Mollusk Foraging and Gendered Labor in Seventeenth-Century Guam, Mariana Islands (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Coastal Environments in Archaeology: Ancient Life, Lore, and Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological investigation of gendered labor in traditional households in the Mariana Islands is still in a nascent stage of development. Archaeological field school excavations by the University of Guam Micronesian Area Research Center and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa yielded a rich assemblage of...
The Monagrillo Ceramic Complex of Panama in Subsistence and Social Contexts (2017)
The Monagrlon ceramic complex has been identified at myriad archaeological sites around Parita Bay, Panama. These vary widely in geography from costal, to inland, to riverine places. In these different environments, there is disparate and varied evidence of agriculture, indications of hierarchical social structures, and relationships with the creation of pottery at Panamanian sites. I theorize that maritime resources as opposed to cultivation formed the basis of these sedentary or semi-sedentary...
Mono no Aware: Challenges of Impermanence in the Archaeological Record of a WWII Japanese American Concentration Camp (2018)
From 1942 to 1945, the third largest city in the state of Wyoming was the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, one of ten camps where Japanese immigrants and their Japanese American descendants had been forcibly relocated from their homes along the West Coast for the duration of World War II. During their residence, the incarcerees did everything they could to make the camps their home, establishing gardens and fields, building swimming pools and root cellars, and otherwise trying to make life...
Monumentality in Sites with Stone Spheres, Diquis Delta, Southern Central America (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Problem of the Monument: Widening Perspectives on Monumentality in the Archaeology of the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Several sites in the Diquis delta, an extensive alluvial plan in southeastern Costa Rica, present architectural ensembles consisting of artificial mounds up to 30 m diameter and a height between 1.1 and 1.4 m with cobblestone walls and ramp accesses, with stone spheres of...
A More Sustainable and Ethical Foundation for CAREfully FAIR Data in Archaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "*SE Big Data and Bigger Questions: Papers in Honor of David G. Anderson" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists generate vast amounts of data in the form of databases, media files, spreadsheets, GIS files, reports, articles, and other literature. However, despite years of advocacy and data management investments, archaeological information is still poorly curated, scattered, incompatible, and haphazardly...
More Than a Notion: Archaeology’s Issue with Using Social Theory to Comfortably Perceive the Lives of Marginalized Peoples (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Hood Archaeologies: Impacts of the School-to-Prison Pipeline on Archaeological Practice and Pedagogy" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In archaeology, we like to theorize about those who lived at the margins of society, the systematically oppressed, the class struggle of those who existed at the bottom and the “creative” ways in which they “persisted,” “resisted,” and survived. However, despite this seemingly...
More than Presence or Absence: Improving Ground Stone Tool Analyses to Address Tool Manufacture, Use, and Maintenance Questions (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Debitage Analysis: Case Studies, Successes, and Cautionary Tales" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The presence of ground stone tools in an assemblage is often indicative of a long-term occupation or resource processing site. The technology represents diverse site activities, including subsistence, social, and symbolic aspects of Indigenous communities. Despite the importance of ground stone tools in the Pacific...
Mortuary analysis of juvenile burials in the sacristy of a Spanish colonial reducción in the southern highlands of Peru (2017)
Mortuary practices at Spanish colonial sites in Latin America varied in terms of burial location, style of burial, and associated grave goods. Understanding burial practices is one way to investigate shifting identities, conversion to Catholicism, and the degree of control over and involvement of priests in daily life at colonial sites. The mortuary practices at the reducción (planned colonial town) of Santa Cruz de Tuti (today known as Mawchu Llacta, Colca Valley, Peru) reveal nuanced insights...
Mortuary Feasting at Sitio Drago, Panama and Elsewhere in Lower Central America (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological materials recovered from a central burial mound at Sitio Drago, Panama are diverse and include many well-preserved vertebrate and invertebrate faunal remains. I examine these materials in context with the artifacts recovered in direct association with four coral slab tombs located at the heart of the site and then compare the observed...
Mortuary Patterns of a 18th Century Cemetery on Sint Eustatius (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Globalization and Colonialism through Archaeology and Bioarchaeology: An NSF REU Sponsored Site on the Caribbean’s Golden Rock (Sint Eustatius)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Little is known about the mortuary patterns of enslaved and freed Africans during the 18th to early 19th century on the Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius. Excavation and analysis of burials from a small 18th century cemetery...
Mortuary Practices at the Pre-Columbian Site of Indian Creek, Antigua - Preliminary Results (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses the preliminary results from recent excavations at Indian Creek, Antigua that have helped identify, document, and recover four late period Saladoid burials. Despite this being the longest continuously inhabited site on Antigua, and one of the longest continuously inhabited sites in the Caribbean, only one other complete burial has been...
Mounds and Monoliths in Isthmo-Colombian Archaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Problem of the Monument: Widening Perspectives on Monumentality in the Archaeology of the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Isthmo-Colombian Area entails an archaeology of landscape engagement. Well-attested are the material traces of shifting networks of human ideas that, through communities of practice, led to the creation of monumental landscapes and, with regional specificity, shared...
Mountaintops of Chilla, El Oro (Ecuador) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The oral tradition of the Chilla landscape distinguishes two main stories: the first one portrays the apparition of the Virgin Mary, and the second one narrates the Mayan origins of its inhabitants. However, Chilla is in El Oro province, where a monumental pyramid and other neighboring sites correspond to the...
Movement and Vision: Reconstruction and Analysis of a Multi-Occupation Fortified Site Complex in the Moche Valley (2017)
This poster reports the results of non-invasive field prospection using aerial drone photogrammetry to map and reconstruct surface architecture at two multi-occupation archaeological sites in the Moche Valley of Peru. Sites MV-42 and MV-49 (Puente Serrano) make up a fortified and possibly ceremonial center complex located in the middle valley. The sites were occupied contiguously during the Salinar, Gallinazo, and Early Moche phases (EIP; 400 B.C.-A.D. 400), with a later re-occupation by the...