Republic of Nicaragua (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,376-1,400 (1,860 Records)
Classic Maya civilization witnessed the reigns of many great queens, but the greatest in the southern lowlands was Kaloomte’ K’abel of Waka’. She presided over the routes of conquest in western Peten during the seventh century wars of Yuknoom Ch’een the Great. During her lifetime she and her consort King K’inich Bahlam turned the power of the ancient Wite’ Naah Fire Shrine, it’s Moon Goddess, its Death God Akan, and its other gods to the conquest and subjugation of Tikal. She and her city knew...
Quintessentializing the Power of Place in the Ancient Andes (2017)
The co-extension of peoples, places, and things as interdependent social actors were fundamental to Andean spatial ontologies. For instance, the "multiflex" Paria Caca of the Huarochiri Manuscript was manifested as five eggs, five falcons, five brothers, and a great mountain that still bears his name. In this paper, I argue that quintessential locales in the ancient Andes were often places where wholes and parts, microcosmos and macrocosoms, interiors and exteriors, and complementary opposites...
Radar, LiDAR, Drones, and Donkeys: the Evolution of Archaeological Mapping Technologies in the South Central Andes (2017)
In this paper, we review our use of digital technologies to model archaeological landscapes over the past two decades in Peru and Bolivia. We focus on three scales of analysis in four thematic areas that leverage state of the art technology and GIS modeling as a means for understanding the archaeological record. Our scales run from the built environment of local sites and monuments to regional agricultural landscapes to subcontinental interaction spheres. We look thematically at modeling...
Radical Stratigraphy: A Century of Los Angeles Graffiti (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology Out-of-the-Box: Investigating the Edge of the Discipline" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For the past 100 years, an alternative written record has been tied to the underbelly of Los Angeles’ built environment. The urban infrastructure of railroads, bridges, storm drain tunnels, harbors, and paved rivers houses a vernacular history inscribed mostly on concrete with rocks, chalk, charcoal, pencil, and...
Raiders of the Lost Arca: An Early Foraging Landscape in Cabo Rojo/Lajas, Southwestern Puerto Rico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Coloring Outside the Lines: Re-situating Understandings of the Lifeways of Earliest Peoples of the Circum-Caribbean" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent fieldwork in the intertidal zone of southwestern Puerto Rico has revealed a landscape of over 40 heretofore undocumented shell mounds (some as large as 4,200 m2 and as tall as 10 m above the surrounding tidal plain) formed by millennia of targeted human foraging...
Raised Field Nutrient Cycling: Implications for Hydrologic Controls and Landesque Capital (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beginning around AD 600, the Barbacoan speaking peoples of the northern Ecuadorian highlands began building alternating ridge and canal raised field systems. One of the leading hypothesized functions of these raised fields is their role in nutrient cycling. In this scenario,...
Rancherías: Historical Archaeology of Early Colonial Campsites on Margarita and Coche Islands, Venezuela (2017)
Little is known from the present-day archaeological perspective of early colonial realities of Margarita and Coche islands located in north-eastern Venezuela, in the state of Nueva Esparta. Moreover, the island of Coche has never been surveyed archaeologically. This paper discusses the preliminary results of systematic archaeological surveys of Coche and the southern coast of Margarita Island, carried out within the frame of the Nexus 1492 ERC research project coordinated by Leiden University....
(Re)Creating Monumental Space: The everyday use of plaza space at Aventura, Belize from the Terminal Classic to Late Postclassic (2017)
During the comprehensive survey of the Maya city of Aventura, Belize, the Aventura Archaeology Project (AAP) identified 29 structures located within the confines of the site’s largest monumental plaza, the A Plaza. While Maya plazas tend to be open places for ritual performance and/or market exchange, the structures in Aventura’s A Plaza, constructed with "seemingly" no regard to the orientation and layout of the site’s other monumental architecture, suggests the possibility of an alternative...
Re-Contextualizing Pre-Columbian Gold and Resin Artifacts from Panama in the National Museum of the American Indian (2018)
Until recent years the study of Pre-Columbian gold and resin objects from Panama was slow to progress due to the relative scarcity of archaeological projects excavating these materials. While the original contexts of many museum objects have been lost, the collection of Panamanian gold and resin in the National Museum of the American Indian was re-evaluated for its potential to answer key questions about the ancient craftspeople of this region. To ensure accurate provenience information was...
Re-Evaluating the Case for America’s First Cities: evidence from the Norte Chico region of Peru (2017)
The Late Archaic Period (3000-1800 B.C.) was a time of dramatic cultural transformations in the Central Andes. At the beginning of the 3rd millennium B.C., at least 30 large, sedentary agricultural settlements with monumental architecture appeared between the Huaura and Fortaleza river valleys in a region known locally as the "Norte Chico" ("Little North"). Given the quantity, size, and complexity of monumental architecture at these sites, as well as the unique settlement patterns, some have...
Re-evaluating the Earliest Evidence for Wild Potato Use in South-Central Chile (2018)
The earliest evidence of wild potato use anywhere in the world comes from Monte Verde (southern Chile), where tuber fragments were recovered from hearths that directly date to 14,500 cal B.P. Those tubers were tentatively assigned to a wild potato species (Solanum maglia) based on their starch granule morphology, which, according to Ugent et al., could be distinguished from the granule morphology of the domesticated potato (S. tuberosum). Recently, that identification has been called into...
Real Alto and the Origins of Valdivia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent geomorphological analysis of shoreline deposits in Manabí and Santa Elena provinces (Ecuador) provides evidence of significant mid-Holocene marine transgression. Newly obtained radiocarbon dates from relict coastal features places these changes to the Valdivia Phase (4400 to 1500 cal BC). Arguments for and against this phenomenon are reviewed with...
Really ugly Nasca pots of ancient Peru, and why they are important. (2017)
Polychrome ceramics of the Nasca culture (south coast of Peru, c. 100 BC - AD 600) are world renowned as one of the most colorful and artistically complex creations of the ancient Americas. Up to ten distinct colors depicting fabulous supernatural creatures adorn unique vessel forms with eggshell thin walls fixed in perfect oxidizing firings. Such masterpieces fill art books and spawn enthusiastic but fanciful speculations about Nasca society and its artisans. This paper rounds out the view of...
Reassessment of Population Density in Late Precolumbian Central Caribbean Panama (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Using radiometric and settlement survey data from an area with 100% survey coverage in the rain-forested lowlands of the Caribbean watershed of Colón, Panama, we present the results of an analysis of site distribution and 14C dates to calculate population density. The archaeological data is compared with previous population...
Recent Advances on Multidisciplinary Research at Castillo de Huarmey (2017)
The Peruvian site of Castillo de Huarmey located on the desert coast some 300 kms north of Lima and 4 kms east of the Pacific Ocean, is widely known for the 2012-13 discovery of the Middle Horizon imperial mausoleum with the first undisturbed Wari high elite women’s multiple burial. The tomb, which concealed 64 individuals was accompanied by an abundance of valuable grave goods such as gold and silver jewelry, fine pottery, religious paraphernalia, and textile production materials and tools....
Recent Archaeological Research in Gorgona Island, Colombia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research, framed within the problematic environmental archaeology, aims to see the environments used by pre-Hispanic settlers from the analysis of plant and animal remains. Zooarchaeological analyses of invertebrates describe a rocky, sandy, mixed intertidal environment typical of the Pacific Ocean. In the case of vertebrates, a lizard element...
Recent Investigations at the 18th Century Fort Frederik Archaeological Site and Cemetery, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands (2018)
In 2010, a tropical storm disturbed human remains and archaeological deposits at the Fort Frederik Archaeological Site, a multicomponent site consisting of dense 18th-19th century midden deposits associated with Fort Frederik, a two-story fortification (est. 1760) dating to the colonial development of St. Croix, then a part of the Danish West Indies. Subsequent investigations, including a geophysical survey, subsurface testing, and osteological analysis, have identified a cemetery within the...
Recent Investigations at Western Raiatea (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The island of Raiatea in the Leeward Society Islands of French Polynesia is viewed as a central place for the initial colonization of East Polynesia and the dispersal of pre-contact voyaging populations to distantly located islands of the Pacific Ocean. This history is embedded in the oral traditions of Pacific Island peoples and supported by...
Recent Investigations in Rock Art Dating in Several Cuban Caves (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cuba has many karst caves with pictographs, but there has been uncertainty about who created the rock art. The prehistoric population, historic indigenous groups pushed to the margins by the Spanish, and maroons or escaped African slaves are all possibilities. Cuban archaeologists have debated for decades which groups were...
Recent UAV Data Collection and Integration with Traditional Archaeological Methodologies (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. UAV data collection has become increasingly common in North American archaeology. This presentation will give an overview of the state of the art in UAV data collection, technologies, and processing methodologies. All fronts in UAV data collection are progressing at an ever increasing pace, making staying up-to-date almost impossible for most archaeologists....
Recognizing Debitage Diagnostic of Particular Reduction Technologies at Lithic Scatter Sites in the National Forests of Eastern and Central Oregon (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 Pacific Northwest Region of the United States Forest Service is updating guidance for implementation of a 1984 Programmatic Memorandum of Agreement (PMOA) for management of lithic scatter sites in eastern and central Oregon National Forests. The guidance update emphasizes meaningful consultation with Native American...
Recognizing Redundant Data: Preventing Perseveration and Saving the Significant (2018)
What is so fascinating about heritage resources? What is it that sparks the imagination and instills a sense of place and wonder? What great lessons can we take away from the past? The most important roles of a federal archaeologist are to try to encourage public interest in questions like those, while preserving select sites with the greatest potential to provide the answers. However, compliance work for federal undertakings often focuses our attention and limited resources on the least...
Recognizing Variability: Experiment-Based Insights into Debitage Analysis (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. Debitage analysis can be conducted in a wide range of ways, and no standard approach has been broadly accepted. Over the years many attempts have been made to introduce varying classification systems for debitage analysis. This paper uses experimental archaeology to test different classification systems for accuracy, and...
Reconsideración de Las Fuentes de Aprovisionamiento de Obsidiana en el Oriente y Suroriente de Honduras (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Pre-Columbian Cultures of Honduras after AD 900" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A la luz de los nuevos datos sobre el uso y distribución de fuentes de obsidiana en el territorio hondureño, particularmente la evidencia relacionada con la explotación de la cantera de Güinope, en el departamento de El Paraíso en la región oriental del país. Se analiza y expone un debate sobre el abordaje de los estudios líticos en...
A Reconsideration of Mold Made Ceramics in Costal Ecuador: Chorrera and Jama Coaque (2017)
Based on an examination of ceramic Chorrera, Jama Coaque and La Tolita figurines from the coast of Ecuador, this talk discusses the central role of the mold as both a forming technique and as a means to create a stable visual tradition from generation to generation. It will also suggest the impact on later traditions on the coast, such as the Moche tradition.