Republic of Panama (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,976-2,000 (3,080 Records)
Wider accessibility to analytical instruments has resulted in the rapid expansion of geochemical datasets useful to trace archaeological materials such as obsidian to their geologic source. While these findings are useful on a site-to-site basis, this paper utilizes Social Network Analysis (SNA) as an exploratory tool to investigate broad-scale patterns of obsidian procurement and exchange in prehistoric Peru. Alongside visualizations of this large dataset, centrality measurements allow us to...
Obsidian Reflections: Symbolic Dimensions of Obsidian in Mesoamerica (2014)
Departing from the political economy perspective taken by the vast majority of volumes devoted to Mesoamerican obsidian, Obsidian Reflections is an examination of obsidian's sociocultural dimensions—particularly in regard to Mesoamerican world view, religion, and belief systems. Exploring the materiality of this volcanic glass rather than only its functionality, this book considers the interplay among people, obsidian, and meaning and how these relationships shaped patterns of procurement,...
The Obsidian Workshops at Late Classic Cotzumalguapa: Preliminary Technological and Sourcing Analyses (2017)
Scholarly understanding of the prehistoric economy of the Pacific Coast lacks the resolution afforded its Lowland counterpart. Analysis of the Obsidian deposits at Cotzumalguapa offer us a lens through which to bring our understanding of the prehistoric economy of the Pacific Coast into focus. Surface survey and excavations near the El Baúl acropolis revealed the presence of several obsidian dumps, the result of a large-scale lithic industry in the Classic Period site of Cotzumalguapa. Thus far,...
Obsidian: Status Marker or Household Item? The Use of Obsidian throughout Time in Manabi, Ecuador (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of obsidian in the Andes is widespread and constant starting during the Formative period. Through the morphological analysis of lithic artifacts recovered during excavations in northern Manabi, Ecuador, this poster reveals the importance of obsidian in the area and how it changed throughout time. The Matapalo site, the focus of this research, shows...
OCA—Culture, Origins, and Environment: Archaeological Collaborative Research in the Lower Xingu (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in the Xingu River Basin: Long-Term Histories, Current Threats, and Future Perspectives" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The project investigates the historical ecology of a poorly studied area: the confluence of the Xingu and Amazon Rivers, in the lower Amazon region. By investigating distinct lines of archaeological evidence on a regional scale, it addresses, as an underlying research theme, the...
Of Fish and Plague: Death as Economic Opportunity at the Medieval Fishing Station of Gufuskálar, Iceland (2018)
The high morbidity (50% or greater) of Iceland’s Black Death in 1404 C.E. disrupted a rigidly hierarchical Icelandic social order and led to an inability to enforce social and legal constraints on Iceland’s labor classes. This newly untethered and mobile lower class searched for avenues for wealth creation previously unavailable. One avenue, in the century following Iceland’s Black Death, was through fishing and fish exports. During this period, previously tightly restricted fish exports...
Of Islands and Dogs: Ethnohistoric and Isotopic Pathways toward Understanding Past Dog Diet in Tropical Oceania (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dogs in the Archaeological Record" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ethnohistoric accounts suggest people treated dogs differently across Oceania at the time of European contact. European accounts often state that the dogs of Oceania were fed plant foods such as breadfruit, coconut, yams, and taro. Some sources also reference dogs eating fish or taking on the roles of scavengers and hunters. Collectively these accounts...
Of Monsters and Men: Material Culture, Movement, and Symbolism at Surtshellir, a Western Icelandic Viking Age Ritual Site (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. Over the course of 850 years, Surtshellir—a massive lava cave in western Iceland’s rugged interior—was variously described as a geological wonder, a shelter for outlaws, an abode of ghosts and spirits, a tourist's dream, a place of torture, the wilderness, an archaeological...
Of Mummies and Guinea Pigs: An Analysis of Burial Contexts at Chiribaya Alta (2017)
In the Pre-Incan site of Chiribaya Alta, animals were often included in the graves of the deceased. Cuy, or Guinea pig, are amongst the most common type of animal found in these contexts, signaling the significance of these animals for the Chiribaya peoples in life and in death. Among traditional peoples in the Andes documented ethnohistorically and ethnographically, guinea pigs are consumed as food and are also used for divination and other religious practices. At Chiribaya Alta, a site in...
The Offerings to the Ceremonial Center of Chavín de Huántar: New Perspectives from the Explanada Canals (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ceremonial center of Chavín de Huántar (1200–500 BCE) stands out for its extensive network of hydraulic canals. The excavations carried out by the Chavín de Huántar Archaeological and Conservation Research Program in the Explanada sector allowed these subterranean structures to...
Oh Captain, My Captain: Transforming the Practice of Archaeology (2018)
For many Native American community members, becoming an archaeologist can be a difficult choice. This is especially true if you have witnessed the wanton destruction of your sacred sites, the disrespectful treatment of your ancestors by archaeologists and have been taught by your family and community to see archaeologists solely as grave diggers. My review of the archaeological literature and interaction with archaeologists during the 1990’s only supported this perspective, bringing doubt to my...
Old Tomb, New Ancestors: Investigating the Role of a Preceramic Burial in Huarás Community Formation (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Cooperative Bodies: Bioarchaeology and Non-ranked Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The social and physical history of a place often plays a crucial role in people’s decisions regarding where to establish a community. In the ancient Andes, burial monuments offered powerful connections to landscape and shaped community identity by demonstrating claims to a shared ancestry and legitimizing access to ancestral...
On Taro, Tridacna, and Turtles: Using a Multiproxy Method to Explore Food, Fishing, and Agriculture on Pingelap, a Micronesian Atoll (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Food and Foodways: Emerging Trends and New Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pingelap Atoll, located in Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia, has been home to humans for approximately 1,700 years. At 1.8 km2 and 70 km from its nearest island neighbor, food procurement has traditionally relied on marine fishing and hunting as well as intensive management of the coral island...
On the ancient Indian tombs of Chiriqui in Veragua (southwest of Panama), on the Isthmus of Darien (1863)
This article covers the last findings from Columbus last voyage to Vareguas and the findings of the middle late 1800's when this article was written. Although the article centers around the mortuary artifacts and practices, there is a far amount of historical and geographical information about the region both during the time of the authors investigation and from Columbus's encounter with the region.
On the Edge of the New World: Colonizing the Bahamas (2017)
The Bahama archipelago is the last place colonized in the New World, and the first encountered by Europeans. Previous efforts to explain the arrival of humans followed the stepping-stone model of expansion that began in the Orinoco River drainage of lowland Venezuela. Communities island-hopped through the Lesser Antilles, expanded into the Greater Antilles, and continued their northward migration through the southern Bahamas after crossing the last open water gap between Hispaniola and the Turks...
On the Frontiers of Empire: Inka Hegemony in Chachapoyas, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous studies on the Inka conquest of Chachapoyas (AD 1470) have largely focused on an epic conflict between the invading Inka empire and warlike Chachapoya natives. Little attention has been directed towards understanding the processes by which the region was incorporated into the empire – how the landscape became naturalized as Inka, and how its...
The Once and Future Sindaguas of Barbacoas: A Reflection (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. This paper revisits frontier wars in southwest Colombia in the first half of the seventeenth century. Some debate has arisen regarding a bellicose Barbacoan group known as Sindaguas. Were they a long-established people or "nation" as their Creole-Hispanic conquerors claimed,...
One Hundred Years of Research at Huaca del Loro, Nasca, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Almost 100 Years since Julio C. Tello: Research at Huaca del Loro, Nasca, Peru" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It has been almost 100 years since Julio C. Tello, the father of Peruvian archaeology, and his team first investigated the site of Huaca del Loro in Nasca, Peru. During this time the site has been interpreted as a cemetery, a settlement with both elites and commoners, a possible highland Huarpa site, the...
One Settlement, Many Communities . . . (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Developments through Time on the South Coast of Peru: In Memory of Patrick Carmichael" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research centered in the prehispanic urban settlement of Cerro de Oro, in the Peruvian South Coast, is showing a wide variety of cooking techniques, disposal arrangements, and even culinary preferences that seem to reflect possible different social groupings within the settlement. This paper will...
One Thing Leads to Another: Causal Triggering among Archaeological Events (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Practical Approaches to Identifying Evolutionary Processes in the Archaeological Record" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A causal connection between archaeological events is frequently little more than a convenient assumption. The repeated occupation of a site, the occurrence in time and space of a ceramic ware, or the phases of settlement construction are all assumed to reflect some causal sequence, but it is far from...
One Tough Act to Follow: A Retrospective of the Archaeological Career of Lawrence L. Loendorf (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Art and Archaeology of the West: Papers in Honor of Lawrence L. Loendorf" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation summarizes the remarkable career of Lawrence L. Loendorf, who has conducted cutting edge archaeological research for nearly six decades. As his son, my life follows the arc of Larry’s research as an archaeologist from when it formally began in early 1960s through today. Consequently, I am...
Online Cultural and Historical Research Environment: Flexibility versus Standardization (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this first season of excavations by the Corral Redondo project in southern Peru, a database was needed to capture excavation, conservation, and survey data in the field and later respond to the reporting standards set by the Peruvian government. The Online Cultural and Historical Research Environment (OCHRE) proved to be a powerful tool for this data...
Only Murders in the Cavespace? Considering Archaeological Assumptions about Human Interments (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 1: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As if by default, deposits of human remains in caves and cenotes in the southern Maya Lowlands dating to the Late and Terminal Classic periods have been interpreted by many archaeologists as sacrificial victims. The position seems predicated on...
Ontologies of water: intensities and magnitudes (2017)
Increasingly, the effects of global warming take the form of destructive movements of water, whether vanishing bodies of water that create desertification or floods that damage human habitations and take lives. The extensive archaeological record of the North Coast of Peru offers a place to study long-term human strategies for living with the dangerous and unpredictable movement of water. Despite frequent earthquakes, floods and torrential rains that re-shape land- and sea-scapes, humans...
Open Obsidian Geochemistry Visualization system for the Andes (2017)
Obsidian sourcing studies which provide valuable insights into archaeological mobility and interaction are enhanced by the availability of geochemical analyzers, and especially by the proliferation of portable X-ray fluorescence units. This year we are introducing an open source system for analysis of geochemical datasets available in web-based repository and based on R-Shiny, a browser based analysis and visualization system built on the R project. The Andean Geochemistry data archive, a new...