Republic of Panama (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
2,301-2,325 (3,080 Records)
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...
Re-tying a Wayu: Connecting a Cranial Mask in the Smithsonian to Its Community of Origin in Huarochirí, Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Arqueología colaborativa en los Andes: Casos de estudios y reflexiones" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To prehispanic Andeans in central Peru, donning a facial-bone mask, a wayu, reanimated the dead and honored ancestral victories. Following these masks’ description in the c. 1608 Quechua-language manuscript of Huarochirí, scholars presume Spanish priests destroyed them to extirpate the “idolatry” of ancestor worship....
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...
Real Roads and Imaginary Borders: Exploring Northern and Central Andean Cultural Trajectories and Interactions from the Perspective of the Ceja de Selva during the First Millenium BCE (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Cuando los senderos divergen: Reconsiderando las interacciones entre los Andes Septentrionales y los Andes Centrales durante el 1ro y 2do milenio AEC / When Paths Diverge: Reconsidering Interactions between the Northern and Central Andes, First–Second Millennium BCE" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The border between Peru and Ecuador has often been viewed heuristically as a boundary between the cultures of the Northern...
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...
Reassessing Wari Power in the Central Andes: Local Agency, Trade, and Competition in the Cusco Region (2018)
The Wari state of the Central Andes has traditionally been interpreted as an expansive polity that incorporated numerous provinces during the Middle Horizon (A.D. 600-1000). Most research has focused on the large Wari installations built in several regions of Peru, leading many scholars to conclude that Wari administrators established direct imperial control over these areas. More recently, scholars have started to adopt a complementary bottom-up approach to study changes experienced at the...
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 Investigations in the Upper Xingu Basin (2018)
In the southern Amazon, two decades of rapid agro-pastoral development, extreme drought, and forest fires in the "arc of deforestation" threaten to precipitate an ecological oscillation of southern transitional forests from an eco-region dominated by closed tropical forest to one of open savanna and woodlands. Collaborative research conducted with the Kuikuro indigenous community in the Xingu River headwaters, involving archaeology, soil science, paleoecology, remote sensing, geospatial...
Recent Research in Copacabana, Bolivia, the Intinkala Sector (2018)
Copacabana has been a pilgrimage destination and a site of extraordinary reverence from Formative times to the present. Together with the Islands of the Sun and Moon, it formerly comprised one the most sacred ceremonial complexes in the Inca Empire. Recent archaeological research in Copacabana has focused on the Intinkala sector located just east of the modern basilica. The principal aim of the first season was to ascertain the nature of Inca engagement with this powerful locale as evidenced...
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....
Reciprocal Feasting and Access to Foodstuffs at Huaca Colorada (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Bridging Time, Space, and Species: Over 20 Years of Archaeological Insights from the Cañoncillo Complex, Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Feasting has long been acknowledged as a central element in Andean social and economic life. Crucial to this emphasis on feasting during the Late Moche period (AD 600–850) is the need for tribute and the redistribution of the goods brought in by...
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.
Reconsidering "sites," "features," and "landscapes" in the Maya Lowlands with remote sensing and ground-based survey (2017)
Etic distinctions between "sites" and "landscape features" and the limits of pedestrian survey have long influenced how scholars in the Maya lowlands model social and political dynamics of the region. The adoption of remote sensing technologies, particularly LiDAR, has improved our ability to identify anthropogenic features over wider areas. Yet remote sensing data collection remains centered on known "sites" and data serving to further expand the mapped boundaries of ancient "cities,"...
Reconsidering Cereal Production and Consumption in the North Atlantic: A case study from Northern Iceland (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mind the Gap: Exploring Uncharted Territories in Medieval European Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Viking Age, the Norse settled Iceland, a sub-arctic volcanic island at the climatic margin of cereal production. These settlers brought with them a distinctive subsistence economy involving animal husbandry and cereal production, most notably barley. Barley (Hordeum vulgare) has been noted by...