Republic of Panama (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
2,551-2,575 (3,080 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Underwater and Coastal Archaeology in Latin America" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation underlines the importance of Venezuela’s underwater cultural heritage through continued research into the shipwreck of French King Louis XIV’s fleet, which struck reefs in the Las Aves de Sotavento, in Las Aves Archipelago, Venezuela, the night of May 11, 1678. The fleet consisted of 30 vessels. At least 12 ships...
Shipwrecked Heritage of the Old and New World: Owning and Owning up to the ‘Midas Touch’ of the Colonial Past (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 past rarely maps perfectly to the borders of current nation states, leaving stakeholder groups to constantly renegotiate boundaries. Located in international water and hosting assemblages from a variety of transitory groups, shipwrecks of the ‘Columbian Exchange’ have prompted Spain’s former colonies to re-order ownership boundaries by...
Shock and Awe: An Insider's View of the "Stanford Phenomenon" (2018)
In the early 1970s Clifford Evans created a "Paleoindian Program" at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Clovis was well-established in the literature, but its origins and antecedents were mysterious. Dennis Stanford had just received his PhD on Thule culture studies in Barrow, Alaska, but his real love was Paleoindians. After arriving at the SI he picked up the mantle of the Institution’s pioneering Paleoindian researcher, Frank Roberts, and instituted large-scale projects at...
Shrines, Pilgrims, Pilgrimages in the Caribbean? (2018)
There is some suggestion in the literature, most explicitly developed by Espenshade (2014) for Puerto Rico, that major enclosures, particularly with rock art, at some point in their life cycle could be considered shrines or special religious places that increasingly attracted visitors or pilgrims from non-local on- and off-island locations. Pilgrimage rounds are well-established components of religious systems both past and current in various parts of world, including the incorporation of a...
SIBA: Stone Interchanges within the Bahama Archipelago (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in the Archaeology of the Bahama Archipelago" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents results from Project SIBA, an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project that aims to: 1) characterise the regional social networks that bound the Lucayan archipelago to the wider Caribbean region, and; 2) provide an understanding of the creation and maintenance of indigenous exchange networks. The...
SIBA: The Research Potential of Bahamian/TCI Museum Collections (2018)
Project SIBA (Stone Interchanges in the Bahamas Archipelago) brings together the largest corpus of Bahamian/TCI stone artefacts ever assembled - over 300 artefacts from eight international museums, including the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of Natural History. In an entirely limestone environment like the Bahamas/TCI, all hard stone had to be imported: our objective is to determine the source of these exotics. Integrating studies that combine the...
The Sican Capital: Neighborhoods and Urban Organization in Pre-Columbian Peru (2018)
Cities which become capitals of large states provide unique information on the sociopolitical political organization and the nature of power, as they are home to a society’s leaders and central institutions. In the Andes, scholars have highlighted the existence of cities dominated by a centralized single governing institution, like the Moche capital of Pampa Grande; while others have drawn attention to the empty ceremonial centers, such as Cahuachi, main settlement of the Nazca society. A...
Sicán Political Economy: Converting Regional Productivity to Interregional Prestige Economy and Religious Eminence (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Political Economies on the Andean Coast" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Within a matter of a few generations, during the late tenth century AD, the Middle Sicán polity with its geospatial focus in the extensive Lambayeque Complex on the north coast attained seemingly unprecedented material wealth and established an interregional sphere of trade and influence primarily along the coast of Peru and Ecuador. The truly...
Sicán Politics and Population: Nuclear Genomic Perspective (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Why are there clustered and dispersed Middle Sicán (900-1100CE) monumental mounds in the Lambayeque region of northern coastal Peru? What do these mounds reveal about Sicán politics and demography? As one investigative avenue to answer these questions, DNA was extracted from 15 human burials excavated at three mounds of the Sicán capital: Ventanas, Loro,...
Sicán Sociopolitical Organization in Lambayeque, Peru: Ceramic Compositional and Distributional Perspective (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We report the results of a recent chemical compositional analysis (INAA) of ceramic samples from multiple Middle Sicán (ca. 1000 CE) sites in the Lambayeque region on the north coast of Peru that offer important insights on the Middle Sicán sociopolitical and territorial organization. The analysis is an integral part of our cross-disciplinary testing of the...
The Signaling and Inheritance of Cooperation: Artificial Cranial Modification among Altiplano Foragers (2017)
We report on the recent archaeological discovery of a 7000-year-old population of hunter-gatherer burials and discuss the key insights they offer into how hunter-gatherer societies may have maintained cooperative structure against evolutionary odds. Sixteen human burials interred at the site of Soro Mik'aya Patjxa in the Andean Altiplano of Peru consistently exhibit intentional artificial cranial modification (ACM)—the irreversible shaping of human crania during infancy. Our analysis of cranial...
Signs of History, Signs in History: Confronting the Past in Antiquity in the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru (2018)
As architectural interventions on the landscape, structures considered to have ceremonial or ritual significance provide a means to regulate the temporalization of practice in material form. As built objects, monumental huaca structures in the Andes served to mark the longue dureé, as their existence mediated and legitimized political order linked to the deep cosmological history framing mythic time, ordering the present and planning for the future. As physical and subjectified artifacts...
Silver Production and Inka Expansion in the South Central Andes (2017)
Silver was an important component of the Andean prestige economy with bestowal and display of silver and silver-alloyed objects constituting a vital tool of Inka statecraft. The quest for mineral wealth was thus a motivating factor for Inka conquest of the South Central Andes. Nonetheless, the impacts of imperial incorporation on the organization and technology of metal production differed across this region of the empire. Focusing on the purification of silver ores, we present two case studies...
A Simple Model of Long-term Population Expansion and Recession (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Global Perspectives on Human Population Dynamics, Innovation, and Ecosystem Change" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last 12,000 years human populations have expanded and transformed critical earth systems. Yet, a key unresolved question in the environmental and social sciences remains: Why did human populations grow and, sometimes, decline in the first place? Our research builds on 20 years of intense...
Simulating Organic Projectile Point Damage on Bison Pelves (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A Bison latifrons pelvis was discovered eroding out of shoreline sediment at American Falls Reservoir in Idaho in 1953. The ischium section had a unique groove and hole with a depth of 35 mm and 10 mm in diameter. The pelvis was X-rayed in 1961 for indicators of the origin of the damage and this could not be ascertained. An experiment was developed to...
Single-Use Heritage: An Archaeological Approach to Plastic Wastescapes as Places of (Ecological) Shame (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years, archaeologists have been increasingly interested in ‘places of shame’, i.e. places related to past traumatic, painful, or regrettable human actions. In this paper we argue this concept can be expanded to incorporate sites with negative ecological impact. In particular, the interpretation of places of single-use plastic waste accumulation as...
Sistemas de arquitectura local e incaica durante el Periodo Tardío en las tierras altas de Arica y valle de Lluta, Chile (2018)
Durante el Periodo Intermedio Tardío en las tierras altas de Arica, las influencias altiplánicas se encontraban en la sierra y valles altos, caracterizados por arquitectura funeraria (chulpas) y la cerámica, representando relaciones de poder y estatus social dentro de las comunidades locales. Durante el Periodo Tardío, con la introducción de elementos incaicos al altiplano boliviano, el área dominada por los pueblos altiplánicos fue influenciada por la cosmovisión y tecnología incaica, lugares...
Site Clustering Parallels Initial Domestication in Eastern North America (2018)
Dense human settlements often emerge following a shift to agricultural economies, yet researchers still debate the underlying cause of this pattern. One driver may be what is known in ecology as an Allee effect, a positive relationship between population density and per capita utility. Allee effects may emerge with economies of scale such as those created by some forms of intensified food acquisition and production. Thus, in an Allee-like setting, individuals belonging to larger groups enjoy the...
"Site" (LN-101), Long Island, Bahamas: Beads, baking, and burials, but brief occupations? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in the Archaeology of the Bahama Archipelago" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. LN-101 is a multi-component Lucayan site located on the windward coast of Long Island in The Bahamas. The site is situated along sand dunes directly on the beach and is characterized by the presence of earth ovens, evidence of bead manufacture, and associated human burials, with a notable absence of dense midden deposits or features...
Site-seeing: Aeriality, Archaeological Survey and Objectivity in Coastal Peru (2017)
Far from being mana from the future, aerial imagery has been integral to both the practical and conceptual dimensions of archaeological survey almost from its inception. In this presentation, I argue that aerial photography captured via private and state-funded reconnaissance in the 1930’s and 40’s played a transformational role in the emergence of regional approaches in Peru’s desert coast in the mid 20th century. I discuss how the use of aerial imagery has both enabled and constrained the...
Situating Mobility: Local and Regional Connectivities in and beyond the Gulf of Fonseca (AD 800–1520) (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Postclassic Mesoamerica: The View from the Southern Frontier" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In precolonial times, the social landscapes of Central America underwent numerous changes. While the impetus for those social changes are still under investigation, they are well documented, both on local and regional scales, in Greater Nicoya between the Bagaces and the Sapoá periods. In the Gulf of Fonseca, to the north,...
Skeletons in the Closet: Ethical, Moral, Pedagogical, and Intellectual Issues in Managing Unprovenanced Osteological Legacy Collections (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Legacy collections of human remains at teaching institutions present a unique set of ethical issues. They frequently are the result of decades of unknown sourcing. Even when purchased from medical supply companies, ethical standards over time shift, raising new issues. Hidden away, many institutions know that they hold these collections, yet they may not...
Skilled Craftsmen, Ancestors Cult, and Hegemonic Strategies of the Wari Empire (2018)
The comparison of new evidence obtained from Pachacamac and Castillo de Huarmey sites sheds new light on the character of Wari presence on the Peruvian Coast. Both sites are contemporary (Late Middle Horizon, ca. 800 - 1100 AD) and most new information comes from funerary contexts. In both cases, imitations of foreign styles, originated in the south coast and highlands, as well as the local ones are present in the iconography found in the offerings. Recent analyzes lead us to the conclusion that...
Slavery in the Dutch Caribbean: A Case for the Use of Qualitative Data in Sensitive Archaeological Contexts (2018)
Qualitative data are often overlooked in archaeological research in favour of quantitative data which can provide statistical results. However, there are many contexts where qualitative data (such as oral historical accounts) can provide valuable information on meaning and personal significance. This is beneficial in projects addressing topics such as inequality and colonialism. The author therefore presents qualitative data from her doctoral thesis in order to demonstrate the importance of this...
Small Islands and Constructed Landscapes: A Bayesian Cultural Chronology of the Manuʻa Group (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Supporting Practical Inquiry: The Past, Present, and Future Contributions of Thomas Dye" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Radiocarbon and other radiometric dating techniques are pivotal for archaeological inquiries about cultural and environmental change. How we use these techniques and interpret their results to analyze and draw conclusions about archaeological data, however, can vary somewhat from one researcher to...