Republic of Panama (Country) (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Loren Davis. Masami Izuho. Alexander Nyers. Fumie Iizuka. David Madsen.

This is an abstract from the "The Global “Impact” of Projectile Technologies: Updating Methods and Regional Overviews of the Invention and Transmission of the Spear-Thrower and the Bow and Arrow" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While paleogenetic studies indicate that the majority of the genomic heredity of indigenous peoples of the Americas can be traced to late Pleistocene human populations in far eastern Asia, we do not yet understand whether a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arturo Rivera I.. Sarah Baitzel. Laure Dussubieux. Nicola Sharratt.

This is an abstract from the "Twenty Years of Archaeological Science at the Field Museum’s Elemental Analysis Facility" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The dispersal of Tiwanaku-affiliated populations before and after the collapse of the eponymous state took on distinct cultural expressions throughout the western south-central Andean valleys. The proliferation of diverse Tiwanaku-derived ceramic substyles in the region signaled the emergence of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Proebsting.

This is an abstract from the "Advancing Public Perceptions of Sustainability through Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past thirty years, landscape archaeology has been used to study Thomas Jefferson’s retreat home and plantation located in Bedford County, Virginia. A goal of this work has been to cultivate a deeper understanding of the individuals who lived and labored on Poplar Forest plantation as well as how their households...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Haynes. J. Marla Toyne.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mortuary placement is one form of ritual action that communities undertake to remember the dead. The location of the dead is important for considering social memory, a source of collective knowledge and experiences that shapes social group identity. This allows anthropologists to ask questions about how human social relationships transform living...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Abby Baka. K. Blake Vernon. Madeline Mackie. Jerry Spangler. Alexandra Greenwald.

This is an abstract from the "American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Pleistocene-Holocene transition (PHT) archaeological record on the Colorado Plateau is notably sparse, especially when compared to the surrounding Great Basin, Rocky Mountain, and Plains regions. Whether this dearth is due to low human populations in the region during the PHT, or due to insufficient fieldwork...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aspen Kemmerlin.

This is an abstract from the "Pedagogy in the Undergraduate Archaeology Classroom" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent trends in archaeological pedagogy include the adoption of active learning models as well as courses that incorporate community and public archaeology frameworks. These shifts have primarily been centered on archaeological field schools and on-campus excavations. In contrast, despite the growing concern over legacy and orphaned...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Taylor Recuero. Sara Juengst. María Ordoñez Alvarez.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Heterarchical and hierarchical power distributions in a society affect the distribution of labor within that society. In a heterarchical society, the labor is generally reciprocal community labor used to maintain a cooperative relationship despite distance between lived settlements (Scaffidi 2020), whereas hierarchical societies will have labor distributed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yajaira Núñez-Cortés. Francisco Corrales-Ulloa.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Central Pacific region is one of the least explored areas of Costa Rican archaeology. Recent research conducted at Lomas Entierros and Sardinal sites allow us to contribute to the understanding of the history of occupation in the area, but also to consider the emergence, occupation and abandonment of prominent political centers inhabited during AD...

DOCUMENT Citation Only José Capriles. Velia Mendoza España. Daniela Velasco Arzabe. Christophe Delaere.

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. Lake Titicaca is one of the centers of early cultural development in the ancient Andes. Because of its sensitivity to climate change, the surface of the lake has fluctuated considerably over time, which in turn has influenced the development of ecological systems and cultural development. This paper focuses on the archaeofaunal remains...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Abtosway.

The Central American elaborate metate is a perplexing group of ground stone artifacts. Their function continues to be the subject of debate, with interpretations ranging from hallucinogenic and food preparation to ritual seating. It is difficult to deny, however, the substantial labor investment represented and likely symbolic significance. X-Ray fluorescence spectroscopy has proven an invaluable tool in the non-destructive geochemical sourcing of archaeological obsidian, providing insights into...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stacy Drake.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of ancient Maya mortuary patterns have asserted that Maya burials do not adhere to a singular mortuary pattern (Ashmore and Geller 2005, Fitzsimmons 2009, Geller 2004, Ruz Lhuillier 1965, Welsh 1988). However, many of these same studies also suggest that a review of data specific to certain contexts (inter-site, time period,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kim Ruf.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Using Costa Rican precolumbian jade, jadeite, and greenstone artifacts from the collections of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, this study aims to amplify and widen the range of research carried out on the Isthmo-Colombian Area. It particularly seeks to examine and discuss the role of those objects as indicators of rank and prestige as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Myrtle Shock. Laura Furquim. Jennifer Watling. Eduardo Neves.

In the Brazilian Amazon, mid-Holocene maize (Zea mays) grains have been found in archaeological deposits of the Monte Castelo shell mound. The morphological differences are pronounced between these and grains from both modern maize races of the Amazon and those found beginning around 1,500 years ago at other sites in the region. Our research explores the history, from 3900 BP, and use of this extinct maize. The presence of cultivars rich in carbohydrates in the Amazon has traditionally been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Piscitelli.

The Late Preceramic Period 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"). Since the publication of Moseley’s The Foundations of Maritime Civilizations (1975), the north central coast of Peru has been viewed as an exceptional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Camila Alday.

This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research aims to study the earliest fabric artifacts made by marine hunter-gatherers who inhabited the Peru-Chile desert coast. Thanks to the aridity of this area, I use a remarkable amount of well-preserved plant-fiber materials, most belonging to the world’s oldest Chinchorro mummies buried...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Lagarde.

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 sculptural figures at Chavín de Huántar have long been considered potent symbols of a unified religious tradition across the Andes mountains. Today, Chavín is recognized as a Formative period pilgrimage center located in the highlands of modern-day Peru. It is known for its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Blennerhassett.

Chicha was consumed in large quantities during social gatherings and feasting events at a number of ceremonial locales including hinterland sites, in the Jequetepeque River Valley, Peru, during the Late Moche. Face-neck jars were used in the brewing and serving of corn beer and depict supernaturals and elite lords with elaborate headdresses and earspools. This research showed the degree to which face-neck jars were standardized in manufacture and design and how this may have contributed to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kylie Quave.

This is an abstract from the "Alfareros deste Inga: Pottery Production, Distribution and Exchange in the Tawantinsuyu" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Inka ceramic workshops have been identified in many Inka provinces, but the process of making and disseminating Inka pottery in the imperial heartland of Cuzco has been largely unknown until recently. Previously, scholars assumed Inka pottery was made in state-sponsored workshops near the urban...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ari Caramanica.

This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Failure" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ethnohistoric documents describe the north coast as a verdant, irrigated landscape at the time of Spanish conquest; yet, only a few decades later, colonial archives are filled with legal disputes over water rights, water shortages, and the desertification of farmland. Cataclysmic demographic collapse caused by the introduction of European diseases accounts for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Hoopes.

The history of archaeology is replete with assertions about lost tribes, sunken continents, and ancient aliens in the context of failed hypotheses, deliberate hoaxes, and intentional frauds. Williams chronicled these, in the process helping others hone skills in critical thinking. New technologies proliferate spurious explanations of the past that archaeologists must continually address. As the Talmud says, "It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paula Molloy.

In his 1991 classic, Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Archaeology, Stephen Williams set out to document the ways in which fraud has masqueraded as truth in North American prehistory. More than just a catalog of the improbable and unfalsifiable, Fantastic Archaeology also served as gateway to scientific archaeology for many in the general public. Smitten with a "weird tale," many in the Cambridge, MA area found their way to Prof. Williams’ Harvard University course upon...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juliet Wiersema.

Throughout the late Spanish colonial period, the Dagua River in Colombia’s Cauca Valley was a multi-cultural backwater. Its shores were inhabited by mestizos, mulattos, slaves, and free slaves, with a minority of Indians and Spaniards. While this area was mined for gold and offered one of few routes to the Pacific from Colombia’s interior, the Dagua River region was largely cut off from global trade and colonial currents due to its geographical remoteness. 50 days distant from Cartagena and 14...

DOCUMENT Citation Only María Albeck. Maria Amalia Zaburlin. Jose Luis Tolaba. Diego Martin Basso. Maria Elena Tejerina.

Pueblo Viejo de Tucute is the southernmost prehispanic (Late Intermediate Period) settlement with altiplanic roots so far recorded. It has nearly 600 dwellings installed in the mountain range southwest from Casabindo in the Puna de Jujuy, an altiplano like highland. The site is unique in the area, with particular architectonic features that differ from contemporaneous sites (Puna de Jujuy, Quebrada de Humahuaca, Valle Calchaquí). The houses are round, well built in cut stone with a diameter that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juliana Gómez. Henry Tantaleán.

This is an abstract from the "From the Paracas Culture to the Inca Empire: Recent Archaeological Research in the Chincha Valley, Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Este trabajo presenta los resultados del análisis bioarqueológico realizado a ocho fardos funerarios del periodo Paracas Tardío (400-200 BCE) relacionados con el estilo cavernas que fueron recuperados en el Cerro del Gentil, valle de Chincha. Los fardos funerarios asociados a este...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Benfer.

Before 1492, the human communities that inhabited the shores of Lake Cocibolca in Central America engaged in dynamic interactions and exchange networks, traveling across the land and canoeing or rafting on the lake and rivers to trade goods and communicate with their neighbors. Evidencing this travel network, archaeological studies have documented an abundance of ceramics and carved stone that the past inhabitants of the Lake Cocibolca region produced and traded widely during the later...