Republic of Costa Rica (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
26-50 (1,574 Records)
This is an abstract from the "To Move Forward We Must Look Back: The Slave Wrecks Project at 10 Years" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As part of the Slave Wrecks Project, excavations at Christiansted National Historic Site on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, have resulted in the collection of thousands of artifacts associated with the Danish West India and Guinea Warehouse Complex. Within this assemblage, hundreds of sherds of Afro-Caribbean...
African Archaeology and the Ancestral Maya World (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Essential Contributions from African to Global Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lidar mapping has revealed extensive ancestral settlement patterns signifying a low-density urban system. Maya archaeologists are tasked with interpreting how the ancestral Maya interacted and kept this system working for over 1,000 years (ca. 100 BCE–900 CE) in the southern Maya lowlands of Central America. It was a complex...
The African-Caribbean Landscape of Wallblake Estate, Anguilla (2018)
Historical archaeologists have explored the plantation landscapes of the Caribbean for more than 50 years, and there have been archaeological excavations at historical sites on every major island. However, there are still islands where there have not been any previous excavations at historic sites, including plantations. Anguilla was one such island until June 2017 when archaeological survey and excavations began at the Wallblake Estate to understand the plantation landscape and the major...
Afro-Caribbean Ceramics of St. Croix: The Intersection of Clay Sourcing Analyses and Afro-Crucian Heritage (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From 2016 to 2019, excavations at Christiansted National Historic Site on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands associated with the Slave Wrecks Project, have resulted in the collection of thousands of artifacts associated with the Danish West India and Guinea Warehouse Complex (AD 1749 to circa AD 1854). This assemblage contains hundreds of Afro-Caribbean...
Agouti commensalism? An open question in the prehistoric Lesser Antilles, West Indies (2017)
Light isotope data for bone collagen, bone apatite, and tooth enamel apatite have been collected for prehistoric agouti (Dasyprocta sp.) recovered from secure archaeological contexts on Carriacou (Sabazan and Grand Bay) and Nevis (Coconut Walk) in the Lesser Antilles, West Indies. Stable carbon isotope ratios of individual specimens exhibit a wide range of values for both bone collagen (-20.0‰ to -11.5‰; avg = -17.8‰) and bone apatite (-13.6 to -6.5‰), with apatite-collagen spacing also quite...
Agriculture, Group Size, and Resource Richness (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Socioecological Dynamics of Holocene Foragers and Farmers" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster presents data on the area, group size, and prey/plant richness of agricultural and pastoral societies. We test the hypotheses that (1) the richness of prey harvested by human groups correlates with the well-known species richness-latitude gradient; (2) that as groups increase their commitment to agriculture, they...
The Ahistorical Shell Middens at the Northern Tip of South America (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part II: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Subject to different historical forms of colonialism, the northern tip of South America is a politically marginalized area that is arguably the least understood from an archaeological perspective. While there is a basic understanding of ceramically defined periods, little is known about human interactions...
Aku-Aku (1958)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the EXARC Bibliography, originally compiled by Roeland Paardekooper, and updated. Most of these records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us using the...
Allometry, Modularity, and Integration: Applying Biological Concepts and Statistical Tests to Stone Tool Shapes (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Geometric Morphometrics in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most landmark-based geometric morphometric statistical analyses of stone tools are lifted from biological applications. The concepts are not always directly applicable, leading to unfounded interpretations of statistical results. Sometimes the problem is an imprecise definition of terms, but often the problem is an imperfect translation of a...
(Almost) Making it in the Margins: Medieval Norse Adaptation to the Arctic Fjord Environments (2018)
The medieval Norse settlements in Greenland formed the westernmost frontier of Scandinavia, and the Old World, between ca. AD 980-1450. A Norse society of perhaps only some 2500 farmer-hunters settled two subarctic niches: the Eastern Settlement in South Greenland with ca. 550 sites and the smaller Western Settlement 500 km north in the inner parts of the Nuuk fjord region and with only some 90 sites. For still not completely understood reasons, the latter was completely abandoned by AD...
Alterations in South American Oral Health Through the Colonial Period: The Story of Ancient DNA Trapped Within Dental Calculus (2017)
Interpreting the evolutionary history of bacterial communities within the human body (microbiota) is key to understanding the origin of many modern diseases. The link between humans and their microbiota can also be exploited to examine and track the extent and severity of human adaptation to the environment and impacts on health. Here, we utilize a shotgun sequencing approach to examine ancient DNA preserved within dental calculus from a wide range of ancient South Americans (n=162)....
Altering the Walls of Domesticity: Late 19th Century Modifications to Households in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2018)
Urban archaeology can help us understand the evolution of specific habitational spaces and shed light to investigations related to domestic life and issues related to daily life necessities. This paper will trace the modifications completed to buildings within the walled city of San Juan in the late 19th century. A selection of structures was made based primarily on the permit requests and blueprints submitted to the local government which can be consulted at the Archivo General de Puerto Rico....
Analysis of Anatomical Dissection at Point San Jose Hospital, Fort Mason, San Francisco (2018)
During a 2010 National Park Service project to remove lead contaminated soils from behind a historic hospital at Point San Jose (now Fort Mason), San Francisco, a medical waste pit containing commingled human and faunal remains was discovered. From 1864-1903, several military surgeons were posted at the Point San Jose Hospital to treat military personnel. Analysis of the human remains revealed evidence of anatomical dissection indicated by numerous incised cut marks, saw cut marks, and other...
Analysis of Cultural Retention in an Eighteenth-Century Enslaved African Community in the Dutch Caribbean (2021)
This is an abstract from the "NSF REU Site: Exploring Globalization through Archaeology 2019–2020 Session, St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The island of Sint Eustatius, once the world's wealthiest free-trade port, played an important role during exploitation and globalization of the New World. This research project addresses the retention and/or loss of traditional cultural practices of enslaved Africans in the wake...
Analysis of Debitage from an Intentionally Burned House at the Greenbrier Site (3IN1), a Late Mississippian Town in the White River Valley of Arkansas (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. Located at the eastern edge of the Ozarks, the Greenbrier site is in a unique ecotonal location in close proximity to a diversity of lithic resources in the middle White River Basin. Ceramics at Greenbrier indicate that people here were closely connected to towns on the upper and lower White River and also to occupants in...
An Analysis of Historic Glass Containers from St. George’s Caye, Belize (2017)
From 2009 to the present, an abundance of whole and partial glass bottle remains of various types have been recovered throughout excavations on St. George’s Caye, Belize. Much of the glass collection has been found within the island’s cemetery among an assemblage of various other historic artifacts. The majority of the bottles and bottle fragments have been identified as eighteenth and nineteenth century English cylindrical bottles. In 2016, analysis of this assemblage commenced in order to...
Analysis of Households in Calle de Isabel II, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1910 (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Primary Sources and the Design of Research Projects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Analysis of Households in Calle de Isabel II, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 1910 Calle de Isabel II was the main street of La Puntilla, a neighborhood located in a small peninsula outside the San Juan city walls. Throughout the 19th century a series of construction projects were undertaken in this area, including dwellings, schools and...
Analysis of Marine Sediment to Explain Sea-level Rise in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize (2017)
Archaeological research in Paynes Creek National Park, Belize provides insight into environmental changes over time. Sea-level rise has affected coastal Maya settlements during both the Classic and Postclassic Periods. Marine sediment samples from five submerged Classic Period Maya sites were exported under permit to the Archaeology lab at Louisiana State University where the samples were analyzed using loss-on ignition and microscopic sorting. The results from loss-on ignition as well as...
Analyzing Afro-Caribbean Ware from Fort Amsterdam (SE094) and Battery Rotterdam (SE129) on St. Eustatius, Caribbean Netherlands (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Globalization and Colonialism through Archaeology and Bioarchaeology: An NSF REU Sponsored Site on the Caribbean’s Golden Rock (Sint Eustatius)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In June 2018, excavations were conducted at Fort Amsterdam, a military fortification, on the leeward side of St. Eustatius, along the Caribbean coast. Many different types of ceramics were found during the investigations, including...
Anarchy in the Trenches: Perspectives on Buen Suceso (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Community in the Past and Present through the 2022 PARCC Field School at Buen Suceso, Ecuador" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In many ways, Buen Suceso is a unique archaeological site. Not only is it a multicomponent site, with evidence for occupation throughout almost the entirety of the ~2,200-year Valdivia sequence and specialized use by the much later Manteño culture, but it exhibits an occupational...
Ancestral Pathways of Fiji: Using GIS to Analyze Landscapes of Movement and Lineages within the Sigatoka River Valley (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Geospatial Studies in the Archaeology of Oceania" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept of landscapes of movement establishes the theoretical basis for understanding meaning behind the creation and use of roads, trails, and pathways. This meaning can be categorized by "prioritized relationships" (i.e., social, political, religious, economic) which ultimately stimulate the existence of landscapes of movement. This...
Ancient Andean Scalarity (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond the Round House: Spatial Logic and Settlement Organization across the Late Andean Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Scholars of the Andes often assume that the social units they study—residence, community, and region—are monotonically scaled, nested from smaller to larger. This suggests universal correspondences between the analytical and observational objects through which social units are known; hence...
The Ancient City of Dos Hombres: Material Expressions of Power (2017)
Investigations at the ancient Maya city of Dos Hombres have been guided by an interest in social, political and economic organization, based on architecture and material culture remains. Excavations in the civic ceremonial center of Dos Hombres have been focused in the northern plaza, a very public space that likely was a place of commerce, public ritual and sacred space, thereby the prime backdrop for publicly legitimizing authority. Newly excavated data, especially architectural exposures as...
Ancient DNA Studies in Tropical Environments: A Study into the Genetics of the Pre-Columbian Indigenous Population of Puerto Rico (2017)
Studies into ancient DNA have advanced significantly in the last few years, but these have largely been absent in tropical environments. In the Caribbean, a number of questions still pertain as to the bioarchaeology of the indigenous pre-Columbian populations and the exact origin of these early inhabitants. Focusing on the skeletal remains of a late Saladoid population from Punta Candelero site (AD 640-1200), three correlated and simultaneous studies have been coordinated with the aim to...
The Ancient Maya Settlement of Waybil, Belize: Middle-Level and Hinterland Settlement Investigations (2018)
The Classic Maya, with their towering jungle temples and sprawling cities have been the focus of archaeological studies since the mid-1800s. Although numerous investigations have fostered considerable insights, important questions remain regarding the circumstances in which these settlements originated, interacted, developed, and were ultimately abandoned. The organization of Maya settlements is best conceptualized as a continuum consisting of three basic, but variable types, including:...