Republic of Costa Rica (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
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Two different scenarios have been proposed to explain sedentarization and the transition from foraging to sedentary societies. In the first a key resource or a combination of resources allows the stability of the population giving rise, over time, to sedentarization; in the second, a population concentration caused by an external change such as drastic climatic fluctuation or regional population increase with its concomitant social problems force the adoption of a sedentary way of life. In these...
Sedimentary and Taphonomic Contexts of Quaternary Vertebrate Fossils in the Northern Rocky Mountains (2018)
Quaternary vertebrate assemblages from the northern Rocky Mountains can be used to understand the biogeographic consequences of climate change. Some localities contain strata from before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), while others consist mostly of Late Glacial and Holocene deposits. The Merrell Local Fauna is from a stratigraphic sequence in Centennial Valley. Radiocarbon dates range from >52,000 to 19,000 BP and fossils are in lacustrine deposits, fluvial sediments, and a debris flow. The...
Seeking Out Slavery in Colonial Saint Domingue (Haiti) (2017)
Saint Domingue was the most important European colony of the Caribbean region, producing vast amounts of wealth through the labor of enslaved Africans and their descendants. It was also the setting of the only large scale slave revolt that succeeded in overturning the slavery system. In spite of this importance to Atlantic studies, African Diaspora studies, and historical archaeology, very little substantive research has been conducted on sites associated with the dwelling places of the enslaved...
Sensorial and Transformative Qualities of Caves among the Lucayan-Taíno of the Bahamas (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. Caves act as the mythological archetype and physical portals that validate the cosmogony-cosmology-eschatology spectrum of many past and present human societies. Among the prehistoric Lucayan-Taíno of the Bahamas, caves played an important role in both validating perceptions of the cosmos, but also the maintenance of ancestral...
The Seraglio of the Great Turk: Ethnosexual and Engendered Violences in the Mariana Islands (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. After the arrival of a group of Hispanic Jesuits to the Mariana Islands in 1668, an ethnosexual conflict emerged between the colonists and the local communities (the Chamorros). After that conflict, Chamorro communities were relocated in new villages, the so-called reducciones, under the close surveillance of the Spanish colonial powers. This reduction brought...
A Seriation of Local Ceramics from Cosmapa Oriental, Department of Chinandega, Nicaragua (2017)
Many local ceramic wares in northwestern Nicaragua are, as of yet, undescribed. Excavations at the site of Cosmapa Oriental in the municipality of Chichigalpa, Department of Chinandega, Nicaragua were conducted by Dr. Clifford Brown of Florida Atlantic University in 2013. Analysis of the ceramic sample in 2015 revealed two occupational periods at the site: a Late Preclassic occupation related to cultures in El Salvador; and a Classic to Early Postclassic occupation, which include Las Vegas and...
Setting the Agenda for the Next Phase in Obsidian Studies in Aotearoa (New Zealand) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of obsidian artifacts from sites across Aotearoa (New Zealand) in the 1960s-80s, were critical to identifying a major decrease in mobility, just prior to the onset of endemic warfare, marked by the construction of thousands of fortifications by the ancestors of Māori. Unfortunately, initial enthusiasm was...
Setting the Context of Equity and Harassment Issues: They Are NOT Only Women’s Issues (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Presidential Session: What Is at Stake? The Impacts of Inequity and Harassment on the Practice of Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Social sciences within the United States, like US society in general, are facing serious ramifications regarding issues related to equality and harassment. Gender equity, pay equity, and funding equity are all part of the problems being faced by professionals employed in...
Setting the Table!: Comparative Analysis of Vessel Forms between the Fort Amsterdam and the Brimstone Hill Fortress Collections (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. The Dutch Caribbean Island of Saint Eustatius has been a focal point throughout the Lesser Antilles and European economic development of the 17th and 18th century period. Food has always been a reflection of complex social and economic...
Settlement pattern transformation in the Arica Highlands during the Late Intermediate and the Late Periods (XIV-XV centuries): The role of Zapahuira and the Incan Tambo network system and its relationship with local communities. (2017)
I will discuss the settlement pattern transformation of the Arica Highlands during the Late Intermediate Period and the Late Period (XIV-XV centuries) and the role of Zapahuira Tambo and the Inca Settlement Network System and its relationship with local communities. The latter will be carried out from an architectural and spatial characterization of some of the main Incan and Local settlements of the area. Some of the data integrated in this discussion have been gathered in my current research...
Settlement Scaling in the Eastern Woodlands of the United States, ca. 3500 BC to AD 1700: Size, Monumentality, and Public Space (2018)
The concept of settlement scaling is increasingly being utilized in archaeology to empirically evaluate mathematical properties of urban and non-urban settlements. However, principles based on settlement scaling theory have yet to be tested in the Eastern Woodlands of the United States despite the existence of a robust sample of settlements, including those containing monumental architecture. As part of a broad regional study, I collected spatial data on settlement size, monuments, and public...
Settlement, Subsistence, Culture Change and Networking: New Perspectives on Bocas del Toro’s Integration with Greater Central America (2018)
Understanding the settlement chronology and degree of interaction and integration of Caribbean western Panama within "Gran Chiriqui" and greater Central America has driven archaeological research in the region since the 1950’s. Hernan Colon’s accounts of Bocas and adjacent Costa Rica depict a populous region, with vast fields of maize, people traveling about in numerous canoes and wearing more gold objects than ever seen in the New World. Lothrop’s 1947 synopsis of the "myth" of the Sigua...
Severed from the Landscape: Wrangling Over 100 Years of Collections from the Public Lands and Coordinating Repatriation (2018)
The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) cultural resource responsibilities expand beyond the landscape, to the artifacts recovered from archaeological sites, and the associated records. These "gatherings" under the Antiquities Act and "archaeological resources" under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) were collected in the public interest to be preserved in museums for future generations. Some of these collections may also be sacred and sensitive to descendant communities, and the...
Shamans, Jaguars, Owls, Cosmograms, and Zygotes: Matapalo and the Origins of Late Valdivia Stone Plaques (2017)
The material record of Ecuador’s Early Formative Valdivia culture has long been approached from the perspective of a New World, particularly an Amazonian, shamanism incorporating foundational features of animistic ontology. More recently enigmatic stone plaques from Northern Manabí Province have been included in the non-secular repertoire of later Valdivia phases; however, their temporal and spatial associations remained poorly known. Investigations in the Coaque Valley clearly establish their...
Sharing Curation Expertise and Space for Digital Archaeological Data (2018)
Archaeologists are busy all the time. Often stretching to meet a variety of professional obligations. CRM and government agency archaeologists are among the most stretched given the different directions that pull upon their professional lives. Scholarly pursuits; administrative, bureaucratic, regulatory, and public outreach responsibilities related to physical sites and collections, easily fill or over-fill their schedules. Now the care and curation of digital data adds to the piling up of...
Shell Fishhooks on C. chorus Mussel Shell (7500 to 4500 Years BP) from the Atacama Desert Coast (Chile) (2018)
Fishing was a crucial aspect in the lifeway of ancient coastal societies. Along the Pacific Coast, the appearance of shell fishhooks has been interpreted as part of different contexts of growing population, economic specialization, and social complexity, among others. Along the coast of the Atacama Desert (18° to 26° Lat. South), fishhooks on Choromytilus chorus shells (mussel) appear in archaeological sites located along 1.6 thousand kilometers of coast with dates around 7500 years BP. Around...
Shell Midden Zooarchaeology and Paleoecology of Guaimoreto Lagoon, Northeast Honduras (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent research documents resource use and ecological change at the Selin Farm site, a group of around 30 well-stratified house and shell mounds occupied AD 300 – 1000 near the Guaimoreto Lagoon on the northeast coast of Honduras. A 4.5 m high shell mound with excellent preservation of vertebrate and invertebrate remains provides a full view of landscape...
Shifting the paradigm of coastal archaeology in Latin America (2017)
How might knowledge of past fisheries contribute to the future sustainability of modern coastal societies? Small-scale coastal fisheries provide a crucial source of food and livelihood to millions of people living in South America. Such coastal economies are founded on long-established knowledge that is deeply rooted in the past. Whilst marine conservation, dwindling fish stocks and environmental sustainability have driven the research agenda in recent years, government and international...
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...
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...