Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
1,126-1,150 (1,154 Records)
One of the most insightful contributions recently put forward by Anthropology and Ethnoarchaeology is related to the concept of the "communities of practice". It is naturally connected to issues such as the relation between language and material culture, transmission, identity, persistence, structure as well as the limits of socially permitted restructuring of practices, and even the possible contingencies which might cause deep change and break the structure and, therefore, Tradition. The...
Where are the camelids? II: contributions from the stable isotope ecology to understand mobility and exchange patterns in the South Central Andes (2017)
There is a growing volume of literature arguing that camelids were a local resource for Prehispanic societies that inhabited the coastal and intermediate Andean valleys from Peru. Indeed, existing evidences show uninterrupted herding practices along the Peruvian lowlands (>2,000 masl) at 8°S-16.5°S during the interval 800 BC-1100 AD. Although camelids archeofaunal remains, textiles and iconographic representations are recurrent in low-elevation sites from the northernmost Chile (17°-19°S), the...
Where are the camelids? Mobility models and caravanning during the Late Intermediate Period (ca. 1000-1400 A.D.) in the northernmost Chile, South Central Andes (2017)
Llamas were one of the most valued animals in the Andes. Their importance has transcended the subsistence sphere as they were not only used as a source of food but also served for medicinal and ritual purposes; their fiber was fundamental for manufacturing textiles, and they were a source of symbolism and "food" for thought and ideologies. Nevertheless, their use as pack animals in exchange caravans has been prominent, stimulating intense mobility and long distance traffic between diverse...
Where Are You Staying? Lodging Facilities in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2018)
In the 19th century there was a large influx of people traveling to Puerto Rico, many stayed in lodgings throughout the capital city of San Juan. This study focuses on the hotels, guest houses and hostels within the walled city, currently known as Old San Juan, during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Using primary sources that include photographs, maps, blueprints and newspaper advertisements, the goal of my research is to establish the location of this type of businesses. Also, to...
Where condors reign: Methodological challenges in the bioarchaeology of Chachapoya cliff tombs in Peru (2017)
Traditional archaeological practice involves horizontal mapping and excavations of ancient settlements and cemeteries, but bioarchaeological research of mortuary practices in the Chachapoyas region of northeastern Peru is stymied by the challenging vertical slopes, almost constant rain, and the placement of burial structures on seemingly impossible to reach ledges on exposed rock escarpments. Exploring and registering archaeological vestiges of these cliff cemeteries requires the combination of...
Where Is the Chief? A Reevaluation of the Concepts of Chiefdoms and Cacicazgos in Caribbean Archaeology (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Traditionally, the terms chiefdoms and cacicazgos have been used throughout the Caribbean as synonyms of stratified sociopolitical systems encountered by Europeans at the time of contact. However, recent data unearthed by the Archaeological Project of the Ceremonial Center of Tibes put into question the applicability of these categories based on generic...
Where the Land Meets the Sea: Preceramic Complexities on the North Coast of Peru (2017)
Interdisciplinary investigation of the large coastal mounds of Huaca Prieta and Paredones and their associated domestic settlements represent Preceramic human occupation as far back as ∼14000 cal BP. Research at these sites has documented a long Preceramic sequence from the activities of the first maritime/terrestrial foragers from the late Pleistocene to early Holocene to the construction of the mounds and the introduction and development of agriculture and monumentality from the middle to late...
Why did people begin to make rock art?: A study case from Central North of Chile (2017)
The origin of rock art has frequently asked from an evolutionary and cognitive perspective to understand the dawn of making images in the Paleolithic. But in many regions of the world the beginnings of rock art production occurred later. The Central North of Chile is one of these places. In this area, the practice of marking and chipping rocks surfaces started around 2.000 BCE in coherence with the transition from the Middle to the Late Holocene and the start of many transformations in the...
Why did they leave? The Wari Withdrawal from Moquegua (2017)
In Moquegua the monumental provincial center of Cerro Baúl was ritually abandoned circa 1050CE. It is at this time that Wari affiliated occupation of the sacred summit ended and production of imperial Wari goods ceased in the region. This evidence does not indicate that the empire collapsed at this time, but instead suggests when Wari officials chose to withdraw from this frontier region. Why did they leave? In this paper we discuss the changing population dynamics in Moquegua at 1050CE and how...
Why Is There Math in My Archaeology? The Modern Foundations of Quantitative Archaeology Written Decades Too Soon (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Coffee, Clever T-Shirts, and Papers in Honor of John S. Justeson" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fifty years ago, what was arguably the most important paper ever written for modern work in quantitative archaeology was published in “American Antiquity.” Unfortunately for its author, and generations of archaeologists, few took notice of it at the time. With few citations, more than half of which have occurred in just...
"Winged Worldviews": Human-Bird Entanglements in Northern Venezuela, A.D. 1000–1500 (2017)
Drawing from archaeology, zooarchaeology, ethnohistory, ethnology, and avian biogeography, this paper aims at (re)constructing the interrelations between indigenous peoples and birds in north-central Venezuela, between AD 1000 and 1500. Amerindian narratives and premises of perspectival ontology from the South American Lowlands suggest that certain birds were more closely interrelated with humans then other beings. The analyses of nearly 3000 avian bone remains recovered in six late Ceramic Age...
Women’s Territorialities within Indigenous Societies in Brazil: Past Discourses, Present Relations (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a still scarce reflection on the practices, their effects and meanings, of women within indigenous and traditional societies in their territorial processes, from interdisciplinary and collaborative perspectives. This research is sought to consolidate an already existing network of collaboration between historians,...
"A Wondrously Fertile Country": Agricultural Diversity and Landscape Change in French Guiana (2018)
As a circum-Caribbean, non-island space on the coast of northeastern South America, French Guiana presents a distinct context in which to explore plantation slavery and Caribbean commodity production. The "sugar revolution" that overtook areas of the Caribbean at various historical moments reached French Guiana during the nineteenth century, yet monocultural production of the crop never took hold. Instead, plantations producing a variety of agricultural commodities including cotton, coffee,...
World War II Archaeology in the Galápagos Islands: The Soldiers and Convicts at the Wall of Tears (1940–1959) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the early years of World War II, the US government began actions to protect one of its most important investments in America, the Panama Canal. During the late 1930s, the US Navy and Army built several military bases along the Pacific coast of Central and South America to defend the canal zone. The Galápagos Islands were selected to build a...
WWPAED? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "I Love Sherds and Parasites: A Festschrift in Honor of Pat Urban and Ed Schortman" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pat Urban and Ed Schortman instilled in us the inability to think small. Their big picture, long-term approach to research, teaching, and mentoring is the greatest of all the many gifts they have shared with us. In research, it means we dig in. We have chosen our research sites carefully, with the...
A Yard and It’s Belongin’s: Archaeological Research of Laborer Houseyards on the Morne Patat Estate, Dominica (2017)
Caribbean ‘yards’ and their associated structures have long been of interest to archaeologists determined to understand how the domestic spaces of enslaved laborers both embodied and reflected kinship ties, labor arrangements, and socio-political shifts. Often regarded as an elemental feature of Caribbean society, houseyards are the spaces where the repeated acts of daily life took place, as a result, understanding how enslaved laborers utilized and altered their domestic space over generations,...
You Come from Where? Ceramics and Cultural Exchange at Palmetto Junction (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. The Palmetto Junction site on Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands provides an abundant and diverse ceramic assemblage. These artifacts help describe movements of people, goods, and ideas among Lucayan Taino groups in the Bahama archipelago and affiliated Greater Antillean settlements to the south. The assemblage includes...
Yucatecan and Mesoamerican Influences on Taino Ceremonial Iconography (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The iconographic corpus of the Taino cultures has been the focus of recent scholarship, yet as a whole remains understudied within Caribbean archaeology. Scholars in the past attempted to demonstrably link the Taino to the Late Postclassic Maya with limited success. However, Yucatecan influences are evident within the spatial layout of Taino ceremonial...
Yumbos and the construction of their cultural landscape (2017)
Archaeology as an academic practice in the northern Ecuadorian Andes has concentrated on a constant exploration of hypothesis about the past with the intention to acquire better and more accurate understanding about the origins and development of complex societies. Since the 1970’s, scholars have produced valuable outcomes directed to those goals analyzing evidences concerning to the dynamism of Prehispanic societies in terms of regional distribution, social relations, environmental constrains,...
Zooanthropomorph Iconography in the Gran Coclé, Gran Chiriqui and Tairona areas (2018)
The Zooanthropomorphic beings present on some artifacts of the cultural areas Tairona (Colombia), Gran Coclé (Panama) and Gran Chiriqui (Costa Rica) dating back to pre-Columbian times have often been identified as shamans. But what are the iconographic elements that are in favor of such a precise interpretation? To begin with, we did a thorough iconographical analysis aiming to determine taxonomically the animal component, the ratio between human and animal, and the precise anatomical elements...
Zooarchaeological Analysis of a Guangala Pit at Rio Chico, Ecuador (N4C3-170) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Rio Chico site on the central coast of Ecuador was occupied almost continuously for 5000 years (ca. 3500 BCE to 1532 CE) in a region of coastal South America that is heavily influenced by climatic events such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Archaeological records and historical documents written by the Spanish provide evidence that by the Manteño...
Zooarchaeological Analysis of Fishing Strategies at Rio Chico, Ecuador (OMJPLP-170) (2018)
The Rio Chico site was occupied almost continuously for 5000 years (ca. 3500 B.C.E. to 1532 C.E.) in a region of coastal South America that is heavily influenced by climatic events such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Evidence suggests that occupants of Rio Chico were heavily dependent on marine resources. The fishing strategies utilized at Rio Chico sustained the community over time, which allowed for the long-term development of an economy based on the Spondylus trade. This combination...
Zooarchaeological Data as a Building Block for Knowledge Building in the Past (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Zooarchaeological data is often looked at for what it can tell archaeologists about those utilizing the specimens in the past. However, these specimens (data) provided information to those utilizing the fauna themselves. In the maritime environment, the information transmitted by the fauna extracted was often one of the only sources of information available to...
A Zooarchaeological Meta-analysis of Ceramic Age Marine Fish Harvesting across the Caribbean Archipelago: Generating Baselines for Assessing “Stability” (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Stability and Resilience in Zooarchaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Zooarchaeological baselines of human-animal engagements and their outcomes are increasingly critical to modeling what community stability looked like in the past and what we can learn from it today. Concomitantly, zooarchaeological baselines also provide critical measures of biodiversity distribution, loss, or persistence through time for use...
The Zooarchaeology and Isotopic Ecology of the Bahamian Hutia (Geocapromys ingrahami) (2017)
Bahamian hutia (Geocapromys ingrahami) are small sized rodents endemic to the Bahamas. Fossil and subfossil records indicate broad geographic distribution of the rodent across the Bahamas in the past, while today Bahamian hutia naturally occur on one island. Bahamian hutia have received little attention archaeologically resulting in critical gaps in our understanding of both natural and anthropogenic patterns in Bahamian hutia distribution and life history. In conjunction with "traditional"...