Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
151-175 (1,154 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Caribbean islands face significant heritage management capacity shortfalls that undermine local direction and control of archaeological research for community benefit. The Curaçao Citizen Researcher (CCitRes) Initiative uses citizen science and public archaeology to develop archaeological capacity on one such island, Curaçao, and empower communities to...
CCompositional Analysis of Low-Fired Coarse Earthenware Excavated Archaeologically from Two Anguillan Eighteenth- to Nineteenth-Century Plantation Sites (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the preliminary results of neutron activation analysis (NAA) and laser ablation ICP-MS (LA-ICP-MS) conducted at the University of Missouri Research Reactor’s Archaeometry Lab on coarse earthenware sherds recovered archaeologically from two plantation-era sites on Anguilla, the Wallblake Estate site and the Hughes Estate site. Using...
The Central American Ceramics Research Project: A Case Study on How to Make Old Museum Collections Relevant Again (2018)
The Central American Ceramics Research Project, a student driven and collaborative research program carried out between 2009-2013, completed a scholarly survey of more than 13,000 ceramic objects in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). The project originated as an effort to update old catalog information and bring to light important but largely forgotten collections of ceramics. However, it quickly developed into a major collaborative research effort that brought...
Central Andes Kotosh Religious Tradition, Third Millennium BCE: Hearth Designs as Andean Portals between Worlds (2017)
On top of Caral Peru’s amphitheater mound, an entry passageway opens to an inner sanctum—tiered benches surrounding a sunken floor and a central ceremonial hearth. This concentric design recessed into the earth repeats in diverse ways throughout third millennium BCE Kotosh Religious Tradition temples in the central Andes. Whence the concentric sunken design and hearth? I propose the hearth functioned as Andean portals for communication with unseen worlds, giving offerings, remembering ancestors....
Ceramic and starch grain evidence and the social factors behind pan-Amazonian occupation processes ca. 3,500 BP (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human agroforestry and landscaping practices in the Amazon Forest are now well-accepted phenomena among Amazonian archaeologists. Along the Amazon River, the oldest evidence of visible landscape modifications is largely associated with contexts in which pottery from the Pocó-Açutuba Tradition is identified, from 3,500 years BP. This tradition, in...
Ceramic Differences at the Household/Neighborhood Level at Cerro Mejía: Evidence of a Possible Multiethnic "Mitmaqkuna" Community on the Southern Frontier of the Wari Empire (2017)
This poster will present the results of the analysis of household ceramic assemblages from the slopes of the secondary Wari center Cerro Mejía in the Moquegua Valley. The slopes of Cerro Mejía are divided into distinct domestic neighborhoods by fieldstone walls. Based on differences between these neighborhoods observed during excavations it has been hypothesized that this site was a multiethnic community similar to Inca mitmaqkuna with local inhabitants from throughout the region and possibly...
A Ceramic Investigation into the Relationship between Emergent Complexity and Religion on the South Coast of Peru (2017)
This paper investigates negotiations of power on the south coast of Peru through ceramic attribute analysis. The ceramic sample comes from the site of Cerro Tortolita, which contains both ceremonial and habitation zones. This site’s emergence in the upper Ica Valley during the 3rd century AD coincided with a broader increase in local settlement hierarchy. The timing of Cerro Tortolita’s rise and its religious nature provide a unique opportunity to isolate and investigate the relationship between...
Ceramic Manufacturing and Distribution Networks in Early Jamaica: Interpretive Implications of LA-ICP-MS and NAA Analyses on Coarse Earthenwares from 18th-Century Plantation Contexts (2018)
Archaeologists have long been intrigued by hand‐built, open‐fired coarse earthenwares found on 18th‐ and 19th‐century sites occupied by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and United States. In Jamaica, these hand‐built coarse earthenwares, often referred to as Yabbas, were likely manufactured and marketed by enslaved specialists. Several different varieties of glazed and/or kiln‐fired coarse earthenwares, not easily assigned to a known ware-type, are also routinely found in plantation contexts....
Ceramic production for Castillo de Huarmey, Peru: multiple productions and buzzing potters (2017)
The paste analysis of the ceramics found in the Castillo de Huarmey, a Middle Horizon Wari political center on the north coast of Peru brought forth the existence of a variety of production areas and a panorama of multiple producers with different agendas or practices. Much of the ceramics appear to have been made with material available in the Huarmey lower valley, coastal area, and probably the adjacent Culebras Valley. The fine painted Wari ceramics and fine reduced impressed wares present a...
Ceramic variability and social interaction in the Middle Orinoco: On multi ethnic communities and ceramic traditions in the Late occupation period (500-1500 AD) (2017)
The Átures Rapids in the Middle Orinoco region are mentioned in the historical sources as a key trading center linking the Western Llanos of the Orinoco and the Guyana, where people, goods and ideas were exchanged. A recent study in Picure Island, located in the rapids, present a variety of ceramic temper wares, beads and quartz crystals associated in stratigraphically excavated contexts. The ceramic sherds recovered in Picure are closely related to other archaeological sites in the Middle...
Ceramics and Political Dynamics of the Manteño Culture on the Coast of Manabí, Ecuador (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An association between the intricacies of sociopolitical complexity and the diversity in pottery production has been discerned within pre-Columbian societies. To illuminate the facets of the Manteño sociopolitical framework, this study undertakes a comparative analysis of pottery assemblages across Manteño Julcuy, Cabo Pasado, Nuevo Manta, Puerto Cabuyal,...
Ceramics Inside and Out: Food, Style, and Identity in Coastal Northeastern Honduras during the Selin Period (AD 300–1000) (2018)
Prehispanic populations of northeastern Honduras were positioned at the border of Mesoamerica and Lower Central America. Previous research on ceramic style suggests local affiliation shifted over time from north to south as part of an adept strategy to navigate the complex political and social landscape of the region through the promotion of an inclusive group identity. This study explores the actual implementation of that strategy by investigating communal feasting contexts where symbolically...
The Ceramics of Cihuatan, El Salvador: Between Two Worlds (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Centralizing Central America: New Evidence, Fresh Perspectives, and Working on New Paradigms" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cihuatan, El Salvador, appears to have been the southeasternmost Maya city. Dating to the Early Postclassic, it shows clearly the internationalizing tendencies of the time period in its ceramics. Although most are local versions of widespread Early Postclassic Mesoamerican types (or actually...
Ceremonial and Psychotropic Plants of the Tiwanaku (AD 500-1000): New Evidence for Erythroxylum Coca and Anadenanthera Colubrina from the Omo Temple in Moquegua, Peru. (2017)
The consumption of psychotropic substances is a ceremonial practice widespread worldwide since antiquity, however, archaeological evidence for the role of plants in rituals is scarce and interpretations are mostly derived from ethnographies and iconography. Among other methods of analysis, Paleoethnobotany is one of the most indicated for the finding of micro and macro remains involved in ceremonies. This paper presents the results of a Paleoethnobotanical analysis conducted at the site of Omo...
Cerro de Oro and the Year A.D. 600: Changing Settlement Patterns in the Lower Cañete Valley (2017)
The year AD. 600 seems to be an important turning point in the settlement pattern of the lower Cañete valley. While settlements prior to this date tend to be small sized and located close to the river margin, the period after AD 600 shows settlements tend to be placed a few kilometers away from the river margin. The largest of these is Cerro de Oro, a 150ha densely populated settlement located on top of a mound, 13km away from the river margin. The construction and use of Cerro de Oro seems to...
Chacras in the Clouds: Documenting High-Altitude Agricultural Landscapes in the Tambillo Valley of Chachapoyas, Peru (2017)
Here we present preliminary results from targeted prospection and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) flight over the relic agricultural landscapes of the Tambillo Valley in northeastern Peru. This work was carried out as part of the first phase of Proyecto Arqueológico Tambillo (PATA), a project investigating the organization of political landscapes in the montane forest region of Chachapoyas. Specifically, PATA aims to determine whether the densely-clustered Late Intermediate Period settlements...
The Challenges of Bioarchaeological Research in Peru: Archaeological Field-School Project "Pachacamac Valley" (1991-) (2017)
The archeological study of human burials presents many special challenges. Deterioration begins or accelerates with the exposure to new environmental conditions after recovery. In many cases, the context has to be analyzed in situ by bioanthropologists to record information before the removal of the materials to the laboratory and storage area. Continuous participation of bioarchaeologists is also vital for subsequent analysis of the funerary context many months or years after the end of the...
Challenges of Using NGS to Detect T. cruzi in Human Remains from Pre-Columbian South America (2017)
The trypanosomatid parasites are responsible for devastating human disease worldwide. In the Americas, Trypanosoma cruzi is the causative agent of Chagas Disease (CD), the most epidemic zoonosis in Latin America today. The clinical manifestations of CD, however, have been recognized in archaeological human remains from South America as early as 9,000 years ago. We present preliminary results of a project that applies paleogenomic methods, including targeted enrichment and next-generation...
Changing and Exchanging Social Values of Metals: The Integration of Tumbaga and Iron Objects in Indigenous Graves in the Colombia’s Caribbean Region (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Materials in Movement in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although the colonial order between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries transformed the use and trading of metal objects employed in indigenous funerary practices in Colombia’s Caribbean region, it also enabled local goldwork traditions to continue. Particularly, in the lower-Magdalena River region, the “Malibú” buried their dead...
Characterization of Mendoza and Cortezo Pigments: Communities of Practice and Ceramic Production in Precolumbian Panama (AD 1300–1500) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Materials in Movement in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present the results of an exploratory pigment characterization of the Mendoza and Cortezo Red-Buff ceramics. These ceramic styles produced from CE 1300 until the first part of the Spanish colonization tend to appear in association (Mendoza-Cortezo complex). Mendoza, distinguished for the ceramic plates decorated with polychrome...
Charki and Red Currant Jam: Provisioning Extractive Industries in Republican Highland Peru (2017)
With the current boom in the archaeology of the colonial period in the central Andes, we risk losing sight of the potential for archaeological investigation of the colonial aftermath. Following important work further afield in the Southern Cone, I argue for the particular relevance archaeology could have in exploring trade liberalization, emancipation, and the new commodity booms of the 19th century. Drawing on the recent investigation of a series of Republican tambos (roadside inns) in the...
Chemical and Mineralogical Characterization of Ceramic Traditions on the Precolonial Colombian Middle Orinoco Archaeological Sites (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Ceramic Petrographers in the Americas: Recent Research and Methodological Advances" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The “Cotúa Reflexive Archaeology Project” (2015–2018) directed by José R. Oliver (UCL, UK) included a ceramic research analysis in the Venezuelan Middle Orinoco area, specifically in three archaeological sites of the Átures Rapids region, to identify trading and interaction process in precolonial ceramic...
Chenopod data in two countries of South America: Advances in knowledge about the use of Chenopodium in Argentina and Chile from Early Holocene (9000-11000 BP) to Historical Times (250 BP). (2017)
Argentina and Chile are the most austral American countries where Chenopodium species are recovered in several archaeological contexts. In both countries from the north to central and south, various issues are addressed from these findings such as hunter-gatherers subsistence strategies and chenopod grain morphological changes. Multi-proxy methods are used based on pollen, macro and micro botanical remains analyses, and isotopic data. However scarce botanical evidence has carried an uneven depth...
Chibchan Enlightenment (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Centralizing Central America: New Evidence, Fresh Perspectives, and Working on New Paradigms" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation explores interpretations of past Indigenous political complexity in the Isthmo-Colombian Area. The paper argues that a preoccupation with hierarchy carries unforeseen consequences for the epistemology of the area and proposes a critique; that the various societies of the area...
The Chicama Valley Archaeological Project (1989-2000) Revisited (2017)
Between 1989 and 2000, the Chicama Valley Archaeological Project, lead by Glenn S. Russell, Banks Leonard and Christopher Attarian, conducted archaeological survey and excavations in the lower Chicama Valley. This presentation will focus on a broad summary of settlement pattern change with reference to key excavation data that informs interpretation of the survey data. A focus will be how sociopolitical complexity developed in the context of control of irrigation systems. Approximately 25% of...