Territory of Guam (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
176-200 (590 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. More than 3,000 years ago peoples ventured into Remote Oceania using a combination of sophisticated watercraft, wayfinding techniques—including a celestial compass—and sailing strategies passed down orally through rote learning across generations. Over the course of 2,000+ years, different groups settled islands in Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia,...
Exploring human-animal relations among the Okhotsk Culture in northern Japan (2017)
This paper investigates long-term human-animal interactions among Okhotsk cultures in Hokkaido, northern Japan. The Okhotsk Culture were maritime foragers and traders who expanded out from the Amur into Hokkaido and Sakhalin Island from about AD 600, with many of their distinctive traits and practices such as elaborate bear ceremonialism and other hunting rituals persisting into the historic Ainu cultures. Our ongoing research aims to understand the origins, spatiotemporal variability and...
Exploring Manufacturing Variability in Calcareous Sand Tempered Pottery on Yap, Western Caroline Islands (2018)
The oldest identified sites on Yap are identified by presence calcareous sand tempered (CST) pottery from deeply stratified deposits. With few exceptions, CST pottery, made from locally produced clay, has been recovered from Rungluw and Pemrang, two sites in southern Yap, western Micronesia (northwest tropical Pacific). Although poor preservation conditions and small sample sizes make it difficult to reconstruct vessel size, detailed analysis of sherds demonstrates at least two sub-types. Recent...
Exploring the Emergence of the Dian (Shizhaishan) Culture: a view from settlement study (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Research on Early Chinese Borderland Cultures and Archaeological Materials" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As archaeological data from settlement sites of eastern Yunnan were largely absent until very recently, the Bronze Age culture in the area was interpreted through materials taken from burials around Lake Dian and nearby regions. These mortuary data provide a picture of socially stratified and materially...
The External Connections of the Yingpanshan Site Cluster in Western Sichuan, China (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous studies suggest that both painted pottery vessels and certain kinds of cereals, such as millets, were introduced to the Upper Min River from the north due to the expansion of the Neolithic cultures in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, during the fourth millennium BC. By investigating related ceramic samples and human and animal teeth and bones...
Farming vs. Herding: Subsistence Practice during the Late Neolithic Evidenced by Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotopes in Shengedaliang, North Shaanxi, China (2017)
In order to explore subsistence patterns in northern Shaanxi Province around 4,000 BP, human and animal bones from the Shimao, Zhaimouliang, Shengedaliang, Huoshiliang, and Muzhuhzuliang sites were sampled for stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratio analysis. The results show that most people primarily subsisted on C4 resources, e.g. millet and millet-related animal products, despite the fact that there was some intake of C3 plants by some individuals. Stable nitrogen isotope values indicate...
Farms with a View: The Evolution of Agriculture at Kealakekua, Hawai‘i (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Above the 400 foot sea cliff at Kealakekua Bay on the leeward Kona coast of Hawai‘i are the remnants of extensive pre-Contact Hawaiian agricultural infrastructure. Inventory survey and data recovery on 100-plus acres at the top of the sea cliff provided an opportunity to examine a relatively large...
Faunal management and human-landscape interactions at Ifugao, Luzon, Philippines (2017)
One major contribution of the Ifugao Archaeological Project in the northern Philippines (Luzon) is associating the origins of the Ifugao wet-rice terrace complex with local resistance against Spanish colonial expansion. With the establishment of wet-rice agriculture in the highlands by the early 17th century, it is anticipated that the acquisition and management of fauna would have been modified to adapt to new strategies of crop production. In this context, it is hypothesized that changes in...
Faunal remains from the Yangguanzhai site (2017)
Over several seasons of excavation, a large quantity of faunal remains have been unearthed from the Yangguanzhai site. These remains were all collected systematically by excavation unit and have been carefully measured and identified by taxon. The analysis of these remains indicates the presence of at least 11 species, including fresh water shellfish (Unio douglasiae), pheasant, crane, dog, domestic pig, roe deer, spotted deer, red deer, and cattle. The presence of some of these species suggests...
Feast as a Farming ‘Technique’ – Ethnohistorical Case Studies from Amami and Yaeyama Islands, Japan (2017)
Since the role of feast as a calendar marker for farming communities was proposed by Bender in 1970s, ‘practical’ roles of feasts in production systems have been debated. In this paper, I argue that feasts can also considered as a farming 'technique' because they can substantially enable regular and continuous farming production by motivating and obliging people for the production, particularly in settings unfavorable for cultivation. In Japan, the southern Amami and Yaeyama Islands were...
Feasting and Concentrated Pottery Production in East Cape, Papua New Guinea (2017)
East Cape, the southeastern tip of Papua New Guinea mainland, is one of the pottery production areas in southern Massim. Domestic pottery production has continued to the present day, mainly made by female potters to supply their own needs. However, more extensive pottery production beyond the household level occasionally occurs, especially when funerals (toleha) are held. Toleha are organized by the matrilineal descent group (guguni) of a dead person; the potters who belong the descent group get...
Feasting and Gift Giving in Pre-Contact and Spanish Colonial Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands of Micronesia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Feasting and gift-giving in the ethnography, history, and archaeology of native peoples in Southeast Asia and its islands in the Western Pacific are often given primacy in accounts of academic fieldwork. Some ethnohistoric accounts on the pre-Contact and Spanish Colonial Chamorro people indigenous to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands of Micronesia also...
Feasting from the Early to Middle Jomon Period Deduced from Seed Impressions on Pottery (2017)
Seed impressions of cultigens have been recovered from pottery of the early to middle Jomon periods in the central highland of Honshu and the western Kanto district of Japan. These include such cultigens as Perilla fructescens introduced from China and Azuki bean (Vigna angularis) and Soy bean (Glycine max) domesticated in Japan. They often occur in large numbers and are also found even in clay figurines (Dogu). I found that the seeds exist not only on pottery surfaces, but also within pottery...
Feeding ecology of the Okhotsk hunter-gather-fishers estimated by stable isotope analysis (2017)
Hamanaka-2 site in the Rebun Island, Hokkaido, Japan provides a good faunal assemblage made by Epi-Jomon and Okhotsk hunter-gatherer-fishers. In this study, we reconstruct feeding ecology of the Okhotsk hunter-gatherer-fishers by applying the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to faunal and human remains from the Hamanaka-2 site. As a result of the analysis, Okhotsk humans were at the highest trophic level among the mammals, domesticated dogs indicated the similar but slightly lower...
Field Systems, Urbanism, and State Formation in the Hawaiian Islands (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Fields: Locating and Interpreting Ancient Agricultural Landscapes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The significance of urbanization and royal centers in the development of productive agricultural systems and state formation has been minimized in the Hawaiian Islands. Today, thanks to several key methodological advances, especially remote sensing using lidar, we are closer than ever to an integrated and...
Finding Buddha: Hi-tech approach to the study of Buddhist transition at the Angkorian center of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, Cambodia (10th to 16th c. CE) (2017)
The Two Buddhist Towers Project seeks to identify material culture evidence of the important shift from Mahayana to Theravada Buddhism during the decline of the Angkorian Khmer Empire. At the regional center of Preah Khan of Kompong Svay, also known as Bakan, the most representative iconography, found for example at the Tower of Preah Thkol and the temple of Prasat Stoeng, shows the religious foundations of Mahayana Buddhism, which was probably practiced at the site since its inception. On the...
Finding Greener Pastures: The local development of agro-pastoralism in the Ordos Region, North China (2017)
This paper integrated new archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological research in the Ordos region to provide new information on the timing, mechanisms, and process of development of agro-pastoralism in China. The paper includes a new synthesis of archaeobotanical, and zooarchaeological data to understand the nature and the beginnings of agro-pastoralism as early as the Late Neolithic period (2600-1900 B.C.）. Environmental factors constrained and shaped animal husbandry in the Ordos Region, an area...
Finding the Right Spot: Utilizing Historic Maps, Period Imagery, and Archaeological Data to Identify Aircraft Crash Sites within the Larger Battlefield Landscape (2017)
Identifying aircraft crash sites is a critical component of the mission of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. This paper uses several examples of aircraft crash incidents and illustrates the contextual use of multiple lines of data, such as historic imagery, GPS, period maps, and GIS for the effective location of individual crash sites across the greater battlefield landscape. This effort is undertaken to help address the goals associated with DPAA's greater mission: the return of missing...
Fire up the Uhmw: Deciphering Botanical Residues from Earth Ovens in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia (2017)
In Pohnpei, Micronesia, the uhmw, or earth oven, is one important way of preparing food. These ovens are typically located in cookhouses next to residential sites. Pohnpeians use heated stones on the ground to cook food and cover items with large leaves while cooking. It is clear that umhw are a long-standing Pohnpeian tradition, as multiple examples have been found in the archaeological record. In this paper, we ask what botanical residues from uhmw can tell us about the prehistory and history...
Fishponds and Aquaculture in the Ancient Hawaiian Political Economy (2017)
The political economy of ancient Hawai'i, prior to European contact in 1778-79, has often been characterized as based primarily on a "staple economy" with highly intensified forms of both irrigated and dryland agriculture. Less appreciated is the role of intensive aquaculture of two species (milkfish and mullet) using several kinds of often extensive fishponds. This paper explores the role and significance of such aquaculture in the late pre-contact Hawaiian political economy, drawing especially...
Fortified Towns in a Nomadic Pastoral Landscape on the Mongolian Steppe: Bai Balik and the Northern Railways Archaeological Project (2017)
Mongolia is well known for its history of nomadic pastoralism and Bronze and Early Iron Age burials and monuments. For a brief period in the 8th and 9th centuries, however, the Uygher and Khitan Khanates built large towns and urban centers. One of these, Bai Balik was established about 758 CE during the northward expansion of the Uyghur Empire, by the Uyghur khagan, Bayanchur Khan as a ceremonial and trading center in the fertile and strategically located Selenge Valley. This well-known site,...
Foundations of Childhood: Bioarchaeology of Subadults at the Late Shang Capital of Yinxu (2017)
Oracle-bone inscriptions and pre-Han texts say little about children, making bioarchaeology the best available method to study childhood during earlier periods. In 2004, extensive excavations were carried out on building foundations in Dasikong Village, a Late Shang (c.1200-1046 BC) lineage neighborhood found on the outskirts of modern-day Anyang, Henan Province, China. This led to a uniquely high recovery of subadult remains as younger subadults are often found in and around foundations. For...
From a strategic passage to a remote town ----the status change of Dunhuang in the history of China and West communication reflected from the beacon ruins in Dunhuang (2017)
Silk Road played an important role in the ancient China and West communication. Dunhuang is located in the most western part of the Hexi Corridor, which is a valley between Qilian Mountain and Beishan Mountain. It connects the countries of the Middle Asia, Europe and Africa in west and the East Asia in East. Beacon ruin is the most important type among the archaeological ruins, and played a key role in protecting the Northwest frontier and the Silk Road accessibility. Among the 182 ruins of...
From Dune Stratigraphy to a Model-Based Cultural Sequence for the Marquesas Islands of East Polynesia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies I: Stratification and Correlation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Marquesas Islands comprise part of East Polynesia, a culture area that also includes Hawai'i, New Zealand, and Tahiti. Calcareous sand dunes are rare in the Marquesas but play an outsized role in Polynesian archaeology. Dune sites yield remarkably rich evidence of human settlement and the preservation of organic remains is...
From Hunting and Gathering to Farming in Northern Thailand (2017)
Southeast Asia’s prehistoric zooarchaeological record is peculiar: faunal assemblages are seemingly ‘diverse,’ and generally include a large number of mammalian/reptilian/avian and molluscan species, but often these assemblages lack telltale evidence for human consumption. Therefore, one of the primary challenges confronting zooarchaeologists in this region is identifying what taxa were actually exploited by prehistoric foragers and how these patterns changed over time. This paper investigates...