Republic of El Salvador (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
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The future of American Archaeology lies in its ability to engage the public and demonstrate the field’s relevance to a broad range of communities. One way that maritime archaeology can contribute to this future is through identifying and interpreting maritime landscapes. A maritime landscape approach draws on the "lure of the sea" that attracts many people to shipwreck studies, but engages larger constituencies through place-based history. Geographic space is one of the things that all people...
Puerto Rican Cultural Heritage Under Threat by Climate Change (2017)
As a tropical, oceanic island in the northeastern Caribbean Sea, Puerto Rico is feeling the effects of climate change. Rising sea level, increased storminess, and unpredictable sudden weather events combine with heavy coastal occupation and little or no coherent development planning, to increase social vulnerability to coastal change. The burden of economic problems that the Island is suffering from also increases the complexities of working towards resiliency. Within this context, coastal...
Punto de referencia en la movilización de los olmecas de la costa del Golfo de México (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dentro y fuera de Mesoamérica, se encuentran varios objetos portátiles con la iconografía olmeca. Pero ¿este fenómeno está mostrando la movilidad de los olmecas? Es difícil de responder esta pregunta porque los objetos pequeños se pueden trasladar de distintas maneras. Sin embargo, también hay otros objetos no portátiles con la iconografía olmeca para...
Push and Pull Factors in Inland Settlement (2017)
Archaeological investigation along the coastlines of the islands of the Western Pacific have documented the distinct deposits of human colonizers and their descendants. Recent research has indicated that the first colonists were marine foragers, but also directed their forays into the interiors of islands to collect reptiles, bats, and birds. The research presented here reveals how predictive modeling and directed survey can aid in the detection of post-colonization sites located in the...
Push and Pull, Part II: Modeling the Inland Exploration and Settlement of Fiji (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. Previous GIS-based analyses (2017) by the authors have identified the ranges of several classes of terrestrial fauna that would inhabited the island of Viti Levu in prehistory. The ranges and habits of reptiles (giant tortoises, iguanas, and snakes), flightless birds (megapodes and giant pigeons), and bat and seabird colonies intersect in...
Pushing the Limits of Power: Copan Expansionist Strategies in the El Paraíso Valley, Western Honduras (2017)
The reign of K’ahk’ Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil, Copan Ruler 12, has been rightly hailed as a pivotal time in Copan's political history. Given that no monumental constructions on the Copan Acropolis have as yet been securely attributed to his patronage, this long-lived ruler appears to have turned his focus outward, expanding the Copan kingdom into a multi-ethnic polity with a long geographic reach. In this paper we explore Ruler 12's administrative strategy in one region of the Copan kingdom, the El...
Putting a Face on History: Using Forensic Facial Reconstructions and Imagery in the Arch Street Project (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Bones and Burials in Philadelphia: The Arch Street Project’s Multidisciplinary Research" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper will discuss the application of forensic art and 3-D facial reconstruction (in clay) that was conducted on selected skull replicas made from the Arch Street salvage cemetery site. These reconstructions help to "put a face" on the people who lived in Philadelphia between the 18th to...
Putting a Man in the Machine: Experimental Archaeology and Computational Modeling (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Modeling Mobility across Waterbodies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years, numerous studies have shown the importance of the links that existed between the various islands of the Caribbean archipelago in pre-Columbian times. The notion of connection has thus become the central paradigm of the approach of these island but not isolated societies. Thus, until now little addressed, the question of assessing the...
Putting Archaeobotany Under the Microscope: A Case Study for Increased Use of Starch-Grain and Residue Analyses on the North Coast of Peru (2015)
Due to the arid environment and subsequent excellent preservation on the north coast of Peru, evidence obtained from macrobotanical remains here has been the primary sources of information on plant use. However, despite the richness of the macrobotanical record, the combination of arid conditions and the nature of many plants, such as potatoes and beans – which are consumed in their entirety – macrobotanical remains can only tell us so much. In this paper, we discuss some methodological issues...
Putting Archaeobotany Under the Microscope: A Case Study for Increased Use of Starch-Grain and Residue Analyses on the North Coast of Peru
Due to the arid environment and subsequent excellent preservation on the north coast of Peru, evidence obtained from macrobotanical remains here has been the primary sources of information on plant use. However, despite the richness of the macrobotanical record, the combination of arid conditions and the nature of many plants, such as potatoes and beans – which are consumed in their entirety – macrobotanical remains can only tell us so much. In this paper, we discuss some methodological issues...
Putting El Pilar Back on the Middle Preclassic Map: Assessment and synthesis of the architectural data (2017)
Analyses of early settlement in the eastern Maya Lowlands have benefited from nearly thirty years of research targeting Middle Preclassic (900 – 350 B.C.) occupations in the Belize Valley. Frequently overlooked in these settlement pattern reconstructions is the site of El Pilar, which is situated in the limestone hills to the northwest of the Belize River headwaters. Excavations at El Pilar have primarily focused on the impressive Classic-period architectural remains that comprise the site...
Putting the Pieces Together: Maax Na in Its Regional Context (2017)
Twenty years of research at the large prehispanic Maya site of Maax Na in northwestern Belize have yielded insights not only into site organization and function, but also into its role in the Three Rivers Region. Ongoing investigations of a marketplace and of local caves indicate that Maax Na, while probably not the political capital that its neighbor La Milpa was, nonetheless had a distinct and important regional function as a religious and marketing center. Investigation of water management...
Putting the Pieces Together: Paleogenomics and Bioarchaeology at Midnight Terror Cave (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Subterranean" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2014, the Midnight Terror Cave (MTC) osteological assemblage has been subjected to archaeological, skeletal, isotopic, and paleogenomic analyses generating new insights regarding the use of the cave space as well as the individuals found within it. The thousands of human remains, animal bones, ceramics, and artifacts, have pushed us...
Pyric Herbivory in Ancient North America (2019)
This is an abstract from the "HumAnE Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fire is a powerful tool for hunting because fire effects have important consequences on habitat and forage for prey species. Using case studies from the northern Great Plains and the Southwest US, I explore how fire-use positively impacted prey abundances or location, resulting in higher encounter rates for particular hunting strategies. Specifically, these case...
Pyrotechnology in the Ethnohistoric and Archaeological Record of Prehispanic Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In pre-Hispanic Mexico the use and the importance of fire are demonstrated by materials and objects that, without the use of high temperature processes, or pyrotechnology in general terms, would not exist. As examples it will be sufficient to mention ceramics, metals and lime production. The processes that do not qualify as industrial and that employ lower...
Quantifying Earth Oven Fire-Cracked Rock: A View from the Langtry Rock Midden (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Eagle Nest Canyon, Texas: Papers in Honor of Jack and Wilmuth Skiles" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper highlights quantification data from the author’s thesis, including the methodology of 33 archaeological excavations in the Edwards Plateau and Lower Pecos Canyonlands in which fire-cracked rock (FCR) quantification attempts were made. My excavations at Langtry Rock Midden (41VV168) were...
Quantifying Energy Investment in Monuments (Ahu) on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Using Structure from Motion Mapping (2018)
Pre-European contact Rapa Nui (Easter Island) society is well-known for its substantial investment in monumental architecture, including over 300 platforms (ahu) and almost 1000 statues (moai). Recent theoretical and empirical research on the island suggests that ahu and moai were focal points for competitive and cooperative signaling by relatively small-scale communities dispersed across on the island. Evaluation of this hypothesis, however, requires the measurement of the amount of energy...
Quantifying obsidian extraction at the Zaragoza-Oyameles source area of Puebla, Mexico and what this means for understanding ancient Mesoamerican economies (2017)
Typically overlooked in economic models of commodity production, distribution and consumption in Mesoamerica, is some discussion on the initial procurement of the materials that form the basis of the ancient economies we study. Significant cultural issues, such as labor coordination, territoriality, group identity, knowledge transmission and wealth, which are all wrapped up in a dynamic political and ideological milieu, are at play in the discrete geographical loci where material procurement...
Quantifying the Exploitation of Faunal Remains by Preceramic Societies in Southern Belize (2018)
Beyond occasional reports of Pleistocene megafauna, there is a paucity of faunal data from the Mesoamerican Paleoindian and Archaic periods. This poster presents faunal data from three rockshelters in southern Belize located in two distinct environmental regions. Tzib’te Yux, is located in the Rio Blanco Valley in the foothills of the Maya Mountains and has an intact deposits from Cal. 14,000 to 6,000 BP. In contrast, Maya Hak Cab Pek and Saki Tzul, are both located in the interior of the Maya...
Quantifying the Number of 14C Determinations Required to Improve Dating Accuracy for Lapita Deposits (2017)
The use of radiocarbon dating to calculate the dates of Lapita deposits remains largely a single-step, ad hoc procedure. The accuracy of dating results can be greatly improved through Bayesian modeling. However, this depends on the number and stratigraphic distribution of radiocarbon determinations and the shape of the calibration curve. To evaluate these issues, we used Oxcal 4.2 to simulate, through the process of back-calibration, radiocarbon determinations that we could expect to receive as...
Quantitative Paleodietary Reconstruction with Complex Foodwebs: An Isotopic Case Study from the Caribbean (2018)
Stable isotope analysis is one of the most effective tools for paleodietary reconstruction and has been widely applied to a vast array of archaeological contexts including the Caribbean region. This region, however, possesses a particularly complex isotopic ecology, including both a large number of isotopically variable food sources and a high degree of isotopic overlap between different food groups. As such, to date, most regional paleodietary studies have been limited to descriptive and...
A Quarter-Century of Exploring the Three Rivers Watersheds in Belize (2017)
The Programme for Belize Archaeological Project is situated in the heart of the Three Rivers Watersheds, drained by the Rio Bravo, Booth's River, and Rio Azul/Blue Creek in Northwestern Belize. These three river systems, along with groundwater, springs, and wetlands, nurture what is today the tropical rainforest refuge of the Rio Bravo Conservation Management Area, active farming communities, and long ago sustained multiple ancient Maya communities such as La Milpa, Dos Hombres, Chawak But'o'ob,...
Que Linda Vista! The first glance at LiDAR from Northwestern Belize. (2017)
In this paper, we offer a first look at the results of a LiDAR survey of northwestern Belize performed by the National Center for Aerial Laser Mapping in July, 2016. Three survey blocks were defined – one centered on the site of Xnoha near the Mexican border and another along the Rio Hondo corridor from near its headwaters to Chetumal Bay. The third and largest, covers the sites of La Milpa and Blue Creek as well as numerous ditched agricultural areas. At the time of submission, only the first...
Queer Feminist Science in Hawaiian Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Future Is Fluid...and So Was the Past: Challenging the 'Normative' in Archaeological Interpretations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Queer theory is an important tool for critically analyzing ideas about the past that are normalized and reproduced to the detriment of descendant populations. This approach is particularly relevant when investigating the social structures that governed daily life in the past....
Queer Imaginatives, Normative Narratives: Examining Archaeological Theory and Conceptions of Hunter-Gatherer-Fisher Labor and Social Identity (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Thinking with, through, and against Archaeology’s Politics of Knowledge" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeology’s role and capacity to present multiple narratives about the past situates the discipline as a locus for competing power dynamics: What stories about the past are prioritized? How are stories constructed? Which stories are utilized for crafting a generalizable theory about “human nature”? At the same...