Republic of Palau (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
576-600 (684 Records)
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. After c. 50 years of research using a diverse range of geochemical techniques, patterns of movement for obsidian in the Pacific region, dating from the Pleistocene up to the historic period, have been documented comprehensively. Although there are eight high quality obsidian sources, by far the largest quantity of...
Space, the Iron Frontier: Production, Spatial Organization and Historicity of Iron Metallurgy within the Angkorian Khmer Empire, Cambodia (9th to 15th c. CE) (2018)
Iron production was a critical process in the expansion of the Angkorian Khmer Empire. Recent surveys by INDAP around the Phnom Dek region have revealed a massive industrial landscape that appears to have fueled Angkor’s expansionist ambitions between the 11th to 13th centuries. This paper presents a spatial and morphological GIS analysis of hundreds of slag concentrations mapped in this region to evaluate changes in the scale and organization of metal production. Combined with pXRF data of tap...
Spatial Association between Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Ahu and Freshwater Sources (2017)
The famous ahu and moai monuments of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) are features associated with multiple relatively small-scale communities distributed around the island. These communities are marked archaeologically by repeated sets of domestic architectural classes surrounding ceremonial features (i.e., ahu and moai) that potentially served to functionally integrate local populations. Described in this fashion, this settlement pattern offers the potential to explain the substantial...
Spatial patterns of human land-use from surface collections in NW Mongolia (2017)
The spatial distributions of artifacts from different periods of time reveal change in the nature and intensity of human activities in different kinds of places. This is particularly useful when trying to establish how patterns of human mobility and land-use evolved during periods of dramatic environmental or economic change. The Uvs Nuur Basin of northwest Mongolia played host to both. Here, the distribution of glaciers, vegetation zones, and lake systems changed rapidly from the late...
Spindle Whorls from Angkor Borei, Cambodia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Angkor Borei, Cambodia was a major center of the Funan civilization during the early first millennium CE. As with many sites in Cambodia, Angkor Borei has also been heavily looted. This poster presents our analysis of 362 ceramic spindle whorls from a looted collection undergoing repatriation to Cambodia. We compared the collection to a previously developed...
The spread and development of Iron Techologies in China (2017)
Iron production in this paper is divided into two types; wrought iron and cast iron. Wrought iron was spread through the Eurasian grasslands to China two times; at the middle of second millennium BC and 9th to 8th century BC. At the later time, wrought iron daggers with golden or bronze handles spread to northwestern China. After wrought iron arrived in the Central Plains of China where bronze working was developed, there was the invention of cast iron technology. Development of cast iron...
Stable Oxygen Isotope δ18O Analysis of Crocus Clam (Tridacna crocea) from Palau, Micronesia: Evaluating a Proxy for Sea-surface Temperature Reconstruction (2017)
For thousands of years and on a global scale, shellfish have been a key resource for peoples living in island and coastal environments. Not only were they critical food resources, but can act as records of paleoenvironmental conditions. In this study, we evaluated whether the crocus clam (Tridacna crocea) could satisfactorily record ambient water temperature via the incorporation of oxygen isotope ratios into the calcium carbonate matrix during shell growth. Modern Tridacna crocea were collected...
Standardization in pottery production of the Jinsha site, Chengdu Plain, China (2017)
In earlier studies, scholars have focused on the measurement of vessels’ dimensions to assess the degree of standardization. It should be noted however that not all dimensions are culturally salient or equally important. Moreover, when manufacturing processes can be decomposed into multiple stages, cultural idiosyncrasies that have been shaped through either institutionalized or unconscious ways might affect and be sought in any of these stages. This has called for analyses on ceramics by using...
Starch Grain Analysis of Human Dental Calculus from Guanzhuang Site, Henan Province (2017)
This research aims to investigate the human foodstuffs and lifestyle during the Western and Eastern Zhou Dynasties in the core area of the Central Plains using starch grain analysis of human dental calculus. Plant microfossils, starch grains and phytoliths, which were found in most of calculus samples from Guanzhuang site, were from millets, bread wheat, rice, adzuki, tubers and acorns. Diversity of starch grains and phytoliths in morphological characteristics extracted from dental calculus...
Starch Remains from Human Teeth Reveal the Bronze and Early Iron Ages Vegetal Diet of Xinjiang, Northwest China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has long been a vital link between Europe and eastern Asia. In the past, understanding prehistoric diets in Xinjiang was based mainly on carbonized plant remains unearthed from archaeological sites and isotopic analyses of excavated human bones. Here, we report on our analysis of human dental residues preserved on...
Staying Afloat: A Comparative Case Study of Angkor Wat and Tikal’s Management of Water (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation is a large-scale comparative case study of two distinct regions to see how their use and control of water was similar given their environments but different from social, political, and cultural perspectives. Specifically, I examine the sociopolitical nature of Angkor Wat as an expression of ancient Khmer culture and the Classic Maya city of...
Stewarding Cultural Landscapes: Managing an Eroding Coastal Site at Pu`uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Perched sand deposits and pocket beaches dot the shoreline at Pu'uhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park on the island of Hawai'i. Keone'ele Cove, situated along the northern boundary of the park, is a key part of the cultural landscape where Hawaii’s ruling class landed canoes and hosted gatherings, and where native Hawaiians continue these practices in...
Stone Monumentality in Tana Toraja, Indonesia: Initial Ethnoarchaeological Insights (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stone remains a prominent feature of the natural and cultural landscape of Tana Toraja, Indonesia, where outcropping basalt and limestone karst formations create a dramatic backdrop. In this context, the manipulation of stone is an important aspect of ancient cultural traditions that persist to the present day, but which has received relatively little...
The Stone-Construction Tombs of Xiaguanzi in Maoxian county, and the Question of Cultural Contact throughout Western China (2017)
Xiaguanzi site in Maoxian County, located at the junction of the upper reaches of Min and Fu Rivers, is an important node on the channels of culture transmission between North and South China. From 2014 to 2015, Neolithic remains and stone-constructed tombs were excavated. The Neolithic remains include pottery, stone and bone artifacts, leather objects, animal bones, plant seeds, house remains, tombs, and ash pits. Although there no painted pottery occurred at Xiaguanzi, the pottery found here...
Storage Pit Prospection and Capacity Estimation in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Comparison of Surface Detection Methods (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. LiDAR has revolutionized the way we survey for surface-visible archaeological features. Our ability to relatively quickly capture and assess large landscapes for features enables us to understand human activity across large spatial scales with significantly less time and financial investment than pedestrian or other forms of remote survey alone. As these...
Stressing differences while appearing to be the same: a case study from Lapita pottery motif analysis (2017)
In previous research, employing a dataset composed of motifs recorded from 60 Lapita sites spread across the southwestern Pacific, we argued that a general trend of making highly similar, but not identical, motifs can be seen when motif repertoires of different island groups are compared. We thus proposed that the elements of surprise or amusement, generated from making something similar yet different from what the intended audience expected to see, was employed to stress shared traditions while...
Study on the subsistence of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age China using published mammal records (2017)
This research is based on all published zooarchaeological study on Chinese Neolithic and Early Neolithic sites and mainly focuses on the animal subsistence economy in the same period. With the advent of quantitative analysis, refined models can now be built and analyzed from all the published data. The application of big data studies on animal remains provided information of range and relative importance of taxa and their possible change through time-scale and region which may reflect an ancient...
Style vs. Function in Polynesian Fish Hook Shank Variation (2018)
Polynesian i’a makau, or fishhooks, may stand in for ceramics for the purpose of generating culture-historical units, facilitating relative dating of the three Hawaiian assemblages under scrutiny (Allen 1996). Artifact assemblages at Waiahukini, Makalei, and Pu’u Ali’i contained over 1000 intact or partial fishhooks and fragments of shaped pig bone representing unfinished manufacture. Allen’s (2015) conceptual style-function model of hook attributes necessitates a focus on stylistic shank...
Subsistence in the Late Pleistocene of China: A view from Laonainaimiao site (2017)
The paper presents the taphonomic and zooarchaeological analyses of the fauna from the Laonainaimiao site of Late Pleistocene in the central plain area of China. The taphonomy observation shows that the bones were accumulated by human activity. The taxa of the fossil assemblage is composed mainly of Equidae and Bos primigenius, followed by gazelle, deer, wild boar, rhinoceros etc. Most carcasses of Equidae and Bos were likely to be transported to the site as a whole. The carcasses were...
Subsistence Strategies across the East Eurasian Steppes: Exploring Connections between Diet and Dental Pathology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Steppe by Steppe: Advances in the Archaeology of Eastern Eurasia" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Within the vast Eurasian steppes, early populations utilized subsistence strategies that were uniquely developed in response to local environmental settings, and recent bioarchaeological work has underscored this connection. This study explores the relationship between dietary intake and dental pathology, focusing on...
Surveyed with LiDAR: Identifying Lo’i Pondfields in Windward Kohala, Hawai’i Island (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. This project is a demonstration of GIS methods for identifying irrigated agricultural complexes in the heavily vegetated drainage of Halawa Gulch, windward Kohala. Through use of GIS tools on a LiDAR data set I created slope interpolation and elevational profile graphs of potential agricultural sites. In some cases these could be verified...
Sustainable Visit to Rapa Nui: Global Perspectives (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I present some research results deriving from a collaborative and interdisciplinary research project called Sustainable Visits in Rapa Nui - Global perspectives. The use of visits refers to tourism, colonization and migrations in the long term perspective, visits with colonial connotations, and research visits and Rapanui migrations, all...
A Synthesis of Windward Oahu Archaeology (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. Steve Athens legacy has provided archaeologists working within a historic preservation context a reminder of the numerous opportunities available to conduct research within a cultural resource management setting. This paper argues that not only does historic preservation provide a plethora of funding...
A Tale of Tongan Chickens (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lapita peoples transported a number of animal species in their colonizing canoes as they settled the islands of the Pacific. Included among the domesticated animals introduced by Lapita peoples were chickens (Gallus gallus). Later, Polynesians also transported chickens as they settled many of the islands of the Polynesian Triangle. The discovery of...
A Tale of Two Bombers: Forensic Recovery of WWII-era Aircraft Crash Sites in the Jungles of Papua New Guinea (2019)
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The successful recovery of human remains from aircraft crash sites is significantly impacted by the circumstances of loss, to include how the crash occurred, the size of the aircraft, and taphonomic factors. Two WWII aircraft crashes in the East Sepik and Madang...