Multi-regional/comparative (Geographic Keyword)
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This is an abstract from the "Activating Heritage: Encouraging Substantive Practices for a Just Future" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Drawing on the session co-organizers' experiences, this paper offers reflections on the state of heritage research being conducted by archaeologists, its current limitations, and its potential for greater social impact. Leaning into the notion that heritage does important work in the world, we offer thoughts on how...
American Spaces, Irish Places: Assessing Three Urban Communities in 19th Century Irish-America (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. American industry drew millions of Irish immigrants during the 19th and early 20th century, profoundly shaping the face of modern America. This research investigates how Irish communities in the U.S. responded to local conditions within different types of urban spaces, influencing the way communities and subsequent identities within Irish-America were formed....
Analyzing Similarity of Animal Style Art in Iron Age North Central Eurasia: A New Way to Study Continental Expression of Religious Symbolism (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Novel Statistical Techniques in Archaeology I (QUANTARCH I)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Animal Style Art (ASA), an iconographic style expressed on monuments and material culture, is a geographically widespread phenomenon in north central Eurasia during the Iron Age (ca. 1,000 BCE – 100 CE). ASA analyses usually focus on stylistic difference or similarity. This poster reports an artifact-focused macro-scale...
Ancient and Medieval Monuments from Romania and Spain as a Testimony of Transcontinental Links—Cultural and Scientific Aspects (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The synergic approach to preserving and restoring chalk stone, artefacts, mosaics, and fresco surfaces, which belong to the cultural heritage, with archeomaterials brings novelty through transdisciplinarity. Applied research is needed to save some of the most important pieces of art and archeology belonging to the national cultural heritage and requiring...
Answering the Grand Challenges of Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Attention to Detail: A Pragmatic Career of Research, Mentoring, and Service, Papers in Honor of Keith Kintigh" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Keith Kintigh has been at the forefront of the digital revolution in archaeology. He was one of the first to recognize the potential and need of digital archives to house and make accessible the vast treasure trove of archaeological data. He has been a leader in developing tools...
The Anthropocene: Present Singular or Past Plural? (2018)
To what extent are Anthropocene dynamics prefigured or anticipated in microcosm during the later Quaternary, and how do scalar differences in environmental organization (result in anthropic processes working at different rates) complicate any search for a Golden Spike? Drawing on datasets from islands worldwide during the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene, this paper explores how humans drive change in biophysical systems, emphasizing similarities of type yet differences of scale between...
Applications of the IFD and IDD to Complex Societies (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Fifty Years of Fretwell and Lucas: Archaeological Applications of Ideal Distribution Models" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Ideal Free and Ideal Despotic Distribution (IFD/IDD) models have become increasingly popular in the archaeological and anthropological literature because of their flexibility to be applied at a variety of geographic scales. With some exceptions, however, most of the applications of the models...
Applied Systems Engineering Can Help See Into Non-Contiguous Debris Zones With New Eyes (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Finding the lost ships of Tristan de Luna’s fleet is a high-priority historical challenge. Florida archaeologists discovered three of the lost ships in Pensacola Bay. Applied systems engineering can help see into non-contiguous debris zones with new eyes. A 1559 hurricane destroyed ships associated with Pensacola’s first settlement. Three ships were found...
Applying a Social Autopsy Theoretical Framework to Bioarchaeological Analyses (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Not dissimilar to a medical autopsy, whereby a forensic pathologist directs their view inward towards a body’s tissues and organs in an attempt to reconstruct and explain an individual’s underlying cause of death, social autopsy directs its view outward. A social autopsy dissects the interworking layers of social institutions, political laws and policies,...
Archaeological Science or Scientific Archaeology: Where Does "Science" Lie in Stone Artefact Research? (2018)
Archaeological science is defined as the use of scientific techniques, typically derived from the natural sciences, in archaeology. In lithic research, archaeological science studies have investigated topics ranging from identifying raw material sources, assessing artefact function and technology, to modelling socio-cultural and evolutionary changes. However, this method-centred definition of archaeological science has also led to a focus on the "sciency" appeal of techniques over basic...
Archaeological Storytelling: Narrative Construction using Virtual Reality (2018)
Virtual reality (VR) is an exciting new medium for interactive storytelling and holds great promise as a way to raise awareness of heritage sites and the conservation challenges they face. VR can also be used as a way to provide virtual access to parts of an archaeological site that may be too sensitive for traditional tourism activities. In 2017, CyArk developed three virtual reality experiences of geographically diverse archaeological sites around the world that are being adversely impacted by...
Archaeology and Comics: Cons, Concerns, and Creativity (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Tomb Raider to Indiana Jones: Pitfalls and Potential Promise of Archaeology in Pop Culture" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Popular culture is important for gaging how archaeology is understood by the public. It allows us to evaluate what aspects of our discipline the public finds interesting and what the public misunderstands, despite a wealth of academic and scientific knowledge. This paper will focus on how...
Archaeology of Early Medieval Central and Eastern Europe in the Context of “Global Middle Ages” (2024)
This is an abstract from the "New Work in Medieval Archaeology, Part 2: Crossing Boundaries, Materialities, and Identities" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The intent behind the notion of “Global Middle Ages” has generally been to broaden the scope, especially geographically, that we examine when discussing the Middle Ages. An important component of this has been widening the field of view beyond western Europe and the Mediterranean. However, a...
ArchaMap: A Solution for Merging and Finding Archaeological Data (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Many of archaeology’s biggest questions require the aggregation of numerous datasets. Often the main stumbling block is the time-consuming matching of different categories and domain-specific ontologies between datasets. Even when this complex challenge is completed, there is rarely a record of how the datasets were merged (i.e., translated). Push for open...
The Architecture of Fear: Archaeological Evidence of Fear’s Influence on Built Environments (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The influence of fear on our interactions with each other and the world around us is ubiquitous. Despite this, it can be challenging to recognize its effects in the archaeological and historical record. However, built environments create enduring physical evidence and their elements reflect the cultural fears of their makers. This evidence is multiscalar,...
Arisen from the Ashes: Archaeology as Tabletop Gaming in “The Age of Silence” (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. “The Age of Silence” is an ongoing “Dungeons and Dragons” campaign in which players’ final challenge will be decolonization amid apocalyptic war, either leading a cultural revolution, or joining the forgotten beneath the ashen waste. Realistic material culture is central to the campaign, with...
Assessing a Minimally Invasive Method for Ancient DNA Sampling of Paleolithic Bone and Antler Tools by Micro-CT Scan and Density Measurements (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Animal Resources in Experimental Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Osseous objects are among the most frequent archaeological remains recovered from Upper Paleolithic (UP) sites. Their analysis is thus essential to obtain insights into crucial aspects of the Pleistocene hunter-gatherer’s lifestyle, including human subsistence, social behavior, prehistoric humans’ practical/symbolic choices, and the...
Assessing Connections between the Spoked Wheel and Bronze Age Elite Social Identities (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Wheels, Horses, Babies and Bathwaters: Celebrating the Impact of David W. Anthony on the Study of Prehistory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The wheel may be the greatest, and most enduring, technological innovation in human history. Certainly, the wheel transformed the potential and efficacy of transportation technologies, trade and exchange systems, not to mention human mobility. The innovation of the wheel produced...
Assessing Diversity in the Society for American Archaeology Journals (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Documenting Demographics in Archaeological Publications and Grants" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The three peer-reviewed journals of the Society for American Archaeology—*American Antiquity, *Latin American Antiquity, and *Advances in Archaeological Practice—are available to all members of the SAA electronically, but have different readerships, distinct submission bases, and individual cultures of practice and...
Authentically Inauthentic and Real Fakes: An Archaeology of Contemporary Stonehenge Replicas (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stonehenge (UK) has inspired replicas on every inhabited continent, with nearly 30 in North America alone. Few could – nor are intended to - be mistaken for the real thing. We explore several contemporary Stonehenges, illustrating the range of forms, materials and motivations associated with such replicas. We focus on artworks - Deller’s inflatable Sacrilege,...
Axe-Monies in the Smithsonian Collections (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Coastal Connections: Pacific Coastal Links from Mexico to Ecuador" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A technical study of pre-Columbian copper-alloy axe-monies from the collections of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian and National Museum of Natural History. Research activities include stereo microscopy, digital photography (macro and micro), portable X-ray fluroescence (pXRF)...
Behavioral Modernity (or Lack Thereof) and Its Reflection in Lithic Assemblages (2018)
One of the most important methodological issues facing modern paleoanthropology is the so far failed matching of archaeological material with specific hominins, at least at the metapopulation level. Due largely to the plethora of scenarios produced by genetic and genomic data in the last few years, the demand for archaeological confirmation or refutation of diverse dispersal scenarios has increased. Yet our understanding of lithic assemblages is not sufficiently nuanced to answer these...
Best Strategies for Field-based Training in Data Recording and Management (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Capacity Building or Community Making? Training and Transitions in Digital Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A student’s first experience with archaeological recording is frequently in a field school setting. Yet, field school data recording practices can quickly evolve as archaeological projects integrate new technology, change excavation strategies, and investigate new research questions. How do these...
Beyond the Technical Revolution: Epistemological Shifts in Archaeological XRF (or: "The World of XRF Will Never Be the Same Again") (2019)
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. In 1983, an advertisement for a Tracor X-ray spectrometer proclaimed that "the world of XRF will never be the same again" thanks to an integrated microcomputer that "takes the confusion out of instrumental analysis." It was an exaggeration that this model offered "mistake-proof" XRF, but the point is that this...
Big Data, Heritage Management, and the EAMENA Project (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Vision in the Age of Big Data" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Heritage inventories are crucial for effective cultural heritage protection, especially during conflicts or disaster situations. Digital technologies, particularly remote sensing, are making it easier and faster than ever to create and disseminate these inventories, and collect data on a scale not previously possible. Since 2015, the...