Multi-regional/comparative (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Collard.

This is an abstract from the "The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis and Human Origins: Archaeological Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Identifying the factors that influence variation in cultural complexity among groups is an important task for archaeologists. In this paper, I argue that niche construction may be one of these factors. I begin by showing that empirical work on the drivers of technological complexity in small-scale...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aureade Henry. Julie Esdale. Ted Goebel. Kelly Graf. Aleksei Teten'kin.

The use of alternate fuels such as grasses, bones or dung has often been interpreted as a typical response of Late Pleistocene (LP) hunter-gatherers to harsh environments, in which woody resources are scarce. In the context of early human dispersal from south-east Siberia into the Americas, the question of prehistoric migration and settlement is closely linked to the one of fuel availability, fire being considered, to the same extent as food, a vital element for survival. However, data regarding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gerardo Aldana.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology as an Engine or a Camera?" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper takes up a theoretical exploration of the concept of "value" as it is articulated explicitly and implicitly within archaeological investigation. Recognizing that the issue is related to social science inquiry broadly, this paper looks to Bourdieu’s "Forms of Capital" to develop a framework for interpretation that does not rely on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Ames.

When departing one’s home, how does an emigrant decide what to bring? In arriving at a destination, in what ways does an emigrant (re)construct their understanding of place? This paper addresses the question of materiality in emigration by investigating the objects surrounding the act departure, and (re)structuring of one’s life in emigration. I focus on three facets of the material expression of emigration: the things they bring, the worlds they build, and the resulting influences they have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Freund.

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. Obsidian sourcing is a well-established facet of archaeological practice and has the capacity to address a wide range of relevant archaeological questions. For decades, Professor Steven Shackley has been on the forefront of methodological and theoretical developments in obsidian characterization studies, and his...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Stewart. Kurt Rademaker.

Of Earth’s habitable landscapes, mountain environments present humans with some of the most striking adaptive challenges. But they also offer unique opportunities. Cross-cultural comparative research on montane hunter-gatherers in prehistory has focused on the settlement of expanses of contiguous high-elevation terrain – the world’s ‘high plateaus.’ Yet plateau peopling represents one chapter in a much longer evolutionary story of when, how and why ancient people engaged with upland landscapes....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer French.

The study of archaic hominins (non-modern humans) poses some unique challenges to archaeological interpretation, and relies on close integration of archaeological data with those from other allied fields including palaeoanthropology, genetics, primatology, and ethnography. In this opening paper, I reflect on some of the recent advances and discoveries in these fields which are changing the ways in which we both conduct and conceptualise research in to non-modern humans in archaeology. I then...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Degryse. Sarah Dillis. Alicia Van Ham-Meert. Andrew Shortland.

This is an abstract from the "The Movement of Technical Knowledge: Cross-Craft Perspectives on Mobility and Knowledge in Production Technologies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Antimony has a long history of use in metallurgy and glass making. The first attestation of Cu-Sb alloys dates to the 5th millennium BC (e.g. Nahal Mhismar), while its widespread adoption started around 3500 BC. Metallic antimony objects are reported in Mesopotamia (e.g....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zuzana Chovanec.

This is an abstract from the "Mediterranean Archaeology: Connections, Interactions, Objects, and Theory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Bronze Age in both the Mediterranean and Europe represents a period during which new socio-economic relationships were being forged that inextricably linked far-off communities. Within these discursive social networks, new commodities were traded over long-distances, new markets emerged, and along with novel...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ellery Frahm.

Portable XRF instruments have advanced considerably over the past decade, and many of their technical advancements are highly useful for the archaeological sciences, especially compared to fields like art conservation. The newest generation of detectors and their processing electronics, for example, make measurements significantly shorter, allowing characterization of much larger assemblages. Other advances, though, involve more than mere speed. Ruggedized instruments are dust-proof,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Shuttleworth.

The 21st century will be remembered as a period of exponential change within paleoanthropology. Though such developments pose academic challenges, an overlooked issue is how we communicate this information to students. A constantly changing foundation of knowledge that increasingly requires an understanding of complex theoretical techniques, coupled with the importance of student satisfaction surveys, educators are faced with a pedagogical dilemma: stick with ‘established’ teaching methods...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cinthia Campos.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Trincheras Tradition thrived in the Altar Valley, Sonora, Mexico between AD 400 to 1400. The Hohokam are known for their extensive irrigation systems and reliance on agriculture. Lacking evidence of similar features, the Trincheras were interpreted as primarily hunters and gatherers, a rustic branch of the Hohokam. This characterization of Trincheras...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Silvia Gonzalez. Samuel Rennie.

This is an abstract from the "Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part II: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mexico is important in the debate on the early peopling of the Americas because several well-preserved Paleoindian/Preceramic individuals with ages between 13,000 and 8,000 years have been found in lake sediments/volcanic deposits surrounding a Late Pleistocene Lake in Central Mexico and in submerged...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chris Dixon-Hundredmark. Cynthia Van Gilder.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper seeks to bring together the existing literature and extend its theoretical and methodological implications for an archaeology of parenting, particularly in the times/places where contemporary written records do not exist. While parenting and childhood may be more readily visible to researchers and the public in periods where written records...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dorian Fuller.

This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Taking inspiration from Zeder’s notion of pathways to animal domestication (commensal, prey, directed), this presentation will outline equivalent pathways of plant domestication types, and suggest a range of species that can be grouped by these pathways. These pathways are united by issues of habit (annual, perennial),...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edward Jolie. Benjamin Bellorado.

This is an abstract from the "Approaches to Archaeological Footwear" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper introduces the symposium “Approaches to Archaeological Footwear.” Evidence suggests that footwear has been an important component of human technology for at least the last 50,000 years. In addition to becoming a signature feature of dress and adornment in many cultures, footwear has also played an underappreciated role in human mobility...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Schnell.

This is an abstract from the "Medicine and Healing in the Americas: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Medicine, health care, and healing comprise a sub-set of cultural practices that are under-represented in archaeological work in the Americas. In other parts of the world, rich textual traditions consisting of medical treatises or surgical manuals combined with archaeological evidence in the form of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Byers. José M. Capriles. Adolfo Gil. Judson Finley. Jacob Freeman.

One of the least understood aspects of paleoscience is the interplay between climate, human demography, and how changes in population influence resource management strategies. With the goal of understanding such processes, we created the PEOPLE 3000 research network to study trade-offs inherent to the climate-human population-institutional adaptation system over the last 3000 years. We propose that strategies reducing variation in food production and institutions for protecting those strategies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Marston.

This is an abstract from the "Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of human-plant relationships in archaeology is rich and varied, including gathering, cultivation of wild species, domestication, intensive agriculture, and nonfood uses of plants. People-plant relationships in agricultural entanglements, however, have primarily focused on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Madeline Leines.

Past and present human-animal relationships have always been shaped by culturally-based beliefs, perceptions, and treatment of nonhuman animals, which in turn influence the lives of the animals in their environments. That being said, how accurate were ancient cultures in their attempts to understand animals, and how did subsequent human perceptions influence animal realities? What might it have been like as a nonhuman animal living near ancient peoples, based on biology and culture? What of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin Welker. Alison Foster. Eric Tourigny.

This is an abstract from the "Frontiers in Animal Management: Unconventional Species, New Methods, and Understudied Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chicken bones are common in many historic faunal assemblages. Historic accounts indicate that domestic chickens introduced to North America by European colonists did well and multiplied quickly, but provide little information on the origins, characteristics, or roles poultry played in the North...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Helmer.

This is an abstract from the "Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me: What Have We Learned Over the Past 40 Years and How Do We Address Future Challenges" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Resource managers, researchers, and policymakers are increasingly considering ways to integrate across silos for more effective land management in the 21st century. In 2005, the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment articulated an international strategy of ecosystem services which...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marybeth Tomka. Lauren Bussiere.

This is an abstract from the "How to Conduct Museum Research and Recent Research Findings in Museum Collections: Posters in Honor of Terry Childs" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL) is the oldest and largest archaeological repository in Texas, housing many millions of artifacts from more than 8,000 sites in Texas and beyond. Collections at TARL range from massive WPA...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Kurnick.

Over the last several decades, scholars have reexamined the importance of spatiality to human life and argued that space is social, relational, and that it produces and is produced by social relationships. This reconceptualization of space has highlighted the ways in which the production of landscapes is integral to the creation, maintenance, and negation of social inequality and political authority. Recent archaeological approaches to studying inequality through landscape have taken a variety...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fernanda Neubauer. Michael J. Schaefer.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Method and Theory: Papers in Honor of James M. Skibo, Part II" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. James M. Skibo’s pioneering work developing the methods and theory of ceramic use-alteration analysis has allowed archaeologists to make new range of inferences from one of the most broadly available classes of artifacts, utilitarian ceramics. His ethnoarchaeological and experimental work has brought about a...