Household Archaeology (Other Keyword)
276-300 (311 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How social space is produced in archaeological contexts is often studied as the result of the gradual accumulation of social practices. However, as a complement to these generative processes, sudden events also have radical impacts on how space is signified, expressed, and experienced. This paper addresses recent research in the Chachapoyas region of the...
Status and Identity at the Margins of Empire: Foodways in pre-Inka and Inka Cuzco (2017)
Diet and cuisine are key practices in the daily negotiation of status and identity, particularly when studied at the household level. In the Maras region of rural Cuzco, the developing Inka state and a rival polity known ethnohistorically as the Ayarmaka maintained autonomous economic, social, and political practices. While other groups in the Cuzco region exchanged goods and shared some cultural practices with the Inka, the Ayarmakas did not. In the 15th century, the Ayarmaka suddenly abandoned...
A Stone Throw(n) Away: Examining the Interconnection between Identity and Division of Labor through an Evolutionary Analysis of Household Spatial Organization (2018)
This study examines issues of cultural change/continuity as embodied within a singular multi-generational housepit (Housepit 54) located within the Bridge River site in the Mid-Fraser Canyon, British Columbia, Canada. Previous research has focused on understanding the changing social dynamics at both a village and household-level, examining shifts from a more collaborative to competitive framework in response to external environmental pressures. As interpersonal dynamics within Housepit 54 were...
A Story Written in Sherds: Ceramic Use Patterns at Río Amarillo Reveal Strategies of Survival in the Terminal Classic to Postclassic Copan Valley, Honduras (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Río Amarillo, on the far eastern side of the Copan Valley, was integrated into the economy of the Copan polity during the Classic period. However, the groups surrounding the core of Río Amarillo long outlasted both Copan’s center and the secondary center of Río Amarillo. This paper will explore the ceramic evidence from the hinterlands to...
Surviving the Apocalypse: A Late Terminal Classic Household in Northern Yucatan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following the widespread Terminal Classic florescence that saw booming occupations at every site in the Cochuah region of west-central Quintana Roo, Mexico, many settlements were entirely abandoned. However, some sites possessed late Terminal Classic populations, living in novel architecture yet continuing other Classic Maya material practices. One such round...
A Tale of Two Cities?: Neighborhood Identity and Integration at Ventanillas (2018)
Studies of Andean urbanism have often focused on contrasts: between elite and lower-class compounds or neighborhoods, between rural and urban communities, or between the "true" cities in regions like Mesopotamia and the "special case" of the Andes. Recent work at Ventanillas, a large Late Intermediate Period site in the middle Jequetepeque Valley at the frontier of coastal Lambayeque and Chimú polities, was initially designed to contrast what were presumed to be an elite coastal residential...
A Tale of Two Communities: Changing Aspects of Rurality at El Lacandon, Palenque, Chiapas (2018)
Research focused on El Lacandon, a rural community in the outer hinterland of the Late Classic Palenque polity, has allowed the understanding of shifting patterns of relationships between the urban and the rural realms in two specific times: 1) at the end of the Late Preclassic period, when Palenque developed from a rural village into a dynastic capital; and 2) at the end of the Late Classic period, when the ruling dynasty developed new political strategies for hinterland integration.
Terminal Classic Residential Groups at Holtun, Guatemala (2018)
Holtun, located in the central lakes region of the Maya lowlands, was occupied from the Preclassic through the Postclassic. To date the Holtun Archaeological Project has mapped approximately 13 groups in the site core and over 30 residential groups in the periphery to the north. The majority of these surface residential structures date to the Terminal Classic and Postclassic. The residential groups excavated to date vary in their proximity to the site core, number of structures, construction...
Tools for Change: Food Preparation Techniques during State Formation at the Tilcajete Sites (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cooking and eating are practices with cultural significance beyond sustenance. Understanding foodways during times of sociopolitical transformation can provide a window into how people foster, resist, and mediate social change in daily life. The context in which food is produced, prepared, consumed, and shared provides insight into people’s changing...
Toward a Household Archaeology of the Onöndowa'ga:' (Seneca Iroquois) White Springs Site, circa 1688-1715 CE (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Onöndowa'ga:' (Seneca Iroquois) White Springs site near Geneva, New York, was occupied circa 1688-1715 CE. The town, approximately 3.4 hectares in size and likely palisaded, was founded in the aftermath of the 1687 French-led Denonville invasion that destroyed several Onöndowa'ga:' towns and most of their agricultural fields. Cornell University-sponsored...
Toward a Typology of Late Postclassic Period Figurines from Tututepec, Oaxaca, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse: Current Research in Oaxaca Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, we present a preliminary typology, description, and discussion of ceramic figurines from Late Postclassic period (CE 1100–1522) Tututepec, a regional capital located on the coast of Oaxaca. The figurine sample is primarily drawn from household excavations carried out in 2005 and 2022 but also includes material curated...
Toward an Archaeology of Indigenous Conquerors: Household Ritual Life at Tepeticpac, Tlaxcala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Puebla/Tlaxcala Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the course of its two excavation field seasons in 2017 and 2022, the community-collaborative Proyecto de Arqueología Cotidiana de Tepeticpac has shifted its focus from the Postclassic period, when the Tlaxcallans formed a state that maintained its independence from the Aztec empire, to the early colonial period, when residents allied with...
Tryon Creek (35-WA-288) Projectile Point/Base Comparisons through Strata/Levels (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research was conducted based on artifacts in the Tryon Creek (35-WA-288) collection. It began as a study of intact projectile points (n=126) found within House 2. This enabled comparisons of points based on width, length, thickness, and base type. Material types were analyzed. The research was then expanded to include lithic artifacts that were intact...
Ts’uul y Páalitsil: Considering the Role of Debt at Rancho Kiuic, Yucatán, México (2018)
The accumulation of debt by Maya speaking laborers has long been understood as integral to Yucatán’s hacienda system in the 19th century. Though the contexts and nature of creditor-debtor relationships are variable and contested, evidence for debt is consistently present in documents related to large, corporate estates. But what does indebtedness look like beyond the hacienda on small-scale estates? In the absence of historical documents, or evidence of a company store, can debt be observed...
Un basurero prehispánico en el valle intermontano de Maltrata, Veracruz (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Un basurero es parte de la vida cotidiana de una familia, allí se va depositando todos los desechos que en un tiempo fueron de utilidad, tanto restos de comida como utensilios. Por ello el hallazgo de un basurero prehispánico en un contexto habitacional es de gran importancia para reconstruir parte de la vida cotidiana de una familia: que tipos de vasija...
Urban Carnivores, Rural Vegetarians? Faunal discrepancies over time and space at Mayapan (2017)
A usually predictable attribute of Postclassic Maya settlements (in Belize and Yucatan) is the abundance of faunal remains relative to preceding Classic Period contexts. This discrepancy is not attributable to taphonomy or bone age, given the recovery of human bone from both periods and the abundance of fauna in even earlier Preclassic deposits. Robust forest environments, balanced human predation levels, and variable animal husbandry practices represent the best explanations for the wealth of...
Urban Commoner Households: (In)Equality and Daily Life at Aventura (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Households at Aventura: Life and Community Longevity at an Ancient Maya City" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cities are locations of diverse human interaction where persons from different families and social affiliations can gather, exchange goods, and participate in community events. However, the management of these diverse interactions and activities requires social and political systems that do not value the...
Urbanism and Domestic Life in the Tlajinga District, Teotihuacan: New Research (2016)
Teotihuacan’s Tlajinga district comprises a cluster of neighborhoods of primarily common status apartment compounds, covering approximately 1km2 in the south of the city. Previous investigations at one of them, 33:S3W1 or “Tlajinga 33,” provided valuable information concerning daily life in the urban periphery. The Proyecto Arqueológico Tlajinga Teotihuacan (PATT) has thus far involved excavations at two other compounds (designated 17:S3E1 and 18:S3E1) and along the southern extension of the...
Us and Them: Regional Integration and Social Differentiation during the Terminal Preclassic at Ucanha, Yucatán, Mexico (2018)
Often overshadowed by the splendor of massive monumentality to the south, Late Preclassic life in the Northern Maya Lowlands is a period of material and social experimentation, a balancing act between emerging social differentiation and an ideology of communal integration. During the latter half of this period, the secondary site of Ucanha in Yucatán was physically integrated into a micropolity via an 18-km long sacbe and experienced the creation of integrative civic spaces, a population apogee,...
Using Sediment Chemistry to Define Ancient Activities (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Underwater Maya: Analytical Approaches for Interpreting Ancient Maya Activities at the Paynes Creek Salt Works, Belize" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Soil chemistry is used in the Maya area to evaluate ancient activities not readily identified through architecture and artifact assemblages. We evaluate ancient activities at Ta’ab Nuk Na salt work, one of the largest underwater sites in Paynes Creek National Park, with...
Variation in Household Kitchen Activities at Housepit 54, British Columbia: Reflections on Jeanne Arnold’s Legacy (2024)
This is an abstract from the "AD 1150 to the Present: Ancient Political Economy to Contemporary Materiality—Archaeological Anthropology in Honor of Jeanne E. Arnold" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Jeanne Arnold left us with a legacy of archaeological research into households, social change, and technological variation in the various contexts across the North American west coast. Her work was always characterized by attention to multiple sources of...
Variation in the Lithic Technological Organization Accompanying Household Expansion at Housepit 54, Bridge River site, British Columbia (2015)
The degree of preservation of Housepit 54 at the Bridge River site located in south-central British Columbia provides a rare look at a long series of intact occupational floors within a single pithouse. As data collection continues, a vast number of opportunities emerge to examine behavioral variation at the household level. During the 2014 field season, excavation revealed a household transition that reflected shifts in the organization of space within the household. Changes included...
Variations in Settlement Patterns and Neighborhood Organization in Early Horizon Peru (2018)
This paper examines forms of proto-urban settlements in coastal Ancash, north-central Peru, centered on the Nepeña Valley. During the Early Horizon (800-100 BC), the region witnessed the development of culturally and economically interrelated settlements with varying degrees of architectural density and complexity. Most of these centers were organized around clusters of walled enclosures with duplicate domestic facilities interpreted as multi-functional residential complexes, or compounds....
The view from one thousand houses: a macro-regional approach to household archaeology in the Southeastern United States: (2015)
In this paper I reflect on Steve Kowalewski’s influence on my research on houses and households in the native Southeast. In the early days of my graduate training, Steve encouraged me to move away from a single-site focus and instead think about household archaeology as a broadly comparative anthropological enterprise undertaken at a macro-regional scale. It was a good idea. To meet Steve’s challenge, I constructed a database that catalogs the architectural features of 1258 structures from 65...
Walking in Tiwanaku Shoes: Small Things, Quotidian Cues and Tiwanaku Identities in Diaspora (2018)
In the absence of living interlocutors for the Andean Tiwanaku state society (AD 500-1000),we ask how Tiwanaku peoples imagined and reproduced themselves as social beings. A conventional view poses that Tiwanaku civilization at its apogee was unified by common membership in, or allegiance or aspiration to, an elite political culture, as evidenced by a high culture of specialized craft production, elite ritual functions, and religio-political iconography. This paper instead applies practice...