Archaic (Other Keyword)
226-250 (452 Records)
Site 21-85 is a large, multi-component site, with Archaic and Woodland period remnants, located adjacent to the Hollenbeck River, a major tributary of the Housatonic River, and Robbins Swamp, the largest freshwater swamp in Connecticut. The location of Site 21-85 would have afforded past peoples access to the fauna and flora associated with Robbins Swamp, travel routes north and south through the Housatonic River Valley, and fresh water from the adjacent Hollenbeck River. The site is also...
Lithic Technological Changes from the Paleoindian to the Late Archaic: A Pilot Study (2018)
How do subsistence-related changes impact lithic technology over the course of thousands of years? Three stratified rockshelters in Belize contain evidence of Paleoindian through Classic Maya period occupations. This span of time witnessed the initial hunting and gathering subsistence economy of the Paleoindian period, the introduction of horticulture and increasing reliance on cultivars in the Early Archaic, and the emergence of full-scale agriculture in the Late Archaic. Explaining variations...
Lithic Technological Organization at 8JE1796: A Perspective from Apalachee Bay, Florida (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Liquid Landscapes: Recent Developments in Submerged Landscape Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lithic technological organization (LTO) approaches are used to understand how stone tool making societies provision themselves with regards to raw material in a given environment. How societies provision themselves provides insight into their adaptive strategies for a landscape. 8JE1796, Clint’s Scallop Hole, is a...
Lithic Technological Organization at Three Olcott Sites along the Elwha River, Clallam County, Washington (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New Research into the Old Cordilleran" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In western Washington, Olcott sites are generally understood to represent a period of cultural and technological stability that extended through the early Holocene into the middle Holocene. While some researchers have suggested subtle technological evolutionary developments occurred over time, Olcott sites have often been characterized as a...
Lithic Technology of Manufacturing Stone Tools at Gravel Quarry Source Locations using Heat-Treatment (2018)
Prehistoric flintknappers world-wide typically used heat-treatment to improve the flakeability of lithic materials after initial reduction into smaller-sized packages. In contrast, along the eastern escarpment of the Southern High Plains of Northwest Texas, Late Archaic-age (4,500-2,000 rcyBP) flintknappers used heat-treatment to improve large quartzarenite clasts prior to initial clast reduction. Heat-treatment in this case was used as part of procurement at quarry gravel source locations....
Lithics and the Late Prehistoric: Networks and Interaction on the Southeastern Columbia Plateau (2018)
The people of the Columbia Plateau have been frequently characterized as a homogenous culture despite a 3,000-year depth of history and large spatial extent. Moreover, differences in artifact form, assemblage composition, and household features belie this characterization. The changing natural and social environment can be detected in modifications in cultural technology, and relationships among distinct groups can be inferred. The research presented here tracks these changes. By using concepts...
The Lone Spruce Site, a High-Altitude Seasonal Camp of the Upper Colorado River Basin (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 5GA2312, the Lone Spruce Site, is located within the upper reaches of the Colorado River Basin in Grand County, Colorado, at 8,200 feet above sea level. The site was partially excavated in 2016 when 5,021 artifacts, 32% being identified as various types of scrapers, were recovered. Ninety-five percent of the assemblage is of Table Mountain jasper, which is...
Long Leaf, Fire and Hunter-Gatherers of the Carolina Sandhills (2018)
In presettlement times long leaf pine forest dominated the Carolina Sandhills, where frequent wildfire, sandy soil and steep hydrologic gradients produced high biodiversity, but low hunter-gatherer carrying capacity. Land-use models based on the results of systematic shovel testing across 162 square miles at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, indicate continuous occupation throughout prehistory, small group size and short terms of residential tenure. Although the archaeological site is the unit of...
A Look at the Impact of Natural Grassland Fires on the Archaeological Record along the Eastern Escarpment of the Southern High Plains of Texas (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fires are an essential aspect of the grassland ecosystem across the Great Plains. Natural fires often can transform surrounding rocks to look like hearths or individual hearthstones used by prehistoric people. Several experiments, however, have demonstrated that grassland fires may not fully discolor the rocks on all sides...
Los Morteros and Pampa de las Salinas: Early Monumentality and Environmental Change in Preceramic Peru (2018)
Los Morteros is a preceramic archaeological site located on Pampa de las Salinas, in the lower Chao Valley, north coast of Peru. Archaeological excavations in 1976, Los Morteros was identified as a "stabilized dune" whose top was used as a cemetery for pre-pottery people around cal. 5000 BP. Excavations in 2012 and 2016 have uncovered a very long and complex history of occupation of Los Morteros which includes the presence of early adobe monumental architecture dating before 5500 cal. BP, more...
Macrobotanical Perspectives on Earth Oven Use in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, Texas (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Hot Rocks in Hot Places: Investigating the 10,000-Year Record of Plant Baking across the US-Mexico Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The tradition of cooking foods in earth ovens goes back at least 10,000 years in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas. Throughout millennia earth ovens were used to transform otherwise inedible plants into food, fiber, and possibly beverages. The region’s arid climate...
A Macroscopic Lithic Analysis of South Mountain Metarhyolite Quarries: A Focus on Intersite and Intrasite Assemblage Comparisons of the Green Cabin Site (36AD0569), South Mountain, Pennsylvania (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Metarhyolite from the South Mountain Section of Pennsylvania has been utilized by indigenous groups in the Middle Atlantic Region since the Archaic Period. The resource has been the focus of widespread quarrying activities, spurring an entire Native American complex of quarries, which are restricted to a relatively confined geographic region where...
Magnetometer Surveys and the Complex Prehistoric Landscape of Poverty Point, Louisiana (2018)
Poverty Point, Louisiana, is well-known for its massive architecture that includes earthen mounds and six semi-circular ridges. Geophysical surveys conducted over the past decade have revealed that the subsurface of this deposit also contains a large, extensive and diverse set of artificially constructed features. In addition, remote sensing demonstrates that features that have been often described as singular constructions are actually a palimpsest of overlapping depositional events. Here, we...
Maize Pollen but No Hippos: Alan Simmons' Contributions to our understanding of the Adoption of Agriculture in the U.S. Southwest (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Pushing the Envelope, Chasing Stone Age Sailors and Early Agriculture: Papers in Honor of the Career of Alan H. Simmons" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1984 in a remote portion of northwest New Mexico, maize pollen was recovered from an Archaic-period hearth. Alan Simmons’ recovery of early maize pollen at a dune site in the Chaco region precipitated a controversy that lasted for over a decade. In the end these...
A Major Hiatus in the Mid-Holocene Archaeological Record of Eastern South America: Reassessing the "Archaic Gap" (2018)
A decade ago, we suggested that the low frequency of archaeological sites dated from the mid-Holocene in several portions of Lowland South America (what we have called the "Archaic Gap") was due to an increase in the magnitude of dry periods. Since then, data regarding paleoenvironmental reconstructions for Lowland South America, coupled with an increase of the archaeological knowledge, allows us to reassess the idea of the "Archaic Gap" and redefine both the areal extent of the phenomenon and...
Making Archaic Snaileries out of Shell Heaps: Human Behaviors and Ecological Niches (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Do Good Things Come in Small Packages? Human Behavioral Ecology and Small Game Exploitation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Global evidence for human consumption and management of gastropods predates the Neolithic Revolution - the period noted for independent experimentation and domestication of terrestrial plants and animals. Archaeological data indicates that gastropods, terrestrial and aquatic, were vital resources...
Management in the World Heritage Site Prehistoric Caves of Yagul and Mitla in Oaxaca, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster has the objective of showing the management strategies in the site "Prehistoric Caves of Yagul and Mitla in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico," inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2010. In this site the participation of the Zapotec communities has been key for its administration, monitoring, conservation, and promotion. Some...
Manufacture Marks on Shell Fishhooks: Technological Knowledge and Tradition of Coastal and Maritime Societies along the Pacific Coast of Chile (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fishhooks on Choromytilus chorus shells (mussel) can be found along the northern coast Chile (18° to 30° Lat. S) and were manufactured between 7500 and 4000 yrs cal BP. Manufacture marks on these artefacts are prominent features to observed, describe, and compare. In this way, the study of shell fishhooks’ manufacture techniques allows us not only to...
Mapping Faunal Data to tDAR Ontologies to Address Data Comparability and Archaic Period Use of Animals in the Interior Eastern United States (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Zooarchaeology and Technology: Case Studies and Applications" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With support from a National Science Foundation grant, the Eastern Archaic Faunal Working Group (EAFWG) uploaded faunal datasets for 24 Archaic Period (10,000-3,000 BP) archaeological sites in the Interior Eastern United States into the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) to address research questions about the roles of...
Maritime Archaic Spearpoints: A New Examination of Their Context and Chronology (2018)
This research focuses on the morphology, chronology, and provenience of nipple-based spear points found in Newfounland and Labrador. Nipple-based points are primarily thought to date between 7500-6000 B.P. and are associated with the early Maritime Archaic tradition, Newfoundland and Labrador’s earliest inhabitants. A recent find of a nipple-based point at the Stock Cove site (CKAl-3) in eastern Newfoundland suggests that, based on a series of new AMS dates, the chronology of this point type...
The McKean Complex Occupation in the Sunlight Basin, Northwest Wyoming: An Updated Assessment of Cultural and Geological Stratigraphy at Site 48PA551 (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New Multidisciplinary Research at 48PA551: A Middle Archaic (McKean Complex) Site in Northwest Wyoming" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Site 48PA551 is a widely recognized winter camp originally dated to Middle Archaic (McKean Complex) period. Original investigators described the McKean occupation as a singular unit within a 30-90 cm thick sedimentary stratum beginning at the ground surface. Original radiocarbon dating...
Measuring Ancient Reuse of the Past: Archaic and Woodland Landscape Histories of the St. Johns River Valley, Florida (2018)
The middle St. Johns River valley in northeast Florida was occupied more-or-less continuously beginning at least 9000 years ago. Regional inhabitation by hunter-gatherers involved extensive terraforming of the landscape, including the construction of earthen and shell mounds, in addition to many non-mounded places. Many locations were repeatedly occupied over the millennia, with successive generations modifying or otherwise interacting with existing, often ancient, places. Earlier research took...
Measuring Mobility by Proxy: Use and Maintenance of Lithic Tools in Pennsylvania from Paleoindian to Middle Archaic Times (2018)
Archaic peoples in Pennsylvania were less mobile than their Paleoindian predecessors. One form of evidence supporting this argument is the increased use of local lithic raw materials in the Early and Middle Archaic. The utilization and retouch of unifaces and bifaces is a second form of evidence of mobility. The production of tools designed for long-term use and maintenance is associated with highly mobile groups where maximizing tool use-life reduces transport cost and reduces risk when moving...
Measuring Seasonality in Codakia orbicularis Clams from Lucayan Sites in the Bahamas (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The shells of Codakia orbicularis clams are common at archaeological sites throughout the Bahama archipelago. These clams were harvested as food, and their abundance indicates that they were processed in habitation areas. Previous studies have suggested that the shells record daily, tidal, and seasonal growth sequences that can be used to determine when...
Meat and Potatoes: A Mixed 7,000-Year-Old-Diet (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 examines the diets of 16 prehistoric burials at Soro Mik’aya Patxja, a high-elevation Archaic Period site occupied 7,000 years ago in the Peruvian Andes. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes were analyzed to infer the prehistoric hunter-gatherer diets during a period that preceded the domestication of tubers, quinoa, and vicuña. Plants such as...