Monumentality (Other Keyword)
26-50 (81 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The location of the American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, now preserved at the Gettysburg National Military Park (GNMP), receives thousands of visitors every year. Visitors to the battlefield interact with over 1,000 monuments across the landscape that both commemorate the actions that took place and memorialize the participants in those actions. Presented...
Inca Stone Sources, Quarrying, and Transport (2019)
This is an abstract from the "How Did the Inca Construct Cuzco?" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stone was fundamental to building Cuzco and there was significant variability in the sources and sizes of stones employed. To understand the history of construction, we must take into account relationships with the people and resources of the wider region, which impacted where the stones originated and how they were worked, transported, and used....
Initial Period Friezes and Architecture at Taukachi-Konkan, Casma Valley, Peru (2018)
Recent excavations at a number of intermediate-sized mounds of the Initial Period (2100-1000 B.C.) site of Taukachi-Konkán in the Casma Valley of Peru have uncovered surprising new evidence of clay friezes and architectural forms previously unknown for the Initial Period along the coast of Peru. One U-shaped mound complex has an associated sunken rectangular plaza that contains distinct friezes on all four of its sides. The content of the friezes includes two sea lions, a large feline and two...
Investigación con sensores remotos en la colina piramidal de Tulcán, Popayán, Colombia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El Morro Tulcán es una colina de forma piramidal de 5 ha, modificada antrópicamente, que representa la estructura monumental prehispánica más grande del suroccidente colombiano. Las excavaciones arqueológicas realizadas hace 50 años en el sitio evidenciaron que se dispusieron centenares de adobes y rellenos de tierra de manera ordenada en un área mayor a 2...
Kaillachuro: The Emergence of Burial Mounds in an Egalitarian Community of the Titicaca Basin, South-Central Andes, 5.0 Ka (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The extent to which emergent complexity involved hierarchical organization in small-scale societies remains an unresolved anthropological question. The research presented here examines inequality among individuals buried some 5,000 years ago at the Kaillachuro burial mound site in the southwestern Lake Titicaca basin, Peru. This is the earliest known mound...
Killing Time, Becoming Inca: Subject Creation and Monument Construction in Ancient Cuzco (2015)
The Incas built the largest indigenous empire in the Americas, and though they lacked a written history, they were keen to tell Spanish scribes how they assembled their domain. Inca nobles explained that their ancestors vanquished anyone who dared challenge Inca claims to authority. Like the boasts of other conquerors, these stories cast only particular people as the subjects of history and the cultivators of "civilization." But they also conceal another side of Inca history: For, it was...
The Late Prehistory of Ecuador from Above and Below: Remote Sensing in the Northern Highlands (2018)
Remote sensing, including both low level aerial photography and subsurface geophysical methods, has become an increasingly key element in archaeological fieldwork over the last few decades. During that time, our team has used various techniques to accurately map late prehistoric Ecuadorian sites and to search for buried features. In the last two years we have used drone aerial photography, ground penetrating radar, and magnetometry to aid in investigations at the monumental site of Cochasquí....
Magnetometry Survey at the Mann Site: A Rich New Dataset on Hopewell Ceremonialism (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Monumental Surveys: New Insights from Landscape-Scale Geophysics" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Mann site in southwest Indiana is one of the largest Hopewell ceremonial centers in the Midwest and also one of the least studied. The site, which was occupied between A.D. 200 and 500, consists of flat-topped, conical, and geometric earthworks, similar to those from Hopewell complexes in Ohio and elsewhere. The most...
Mapping from the Heavens: UAV(Drone) Data Collection at Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico (2018)
The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in archaeology has increased rapidly in recent years as drones have become more affordable and easy to use. Accessible commercial grade equipment can quickly capture data to produce maps and 3D models of high accuracy and precision. During the Summer of 2017, the Proyecto Geofísico de Monte Albán (PGMA) integrated the use of a UAV technology into their geophysical survey project at the UNESCO world heritage site of Monte Albán located in Oaxaca, Mexico....
Maya Monumental Energetics (2016)
Inspired by the important development of architectural energetics methodologies in Maya studies, I explore current research concerning monumental construction practices and labor at the ancient Maya site of Xunantunich, Belize. I discuss the foundational energetics principles applied to the major acropolis of Xunantunich, known as the Castillo, and highlight how virtual reconstruction plays a role in developing such energetics studies. Most importantly, I discuss how the scale of monumentality...
Midden among the mounds: An Ongoing Study of Faunal Remains from a Platform Mound and Adjacent Midden at the Garden Patch Site (8DI4) (2016)
This paper presents the faunal composition of a platform mound and adjacent village midden as a means of understanding subsistence, feasting, and ceremony at the pre-Columbian Garden Patch site, a Middle Woodland (ca. AD 100 to 500) multi-mound center located on the northwest gulf coast of Florida. The vertebrate faunal remains from the dense midden of Area X are compared to those of adjacent Mound II, a platform mound constructed of alternating lenses of shell midden and sand. The results of...
Middens or Monuments? The Shell Middens of Maine and the Construction of Peace (2018)
Although some attention has been given to the possibility that circular, semi-circular, and U-shaped piles of shell in southeastern North America represent monumental architecture (e.g., Thompson and Pluckhahn 2012), little attention has been afforded to the possibility that large shell middens of the eastern North American coast might be monumental constructions. Here, using an argument drawn from New Guinea ethnography, we hypothesize that some Maine middens were not simply rubbish heaps, but...
Monte Alban’s Main Plaza: New Perspectives Gained Through Geophysical Prospection and Digital Mapping (2018)
Ongoing scholarly debate concerning the function, meaning, and history of Monte Albán’s Main Plaza have important ramifications for our understanding of sociopolitical, economic, and religious life at the Zapotec capital. Although previous investigations have targeted many of the buildings that surround the plaza, none have focused explicitly on the plaza itself. This paper presents the preliminary results of the Proyecto Geofísico de Monte Albán (PGMA), a non-invasive study of the entire Main...
A Monumental Afterlife: Reconfiguration and Reuse at Aventura, Belize (2018)
Previous research suggests that the ancient Maya city of Aventura, Belize thrived during the Terminal Classic to Early Postclassic periods (800 – 1100 CE). During this period, occupants of the city constructed up to 27 buildings within the confines of the site’s A plaza. This paper presents the results of the 2017 test excavations of a sample of the A plaza buildings. Maya plazas are typically conceived of as large open places for ritual and political performance. However, these excavation...
Monumental Biographies: Structure and Agency in European Hillfort Construction (2015)
European hillforts contrast greatly in scale and complexity, and different regions of the continent have experienced varied historiographies of research. Using a few key examples to illustrate the different approaches to hillfort monumentality, this paper addresses the contrasting emphases on function and meaning seen in such studies. Particular focus will be placed on three aspects, through the theoretical lens of structure and agency: the role of earthwork construction in the creation of...
Monumental Displays: Ritual Performance and Preclassic Architecture at Early Xunantunich, Belize (2018)
The site of Early Xunantunich in modern day Belize provides the opportunity for a uniquely detailed case study in Preclassic Maya architecture. Thanks to a lack of Classic Period overburden, the Mopan Valley Preclassic Project has been able to conduct extensive excavations of early architecture at the site, documenting important ritual activities from this early time period which likely played a key role in the development of sociopolitical complexity in the region. This paper focuses on...
Monumental Recycling: The Inevitably Perilous Relationship between Shifting Integrative Strategies and Yaxuná’s E-group Plaza (900 BCE to 100 CE) (2017)
Over four consecutive field seasons, the Proyecto de Interaccion Politica del Centro de Yucatan investigated the plaza and several buildings in Yaxuná’s E-group, granting new insight into the site’s origins and development from a modest ceremonial complex into a monumental urban center. Excavations over the east-west centerline of the plaza generated data on several distinct commemorative events spanning 11 floor phases. Nonetheless, each of the observed traditions is fraught with continuities...
Monumental Stonework and the Making of Places and History on the Northwest Coast of British Columbia (2016)
Archaeologists do not think of the peoples of the Northwest Coast as monumental stone builders, yet current research indicates that the enhancement and demarcation of critical resource sites entailed both the massive movement of stone and the building of stone monuments. The Coast Salish peoples built remarkable numbers of burial cairns and mounds, using stones cleared from important and valuable root crop fields to then inscribe the landscape with their ancestral dead. Their Heiltsuk neighbors...
Monumental Structure, Sacred Landscape, and Cosmology: The Late Formative Period Peruvian Site of Jequetepeque-Jatanca (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How does architectural construction relate to the surrounding landscape and a broader cosmological framework? This paper discusses the relationships among architecture, geography, and cosmology at the site of Jatanca in the Jequetepeque Valley on the northern coast of Peru. This site was occupied mainly during the Late Formative Period (approximately 500 BCE...
Monumentality and Cultural Resilience in Coastal Louisiana (2016)
Resilience is the ability of complex systems to adapt to change in the wake of disturbance. Here, we describe the relationship of natural deltaic land evolution and anthropogenic monument construction using a case study of Ellesly Mound, an earthen monument located in the Lafourche subdelta of the Mississippi Delta. Borehole and LIDAR data show that Ellesly mound is situated above naturally deposited crevasse sediments underlain by organic-rich facies indicating a relatively low-lying vegetated...
Monumentality and Time at the Golden Eagle Site (11C120) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Golden Eagle site (11C120), Calhoun County, IL, is located on the edge of the Deer Plain Terrace, 8 km upstream of the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. First documented by William McAdams in the late nineteenth century, Golden Eagle is the only Illinois River Valley mound site to include a ditch-and-embankment enclosure. The site is...
Monumentality in the Middle Preclassic: The Beginnings of Public Ceremonialism at Pacbitun, Belize (2016)
In the Middle Preclassic (900-300 BC), physical evidence of the increasing complexity of Maya society can be found in the form of monumental public architecture. However, the origins of temple building are poorly understood during this time period, especially in the Belize Valley. At the site of Pacbitun we have been exploring the initial purpose of public architecture as constructions to bring likeminded communities together for ritual, ceremonial, and/or social functions. Archaeological...
The Monumentality of Clam Gardens in the Southern Gulf Islands, British Columbia (2016)
Clam gardens represent monumental coastal landscapes constructed by Northwest Coast hunter-gather-fisher peoples over the past 1000 years. The slow, laborious movement of boulders and cobbles to build up rock-walled intertidal terraces not only created new productive shellfish habitat for greater food security, but transformed social and political relations over peoples’ rights to lands, foreshore and access to shellfish at a regional scale. As large-scale community works, clam gardens must be...
Monumentality, Politics, and Power: Implications of Recent Investigations of Late Preclassic Public Architecture at Xunantunich, Belize (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Preclassic Landscape in the Mopan Valley, Belize" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Preclassic period (~300 BC–AD 300) witnessed some of the most important changes in social and political roles in the Maya lowlands when an emergent elite class began to use art and architecture to publicly display their elevated status in society. Recent archaeological research at the hilltop center of Xunantunich, located in...
Monuments From The Sea: The Prehistoric Shellscapes of the Ten Thousand Islands, Fl (2016)
The Ten Thousand Islands, Everglades, Florida contain an impressive maritime landscape, composed of entire islands constructed and terraformed with shell midden. These shell work sites are the tangible and complex vestiges of hunter-fisher-gatherer communities. Shell work formations include extensive complexes of mounds and features. Similarities in temporal and spatial patterning among shell islands suggest that communities were interrelated across a broad region. Shell work islands and their...