Monumentality (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rocío López Cabral.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents new data intended to review and re-think the human environment interaction and social processes of mound complexes in the highlands of East of Uruguay. A combination of Practice questions revolving around the effects of practices have in the people themselves and in the landscape with a methodologically geoarchaeological approach is an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Terry Powis. George Micheletti. Matthew Tarleton. Gary Owenby. Nicaela Cartagena.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Investigations in Plazas A and B of the site core at Pacbitun indicate that initial occupation began in the early Middle Preclassic period (900–600 BC). At this time, a small agricultural community was established in Plaza B beginning with a few domestic structures built just above bedrock. These early domiciles would also function as workshops for the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina McSherry.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elisandro Garza. Marc Wolf.

This is an abstract from the "Mountains, Rain, and Techniques of Governance in Mesoamerica" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Copan Valley, located in western Honduras, has been inhabited by permanent communities since the Early Formative period (ca. 1400 BC). These early communities developed a lifestyle based on milpa agriculture, which continues today with the Ch'ortí Maya, the linguistic group that is the descendants of the ancient Copanecos....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dennis Ogburn. Bill Sillar. Rob Ixer.

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....

DOCUMENT Full-Text Ben Nelson.

Field work from the 1992 season at La Quemada

DOCUMENT Full-Text Ben Nelson. Loni Kantor. Ian Robertson. Vincent Schiavitti. Nicola M. Strazicich. Paula Turkon.

Fieldwork from the 1993 season at La Quemada

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Pozorski. Shelia Pozorski. Rosa Marin Jave.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hernando Giraldo Tenorio. Víctor González-Fernández.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luis Flores-Blanco.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steve Kosiba.

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...

PROJECT Ben Nelson. Arizona State Universtity. Andrea Torvinen.

For over 15 years, Mexican and American archaeologists and students have dug ancient ruins, walked the high desert landscape, and worked in laboratories to understand the rise and fall of La Quemada, Zacatecas. We want to know why societies become complex, developing social hierarchies with specialized economic, political, and religious roles for their members. Why do civilizations expand? Northern Mexico's ancient past is an ideal context for studying these questions. During the period A.D....

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Brown. Mark Willis. Chester Walker.

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....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Hargrave. R. Berle Clay. Rinita Dalan. Diana Greenlee.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Questions persist about the layout and building sequence of Poverty Point’s landscape features, and the planning and rapidity of overall site construction. A research program using geophysics, stratigraphic coring, lidar, and targeted excavation that began in 2006 continues to yield new data and interpretations about the ridges, timber circles, plaza, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Sherwood.

This is an abstract from the "*SE Not Your Father’s Poverty Point: Rewriting Old Narratives through New Research" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Poverty Point’s concentric ridges have long been assumed to be residential areas despite an absence of archaeological evidence for houses. In 1991, a field school excavation was initiated based on a core that suggested a possible clay floor buried ~60 cm below the surface. Sixteen 2 × 2 units were opened,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Strezewski. Staffan Peterson.

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...

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DOCUMENT Citation Only Alex E. Badillo. Marc Levine.

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....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leah McCurdy.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexei Vranich.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The monumental walls of Sacsayhuaman, an Inca ceremonial complex in Cusco, Peru, represent one of the most enigmatic examples of megalithic architecture. Despite their iconic status, the construction methods, technologies, and materials used to create these colossal stone structures remain subjects of ongoing debate. This paper combines archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megumi Arata.

This is an abstract from the "Social Dynamics in the North Highlands of Peru during the Formative Period: Pacopampa project’s Contribution for Understanding the Early Complex Societies in the Andes" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The excavations and subsequent analysis of the unearthed artifacts have provided evidence of metal smelting and metalworking at the Pacopampa site. Although the production workshop remains unidentified, it has been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hayley Singleton.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Roscoe. Alice R. Kelley.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Verónica Vázquez López. Hannah Zanotto. Kazuo Aoyama. Takeshi Inomata.

This is an abstract from the "Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: Interregional Interactions and Social Transformations in the Middle Preclassic Period" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pajonal is a Middle Preclassic site situated between La Venta and Aguada Fénix in Tabasco, Mexico. The site has a spatial layout similar to La Venta, formed by an elongated plaza with an E Group at its center, several structures to the east and west edges,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marc Levine. Alex E. Badillo. Scott Hammerstedt. Amanda Regnier. Marcus Winter.

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...