Caves and Rockshelters (Other Keyword)
1-25 (188 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeology is of great public interest, but a lack of approachable academic and popular materials may deter public engagement with our field and our research, meaning archaeologists must develop innovative means of communication. It is also vital that we make our work more accessible to local community members, whose history we are often excavating. Digital...
3D Photogrammetry and Woodland Mud Glyphs from 19th Unnamed Cave, Alabama (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The production of 3D models with photogrammetry has seen some recent application in rock art studies as a means of documenting sites and presenting them to the public. However, the use of photogrammetric models as data sources for discovery and analysis has received little attention. In this paper, we present work at 19th...
3D Scanning the Virgin Mary in the Toast: Using Handheld Digital Imaging Technologies to Explode the Myth of Pareidolic Illusions in the Ancient Maya Underworld (2018)
Cave archaeologists around the world are increasingly utilizing many new platforms and techniques to document subterranean artwork, including digital imaging and scanning technologies. In this presentation I demonstrate a portable and cost-effective approach to digital imaging of parietal art. To this end, I used an Occipital Structure Sensor 3D scanner, mounted on an iPhone 6, to document various monumental modified speleothem sculptures in the subterranean realm of the ancient Maya of Belize,...
Accessing the Inaccessible: Valuing Virtual Reality and Remote Access to Pleito Cave (2018)
This presentation showcases the contemporary value of Virtual Reality as a means to experience difficult to access, sensitive cultural sites for different stakeholder groups including researchers, land owners, and Native groups. Here, we show the enhanced virtual reality environment of Pleito Cave, a fragile world class rock art site with accessibility limitation. We discuss how scientific research can be translated into VR data sets to speak to diverse communities and different needs, providing...
Acoustic Effects at Las Cuevas Cave (Western Belize): An Archaeoacoustic Analysis of a Maya Cave (2018)
The site of Las Cuevas (western Belize) has been identified as a mid-sized, Late Classic ceremonial and administrative center. Interestingly, given the importance of caves in Maya religion, the underneath part of the site has a large cave system. Research so far on this cave has focused on aspects that are common in cave archaeology: 1/ structures - in this case on the one hand the series of platforms built around a central, sunk cenote and on the other the walls subdiving the narrow part of...
Acts of Nature and Culture: Caves, Performance, and Transformation (2018)
The role of performance in disaster risk reduction provides the focus for evocative recent discussions of somatic experience, embodied knowledge, and climate change (e.g., Cosgrove and Kelman 2017). In this paper, I’d like to expand this perspective on the perception of dynamic environments through consideration of how material residues in caves link to large-scale transformations in the complexly entwined natural and cultural landscapes outside of the caves. I draw on four seemingly disparate...
Additional Insights into the Significance of Cave Formations: The Case of Balamkú (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As part of its investigation of subterranean Chichén Itzá, the Gran Acuífero Maya (GAM) unsealed the entrance to Balamkú Cave in 2018. The entrance, located in a sinkhole, had been sealed and buried in an apparent act of deliberate termination. In addition, the entire first chamber of the cave including a staircase was buried with...
The Allegory of Xibalba: Confronting Shadowy Realities in the ancient Maya Underworld (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cave archaeologists around the world are increasingly utilizing many new platforms and techniques to document subterranean artwork, including digital imaging and scanning technologies. In this presentation I "throw shade" at these high-tech approaches by revisiting and focusing upon the oldest of the old-school technologies...
Alm Shelter: A Preliminary Report on a Deeply Stratified Rockshelter in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Alm rockshelter, located at the mouth of Paintrock Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, contains a well-stratified cultural sequence spanning roughly 11,000 years (Late Paleoindian through the Late Prehistoric). Preliminary analyses demonstrate that the site was occupied and used variably over this time, particularly in periods of population growth and...
Analysis and Comparison of the Paleo-ecological Reconstruction of Simpson Springs to the Archaeological Record of Camels Back Cave in the Bonneville Basin of Utah (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present a case study that utilizes paleoecological data to further our understanding of the archaeological record in the Bonneville basin of western Utah. We report paleoecological data from Simpson Springs, including pollen, charcoal, and elemental data. We provide the first pollen record from cultural sediments at Camels Back Cave. The data from the...
Analysis of Culturally Derived Speleothem by INAA: An Analytic Approach to Sourcing (2018)
Recent investigations in various surface and underground cave sites indicate the existence of extensive political, economic, religious and military exchanges between polities in the Maya lowlands of Belize. The occurrence of "foreign" materials at surface and cave sites have become an increasingly well-documented phenomenon (Brady et al. 1997) and are indicative of transport of speleothems during ancient Maya cave visitations. This phenomenon has raise several questions such as the spatial...
Archaeological Evidence for the Use of Maize in Cave Ritual (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Defining Perishables: The How, What, and Why of Perishables and Their Importance in Understanding the Past" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Variations in the deposition of maize remains have been noted in different Maya caves. These vary from the discovery of small immature cobbs, 3 to 5 cm in length, which appear to represent first fruit rituals to large deposits of mature cobbs in ritual contexts that appear to have...
Archaeological Investigations of the Archaic and Paleoindian Occupations at Hall’s Cave, Texas (2018)
Hall’s Cave is a well-studied paleontological site that has provided a detailed climatic record for the Texas Hill-country from the late Pleistocene through the Holocene. There have been no discussions, however, of the archaeological record of the cave deposits. Archaeological excavations at Hall’s Cave conducted in 2017 revealed a 3 m thick, well-stratified sequence of sediments derived from the watershed outside the cave. Early deposits ranging from 18,000 to14,000 cal yr B.P. contain the...
Archaeological, Paleoenvironmental, and Geoarchaeological Investigations of Hall’s Cave, Texas (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Hall’s Cave, located in central Texas, contains a 4 m thick geological record extending back to 20,000 cal yr B.P. Within these sediments is an archaeological record dating from the historic period to approximately 10,500 cal yr B.P. with living surfaces containing artifacts and animal bones associated with hearths. Over 60 hearth features, including over 40...
Archaeometric Studies of Rock Paintings in Colombia, South America: Geochemical and Mineralogical Characterization (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geochemical studies of rock paintings in Colombia help to reflect on the technological processes used by the painting peoples to make these representations. With the use of analytical techniques, the chemical and molecular composition of pigments and of possible raw materials used in their manufacture are identified. Geochemical and mineralogical analyses...
Ashes in Western US Rockshelters (2018)
Following the analysis of Newt Kash Kentucky shelter and other ash and sandal shrines in the eastern US as menstrual retreats, the author examines a number of caves and shelters around the Great Basin paying particular attention to their ash and sandal content. Both items may constitute fertility petitions left at retreat and medicine shelters such as Cowboy Cave, Hogup Cave, and High Rolls. The ash may represent the burning of fertility offerings, including menstrual pads and diapers.
Assessing Earth Oven Intensification in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Southwest 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. Earth oven baking begins in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas around 10,000 years ago and becomes a prominent component of hunter-gatherer life throughout the Holocene. We know plant baking played an important role within Lower Pecos lifeways because earth oven...
An Assessment of Water Resources at Chichen Itza (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Water has long been recognized as a critical but scarce resource in the Yucatan. At Chichen Itza, water resources have not received the attention they deserve. Traditionally, because of the focus on the Sacred Cenote, the Cenote Xtoloc became by default the profane cenote. Clearly, such a simplistic and culture-bound dichotomy tells us...
Balankanche Revisited: Some Preliminary Observations (2018)
With the discovery of passages sealed behind a blockage in 1959, Balankanche became the preeminent cave in Maya archaeology. Because so many of the intact vessels were incense burners and because of the Maya ceremony recorded as part of the investigation, Balankanche’s ritual function was never questioned even though at that time most caves were thought to be habitational. E. Wyllys Andrews IV’s monograph on the cave has remained one of the field’s best reports. In the summer of 2017, the Gran...
Bighorn Sheep Bone Caches in the Lava Tube Caves of El Malpais National Monument, New Mexico (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Indigenous Culture and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The rugged volcanic landscapes of El Malpais National Monument contain over 400 lava tube caves, some of which harbor the most southerly perennial ice in North America. Many of the caves also house the material record of precontact human use in the form of internal architecture, ceramic, and other artifacts. Caches of...
Breathless in the Underworld: The Effects of Low Oxygen, High Carbon Dioxide, and High Carbon Monoxide on Cave Ritual (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Maya explored caves with torches and burned copal with wood fires during ceremonies. These activities, in a confined space such as a cave, used up oxygen and produced carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. The effects of high carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide on the human body are well studied by OSHA and documented in environmental and...
Cataloging Cave Features in the Southern Pacbitun Regional Archaeological Project using Virtual Reality and 3D Modeling (2018)
Since 2010, a major focus of the Pacbitun Regional Archaeological project has been a regional ritual landscape survey surrounding. In 2016, Phase II of that subproject commenced, with significant efforts geared towards experimenting with digital mapping and documentation of surface archaeological features in four poorly understood caves, Crystal Palace, Slate Cave, Tzul’s Cave, and Actun Tokbe. In this paper, we discuss our work and offer some results from our Phase II investigations. In 2016,...
The Cave and the Cross: Agricultural Subsistence, Rainfall Prediction, and Ritual in the Sixteenth-Century Mixteca-Puebla Region (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The inhabitants across the Northern Mixteca and the drier sectors of the Tehuacan Valley developed technological innovations to counter the effects of recurrent drought on subsistence. Among measures implemented to conserve soil and water there are terraces, dams, reservoirs, and canals, as well as seed selection and cultivation...
Cave du Pont Revisited: New Excavations a Century after Nusbaum (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cave du Pont is a Far Western Basketmaker shelter located on private lands within Cave Lakes Canyon, six miles north of Kanab, Utah. Originally excavated in 1920 by Jesse Nusbaum, with artifact analyses by Alfred V. Kidder and Samuel J. Guernsey, Cave du Pont provided the first clear evidence that the Basketmaker archaeological culture extended west of the...
Cave Rituals in South Central California: Ethnographic and Archaeological Interpretations (2018)
Two different versions of a myth, one Kitanemuk and one Kawaiisu, recount the tradition of a man taken into a cave where he was instructed in sacred knowledge by animal spirits. Neighboring Chumash and Yokuts elders passed along accounts of caves being used for shamanistic purposes, in part associated with rock paintings. These ethnographic accounts imply the private use of caves for special rituals by individuals. Nonetheless, there are particular Chumash pictograph sites that appear to have...