Caves and Rockshelters (Other Keyword)
26-50 (188 Records)
This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Cultural Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the 25 years since the publication of “Settlement Configuration and Cosmology: The Role of Caves at Dos Pilas,” a number of significant discoveries of architecture constructed in relation to caves have been made. The discovery of the man-made cave constructed beneath the Pyramid of the Plumed Serpent at Teotihuacan is perhaps the...
Caves beyond the Dripline: Reconceptualizing the Subterranean-Surface Dichotomy (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As cave archaeology emerged as a specialty in the 1990, an unfortunate consequence has been the reification of the distinction between surface and subterranean archaeology. We would note that there have always been problems with this dichotomy. Andrews (1970), for instance, mentions that the entrance to Balankanche Cave was in the middle...
Caves, Ancestors, and the Underworld: Bedrock Manipulation as a Strategy in the Development of Middle Formative Period Maya Socio-Political Complexity, Based on Evidence from Ka’Kabish, Northern Belize (2018)
Growing evidence suggests the ancient Maya conceptualized caves, as well as small crevices in the karstic bedrock (both natural and artificial), as sacred ch’een – portals of shamanic communication, which existed in a liminal realm between the physical world and the ancestral powers of the cave-riddled Underworld. Ch’een represented important ritual foci for the ancient Maya, as well as receptacles for sacred offerings. The interment of prominent ancestors and symbolically valuable materials...
Caves, Copper, and Pilgrimage: Reinterpretation of Quimistan Bell Cave in Northwestern Honduras (2018)
In 1910, A. Hooton Blackiston discovered a cave 25 miles from Naco containing a cache of 800 copper bells, a possible mosaic mask of turquoise, and other materials. Blackiston interpreted the cave as a place of worship dedicated to the bat god. Copper, however, has very rarely been reported from caves in Honduras. Metals enter Mesoamerican late in its history but quickly assume an importance equal to jade in the native value system. The only other cave known to have held copper bells is...
Cavetuns: Unexplored Theoretical Implications of a Discovery at Mul Ch’en Witz, La Milpa, Belize (2018)
In June of 2017, the Contested Caves Archaeological Project (CCAP), explored what was thought to be a partially capped chultun at the site of La Milpa, Belize. On entering, however, it became clear that the feature was actually a small, natural cave with a classic chultun-style entrance carved into it. Two of the cave’s three chambers contained small pools of water, which receded into the porous limestone, within days of their discovery. The pools make any possibility of storage infeasible...
Cenote Xbis: The House of Rain (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 Gran Acuífero Maya discovered an important archaeological feature constructed within a cenote in Hoctún, Yucatán, Mexico. Cenote Xbis contains a well-built sacbe 3.5 m wide and more than 60 m long that leads to a large pool of water at the back of the cave. Two speleothem columns appear to have been significant in the layout of...
Cenote Xtoloc: Paying Attention to the Ignored Cenote (2018)
A truism was established very early in Maya studies that the Cenote of Sacrifice at Chichen Itza had a religious function while the nearby Cenote Xtoloc was the source for domestic drinking water. Part of the attraction of this idea was no doubt its close paralleling of the popular Western dichotomy, sacred vs. profane. The problem with truisms, statements so obviously true that they say nothing new or interesting, is that they direct attention elsewhere. This is probably why the Temple of...
Chemical Diagenesis of Charcoal and Charred Organic Material in South African Middle Stone Age Rockshelter Sites (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Charred Organic Matter in the Archaeological Sedimentary Record" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Several South African Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites contain deposits rich in anthropogenic materials whose preservation was impacted by extreme burial environments. The specific chemistries of the burial environments are evidenced by dissolution of archaeological materials and/or precipitation of secondary minerals. In sites...
The Chiquihuite Cave in Zacatecas, Mexico: Cultural Components, Lithic Industry and the Role of This Pleistocene Site in the Peopling of America (2018)
The high altitude Pleistocene site of Chiquihuite Cave, in the Central-Northern Mexican Highlands, is slowly turning into one of the most important players on the sensitive stage of the debates about the earliest human presence in North America. After the first three exploration seasons and before the imminent continuation of the excavations at this multi-component archaeological site, we can surely talk about several important Late Pleistocene, older-than-Clovis occupational phases. Dozens of...
Climate Change and the Middle Holocene "missing millennia" in the Southeast Asian Archaeological Record (2018)
Archaeological research in mainland Southeast Asia is a relatively recent endeavor, but as the region’s culture history has become more fully known, a gap in evidence called the "missing millennia" has emerged. The gap falls during the middle Holocene c. 6000-4000 BP when few sites have dated deposits. Yet from evidence dating before and after those millennia, important changes must have occurred, including changes in settlement systems, lithics and ceramic technologies, the appearance of cereal...
A Closer Look at the Use of Cueva de Sangre through Skeletal Remains (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 use of caves is a part of an essential role in Maya cosmology and ideology. The Petexbatún Regional Cave Survey identified 22 caves and over 11 kilometers of cave passages between 1990 through 1993 at Dos Pilas, Guatemala. This study reexamines 205 human remains collected from Cueva de Sangre. Previous studies (Minjares, 2003) of the...
Cold Cases and Forgotten Caves: Reconstructing the Provenience of Unique Artifacts from the Greater Southwest (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Museum collections contain many unique objects from the Greater Southwest that lack complete provenience, especially items from caves and other shrines. These sites often served the region’s inhabitants as both offertory locations and the terminal repositories for ceremonial objects, resulting in enormous and well-preserved assemblages, many composed primarily...
A Comparison of DNA Metabarcoding and Macroremains Analysis for Dietary Reconstruction using Coprolites from Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, Nevada (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Coprolites are increasingly the subject of multiproxy analyses, but there is need to determine how the data, results, and interpretation of coprolite contents could differ depending on the methods chosen. This study presents a comparison of DNA metabarcoding and macroremains analysis performed on ten coprolites from Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, Nevada....
Conspicuous Knowledge Transmission through Amazonian Cave Art (2018)
Among large-scale societies, esoteric knowledge is often exploited for power, prestige, or status. In such a social framework, it becomes important to guard the transmission of esoteric knowledge, restricting access by exclusive mechanisms of indoctrination or co-option. When discovered, evidence of guarded knowledge often flags the attention of the archaeologist because of its often meticulous preservation. However, if the same knowledge were conspicuous, unguarded, and socially mundane,...
The Constructed Subterranean Confronts Archaeology: Reviewing a Half Century of Ambivalence (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. Archaeology has had an ambivalent relationship with the constructed subterranean dating back more than a half century. In the late 1960s, Good and Obermeyer investigated the cave at Oxtotipac, recognized it as man-made, and documented the fact that the material removed in the creation of the cave was used to construct a...
Context-Free Archaeology: Private Collections, Data Quality Assessment, and Achieving Meaningful Research at Heavily Looted Sheltered Sites—A Case Study from West Texas (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There is a long history of engaged amateurs providing the professional community with productive field efforts and artifact collections and of equal length is the controversy surrounding this work. The controversy, from the perspective of this talk, focuses on the issue of artifact context and the gap between the professional and amateur communities’ stances...
Cryptotephra Studies in Africa: A Tool for Precise Dating and Continental Correlation of Archaeological Sites (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances and Debates in the Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Placing archaeological sites on the same timeline across the African continent is essential for determining the initial appearance of key human behaviors and cultural features. Analytical error associated with traditional dating techniques makes these determinations difficult. Cryptotephra, which are small (<80 micron)...
Cueva Nordensjkold, Ultima Esperanza, Chile: A Late Pleistocene Faunal Assemblage (2018)
Cueva Nordensjkold is a cave located in the Cerro Benitez, at Ultima Esperanza, Chile, above 150 masl, and accordingly beyond the highest stand of the Late Glacial Consuelo paleolake. The study of its Late Pleistocene faunal remains -Mylodontinae, Hippidion saldiasi, Camelidae, Panthera onca mesembrina and a large undetermined carnivore- is crucial for the understanding of the process of biological colonization of the Cerro Benitez area, where ephemeral Late Pleistocene human occupations were...
Current Research at Cherokee Mountain Rock Shelter, Douglas County, Colorado (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1971, excavations were conducted by avocational archaeologists at Cherokee Mountain Rock Shelter (5DA1001) in Douglas County Colorado. A 1973 published report showed an assemblage indicating three Late Prehistoric components. The middle component contained what was interpreted as Shoshonean ceramics likely from outside of the region. The collection was...
Deconstructing Rock Art – An Experimental Approach to the Application of Portable Analytical Instrumentation to Applied Pigments at Pleito, South-Central California (2018)
The composition of background substrate, overpainted layers and admixtures can influence the data acquired from portable instrumentation at rock art sites. An understanding of the extent and impact of this influence is crucial when comparing in situ rock art pigments with potential source materials. This study uses an experimental process to assess the impact of factors such as a pigment thickness, overpainting, and addition of organic binders on the readings acquired using portable...
Demystifying the High Priest’s Grave: Investigations in the Cave/Cenote below the Osario (2018)
One of the most enigmatic publications in Maya cave archaeology has been Edward H. Thompson investigation of the High Priest’s Grave at Chichen Itza in 1896. Thompson discovered a masonry shaft running down the center of the pyramid that gave access to a cave/cenote beneath the structure. This was the first account of a cave with a pyramid built over it and Thompson suggested that the cave contained seven chambers, hinting at the possibility of a Chicomoztoc. J. Eric Thompson in editing and...
Detecting Transitions: Cultural and Environmental Changes Preserved in Archaeological Sediments from Western Liguria (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Liguria and Neighboring Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The reconstruction of Pleistocene human peopling along the Tyrrhenian coastline of Liguria is of critical importance. This region has yielded among the most recent evidence of Neanderthal occupation and the most ancient traces of modern humans in southern Europe. The reconstruction of the subsistence strategies of...
Discovery of a New Middle Magdalenian Site at Enval in the Massif Central of France (2018)
We present the discovery of a new Middle Magdalenian site at Enval, a rock shelter site in the Massif Central of France. Radiocarbon dates indicate a tight chronology at 17,000 years ago. The site is significant for several reasons. Faunal elements indicate the site is largely intact and not a palimpsest. Faunal studies also indicate the site was occupied during the winter. This is important because it demonstrates that late Pleistocene humans occupied the Massif Central during harsh conditions....
Disregarded Ritual: A Critical Reassessment of North American Subterranean Features (2018)
This paper critically reassesses the use of subterranean features among prehistoric Native Americans of North America. A survey of the archaeological and ethnographic literature suggests that pre-historic Native Americans used subterranean features in a ritual context, although the ritual component is rarely acknowledged directly. The significance of the features becomes apparent when the context, mainly construction and artifact deposition, is considered. Many of these subterranean features...
Distributions and Characteristics of the Cave Sites on Jeju Island during Late Pleistocene to Middle Holocene (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Social and Environmental Interactions on Coasts and Islands in Korea" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study examines several cave sites on Jeju Island during the Late Pleistocene to Middle Holocene. Subsistence economy, occupation patterns, and cave usage durations are studied and compared. From 1.8 mya, the Jeju Island began to be formed through hydro volcanic activities. Since then, the continuous activities...