Caves and Rockshelters (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chris Hunt. Evan Hill. Paula Reimer. Graeme Barker.

Land snails have a radiocarbon ecology which leads to offsets in shell radiocarbon age, relative to contemporary biogenic carbon. We describe new methods for evaluating and calculating this offset. We radiocarbon date and apply the new methods to land snail food debris, from the deep MSA to Neolithic sequence in the Haua Fteah cave, NE Libya. Oxcal modelling of the resulting 136 dates over ~45000 years shows the site was used for short episodes separated by long periods of abandonment. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Poister. Steve Baumann. Richard Greene.

This is an abstract from the "Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Subterranean" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. After more than a century of sustained looting, the lava tube caves of El Malpais have lost volumes from what was once an unparalleled record of cave use by Ancestral Pueblo people. Occasionally, artifacts stolen from the caves appear on public auction blocks, offering a brief glimpse of what used to be. In general, archaeologists seeking...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claudine Gravel-Miguel. Julien Riel-Salvatore. Fabio Negrino. Emanuela Cristiani. Roberto Maggi.

This is an abstract from the "Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology of Liguria: Recent Research and Insights" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2022, our team started work at the Arma dello Stefanin to document the stratigraphy that had been unearthed in the 1960s and 1980s. In this presentation, we will summarize the results of our attempts to date the stratigraphy of the site to place it within its proper temporal context. This is the second conference...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fabiana María Martin.

This is an abstract from the "Patagonian Evolutionary Archaeology and Human Paleoecology: Commending the Legacy (Still in the Making) of Luis Alberto Borrero in the Interpretation of Hunter-Gatherer Studies of the Southern Cone" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A new research project will focus on the archaeology of the Pali Aike Lava Field, Patagonia, Chile by a restudy of the collections obtained by Junius Bird between 1936 and 1970. These objects...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ismael Sánchez-Morales.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The cave of El’Aliya on the Atlantic coast of Morocco contained a Middle Stone Age (MSA) occupational sequence that produced Aterian lithic assemblages (i.e. with tanged tools) dated to Marine Isotope Stage 3 (Layers 6 and 5). The site was excavated during the late 1930s and 1940s and the lithic assemblages from the MSA deposits were originally described...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Hoffman. Jake Fruhlinger. Linda Reynard. Erick Robinson.

This is an abstract from the "A Further Discussion on the Role of Archaeology in Resource and Public Land Management" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dry Creek Rockshelter provides important evidence for the deep history of human occupation in the Boise foothills. Our recent reinvestigation of this site suggests a reinterpretation of its occupation history. This work provides a new model for collaboration between archaeologists and Native American...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ivor Jankovic. Darko Komšo. Siniša Radovic. James Ahern. Rory Becker.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Research on the Paleolithic in the Mediterranean Region" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The recent decade saw a rapid rise in the research on Paleolithic sites in Istria. This renewed interest started with field surveys and continued with new research projects aimed at better understanding of biocultural patterns and adaptations of hunter-gatherers in the region during the Pleistocene. The research included new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Suzanne Baker. Ruth Ann Armitage. Roger Arrazcaeta. Silvia Torres.

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. Cuba has many karst caves with pictographs, but there has been uncertainty about who created the rock art. The prehistoric population, historic indigenous groups pushed to the margins by the Spanish, and maroons or escaped African slaves are all possibilities. Cuban archaeologists have debated for decades which groups were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melanie Saldana. James Brady.

This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the archaeological literature, the Osario at Chichén Itzá has been defined by the 998 A.D. long-count date inscribed on a pillar at the top of the pyramid. Although the pillar could have been added long after the construction of the pyramid, the complex is, nevertheless, consistently treated as a late construction. From the outset,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Guillermo De Anda Alaniz.

During the summer of 2017, the Gran Aquífero Maya (GAM) project initiated an investigation at Chichen Itza designed to define the site around its aquatic resources. The project is based on my previous work at Cenote Holtun, located 1.6 miles west of Chichen Itza, which found that a line drawn between Holtun and Cenote Kanjuyum on the east pasted through the center of El Castillo. It has long been known that El Castillo is bisected by a line drawn between the Sacred Cenote on the north and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Markle. Shannon Cowell. Esmeralda Ferrales.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the summer of 2018, New Mexico State University (NMSU) staff and students surveyed 120 acres on the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. The New Mexico Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages this monument, provided funding for this project. The survey occurred in seven high-priority parcels near Bishop’s Cap, where frequent recreational...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Guillermo Gerardo De Alaniz. Karla Ortega.

This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the 2018 season, the Gran Aquífero Maya project began exploration of the cave of Balamku, located some 2.4 km east of Chichen Itza's site center. The cave is noteworthy in containing incensarios, manos and metates, and other artifacts identical to those in the back passage of Balankanche, only in greater numbers. The similarity...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dominique Rissolo.

This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The construction and ceremonial use of miniature temples, or shrines, in caves across the central coastal zone of Quintana Roo, Mexico is a well-documented tradition and one that has received recent scholarly attention. Also common in caves throughout the region was the siting of unenclosed altars in a range of different forms and styles....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Iglesias. Michael Prout.

This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the widening of the air strip at Chichen Itza in 1967, a small subterranean chamber, located some 300 m north of the Cenote of Sacrifice, was discovered. The feature, variably called a cave or a chultun, contained two small chambers, the larger of which was only 4 x 5 m. These chambers contained human skeletal material, a portion...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Sturtz. Geoffrey Smith.

This is an abstract from the "Far West Paleoindian Archaeology: Papers from the Next Generation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Leonard Rockshelter is located in Pershing County, Nevada. Initially mined for bat guano, workers discovered artifacts in 1938, prompting a visit by Robert Heizer. Heizer returned to excavate the site in 1950 and reported more than 2 m of stratified deposits from which he recovered a modest assemblage of perishable and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marlen Garnica. Ramiro Edmundo Martinez Lemus. Eugenia Robinson.

This is an abstract from the "Art, Archaeology, and Science: Investigations in the Guatemala Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological investigations in the eastern zone of Guatemala have reported many sites with painted rock art or petroglyphs. There are other similar representations in rock shelters in Guatemala especially at La Casa de las Golondrinas in the Antigua Valley. At these sites, the representation of serpents is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elanor Sonderman.

The Lower Pecos region of Texas is a remarkable study area, primarily because perishable artifacts (those made of plant materials, bone, and leather) survive in near pristine conditions in its very dry caves and rockshelters. Vaughn Bryant was among the first researchers in the region to use pollen data to build paleoclimatic and ecological chronologies from this region, his dissertation is still one of the most comprehensive analyses of this region’s ecological past. Following this path, my...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Taylor Greer.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster presents some of the preliminary results from two seasons of excavation work at Spirit Eye Cave, a prehistorically occupied site near Presidio, Texas. Despite being heavily impacted by decades of collecting, the Center for Big Bend Studies began excavations in the cave in 2017 and recovered thousands of artifacts discarded by collectors as well as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Ogaz.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1950, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) graduate student Georgiana Guthrie excavated Dry Lake Cave (CA-INY-1898). Located in Inyo County, California, the rock shelter is near Little Lake, the Stahl site, the Rose Spring site, and the Borden site. Dry Lake Cave is an east-facing basalt rock shelter that overlooks Rose Valley, providing occupants...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dolores Piperno.

This is an abstract from the "Unraveling the Mysteries of the Isthmo-Colombian Area’s Past: A Symposium in Honor of Archaeologist Richard Cooke and His Contributions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses Richard Cooke’s career in the context of my professional and personal relationships with him. Over a more than 40-year period beginning with my first trip to Panama in 1979 as a graduate student I enjoyed the benefits of his...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Angelica Romero Padilla.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I will examine the significance of ritual cave use in the emergence and development of Classic Maya polities. Caves are critical settings to understand the diversity of ritual practices and the involvement of such contexts within socio-political systems. My work in caves in the Middle Usumacinta Valley will further our understanding of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Angelica Romero Padilla.

This is an abstract from the "Preclassic Maya Social Transformations along the Usumacinta: Views from Ceibal and Aguada Fénix" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As part of the Middle Usumacinta Archaeological Project, I conducted reconnaissance in three caves with archaeological remains, named Santo Tomás, San Marcos, and Corregidora. The three caves are located in the Tenosique municipality in Tabasco, Mexico near the border with Guatemala. A...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Neil Kohanski. Jeffery Rosa Figueroa.

This is an abstract from the "Studies in Mesoamerican Subterranean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1966 a cave near Chichen Itza was reported to the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) by Maya living in the area. The cave was investigated by Victor Segovia Pinto, after which the sinkhole entrance was filled with rocks. When archaeologists from the Gran Acuífero Maya opened the cave 52 years later, workers on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ciprian Ardelean. Juan Ignacio Macías-Quintero.

Caves and rockshelters throughout the highlands and sierras of Central-Northern Mexico have always represented an important point of reference for prehistoric archaeology and were traditionally targeted as the most reliable contexts for the understanding of hunter-gatherer societies and the establishment of cultural-historical models. However, the paradigms created on basis of the excavation of such sites affected rather negatively the archaeological thinking in Mexican archaeology. Caves and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marilyn Bueno.

Because of Maya religion’s heavy focus on the sacred Earth, subterranean spaces tend to be seen as sacred landmarks. Caves in particular have been shown to be the most promising context for the archaeological study of Maya religion (Brady and Prufer 2005). Rockshelters, however, have received less attention and appear to have identities and meanings that are negotiable across the lowlands. Recent rockshelter excavations have uncovered skeletal remains (Bonor 1995; Glassman et al. 2005; Saul et...