Microarchaeology (Other Keyword)
1-6 (6 Records)
Calcitic plant ashes are a ubiquitous indicator of anthropogenic activity at archaeological sites. In conducive preservation environments, ashes may form undisturbed deposits in which individual ash crystals remain intact and identifiable. Under these conditions, ashes afford a unique opportunity to better understand both the human selection of fuel as well as to investigate changes in vegetation communities in response to climate change. This study seeks to characterize ash crystal morphologies...
Fire or Stone? Applications of Infrared Spectroscopy and the Grinding Curve Procedure to Differentiate between Pyrogenic and Geogenic Calcites at Crvena Stijena Paleolithic Rock Shelter, Montenegro (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is becoming ever more clear that cooperative efforts amongst researchers trained in a wide variety of archaeological and geoarchaeological specialties during the planning, excavation, and interpretation of an archaeological site are crucial to a successful study. Middle Paleolithic deposits in Level XXIV of the rock shelter at Crvena Stijena, Montenegro are...
Fragments of the Past: Applying Microarchcaeological Techniques to House Floors at Tumilaca, Moquegua, Peru (2016)
For decades archaeologists have been trying to develop methodologies that will help them determine what activities took place in and around domestic structures. Since people tend to clean activity areas, especially those that are used repeatedly, visible artifacts like pottery, bones and stone tools are rarely discovered in the context where they were originally used. Instead, such artifacts are usually discovered in refuse heaps or other secondary contexts. Microarchaeology, the study of the...
High-Resolution Microarchaeological Techniques for Understanding Depositional and Postdepositional Processes in Mugr-el Hamamah Cave (Jordan) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The rich archaeological record of the Mughr-el Hamamah (MHM) site in Jordan is key to understanding the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition in the Levant. However, important postdepositional processes due to pastoral activities during the twentieth century have affected the archaeological deposits and need to be taken into account. The archaeological...
Microarchaeology and the Production of Urban Life at the Classic Maya City of Palenque (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Urban Question: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Investigating the Ancient Mesoamerican City" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological studies of urbanism typically include a consideration of scale, from the household, the neighborhood, ward, and city. These spatial scales are also spheres of interaction and have implications for the kinds of shared material practices we can expect to find archaeologically....
Using Microartifacts to Investigate Prehistoric Cooking Methods at the Archaeological Site of Dust Cave (2018)
Microartifacts - generally considered to be artifacts measuring less than 6.35 mm (¼ inch) - have traditionally received little attention in North American archaeology. We argue that microartifacts are not simply smaller versions of larger artifacts, but rather provide different and complimentary data. This study investigates microartifacts from the archaeological site of Dust Cave (10,650-3,600 BCE), located in northwest Alabama, in order to better understand prehistoric diet and cooking...