Bioarchaeology/Skeletal Analysis (Other Keyword)
251-275 (487 Records)
Mid-19th century Irish identities divided along lines of class, religion and gender but it could be argued that all were constructed in an atmosphere of the negative characterization of the island and its inhabitants by the British elite. Race and low "moral character" were blamed for the endemic poverty of the island. The Irish poor were portrayed as a "race apart" whose inherent failings were at least partly to blame for the mortality they suffered during the Great Famine of 1845–1852. Recent...
Iron Age Trade and Mobility: Assessing Migration at the Site of Ban Pong Manao, Central Thailand (2018)
The archaeological site of Ban Pong Manao is located in the highlands of central Thailand with mortuary contexts dating to the late Iron Age (300-400 CE). Most individuals were buried with numerous grave goods, including intentionally broken ceramics and ritually bent metal implements, and some graves included imported metal, glass, stone, and shell artifacts. The presence of non-local artifacts implies interregional interaction and may indicate some degree of social inequality, but the scale,...
Isotopes and the Body Politic: Estimating Residential Origins at the Imperial Inka site of Patallacta, Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Individual Bodies to Bodies of Social Theory: Exploring Ontologies of the Americas" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In just under a century, the Inka subjugated twelve million people across the Central Andes. As part of their governing strategies, Inca administrators relocated individuals and even entire communities throughout the empire for myriad purposes; this practice often produced constructed communities...
Isotopic Analyses of Diet in Late Prehistoric Southwestern Transylvania (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Southwestern Transylvania houses a rich prehistoric archaeological record, as well as abundant natural resources, including salt, tin, and some of the richest copper and gold deposits in Europe. The Mureș River, which connected prehistoric communities in Eastern and Central Europe, also flows through the region. Despite its status as an economic and...
Isotopic Analysis and Social Identities from Classic Period (ca. 300-900 CE) Burials at the Maya Site of Ucanal, Petén, Guatemala (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ucanal, is an archeological site situated in the Petén area of the southern Maya Lowlands. Close to the modern-day border between Guatemala and Belize, it is situated on the Mopan River which seems to have facilitated the trade of objects between different neighboring sites. While we know that this site was a nexus for the movement of goods from afar, less is...
Isotopic Analysis for Palaeodiet and Geolocation (2018)
Isotopic analysis as a method of assessing diet or geographical origin is now ubiquitous in archaeology, to the point where seemingly no project is complete without it. The relative ease of sample preparation and increasing prevalence of isotope mass specs has contributed to its rapid growth. Yet despite its ease of execution, it is not a cut-and-dried technique, and data interpretation can be complex. The greater use by specialists and non-specialists has resulted in studies that range from...
Isotopic Analysis of Dietary Variation at Casas Grandes, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable isotope analysis of prehistoric human remains has complemented other dietary reconstruction techniques for many years. It provides biologically-based data that allow an examination of what was actually consumed. Using 70 individuals from Paquimé and 14 from the nearby Convento site, we examine whether bone collagen δ13C and δ15N values are correlated...
Isotopic Diet and Migration at Chicoloapan Viejo, Mexico (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Central Mexico after Teotihuacan: Everyday Life and the (Re)Making of Epiclassic Communities" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chicoloapan grew and prospered after the decline of Teotihuacan, but little is known about the Epiclassic population that lived there and elsewhere in the Basin of Mexico. An isotopic and osteological analysis of six individuals recovered from salvage and archaeological contexts provides a...
An Isotopic Study of Dietary Diversity in Formative Period Ancachi, Atacama Desert, Northern Chile (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable isotope analysis has been used to reconstruct the dietary patterns of individuals recovered from archaeological sites. Given the centrality of food to human social interaction, dietary insights provide a window into the inner-workings of past societies. In the present instance, stable isotope analysis, when coupled with multi-source mixture modeling,...
Kinship and Migration in Prehistoric MSEA: Insights from Isotopic Analysis over the Years (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Paradigms Shift: New Interpretations in Mainland Southeast Asian Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Kinship is an important but often under-researched aspect of the rise of complex societies. Whereas early agricultural communities in Neolithic Europe and East Asia were patrilineal and patrilocal, the nature and impact of prehistoric kinship systems in Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA) is becoming better...
La Quemada-Malpaso Valley Archaeological Project (LQ-MVAP)
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....
The Labor of Building a Community: Collective Organization and Mortuary Practices in Copper Age Iberia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Cooperative Bodies: Bioarchaeology and Non-ranked Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Iberian Copper Age (c.3200-2250 BC) witnesses a suite of interrelated changes, including expansion of exchange networks, intensification of agriculture, increases in population density, and greater investment in site infrastructure. Accordingly, it is noteworthy that third millennium collective mortuary practices hark back...
Landscape and Labor: Bones and Bodies of the Tiwanaku State (2018)
Modern, archaeological, and bioarchaeological accounts of South American Andean workers show labor divisions by age, then gender, with a focus on duality between the sexes. Within the Tiwanaku state (AD 500-1100) of Bolivia and Peru, labor was also divided across the landscape within its heartland and colonies, and especially within its multiethnic neighborhoods in the heartland city of Tiwanaku (Becker 2017). Pondering these labor communities further with a focus on data from these peoples’...
The Langobards in Italy? A Look at Migration in Vicenza Using Oxygen Stable Isotope Analysis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At the end of the Great Germanic Migrations in AD 568, Langobards from Pannonia entered and occupied 2/3 of the Italian peninsula. It is unclear how large these migrations were, as historical documents exaggerate mass movements; however, conservative estimates suggest they made up 8% of the Italian population. This research identified migrants in two 7th...
Large-Scale Human Sacrifice and Feasting at Sicán, Peru during the 11th-Century Mega-El Niño: A Multidisciplinary Vision (2018)
We present a multidisciplinary summary vision of the natural and cultural contexts and impacts of an 11th century mega-El Niño event and the extraordinary social responses to and consequences of it. Evidence and impacts of torrential rains and associated severe flooding dated ca. 1050 CE have been documented at multiple sites along the Peruvian coast, particularly in the Lambayeque region. The flood buried the Middle Sicán capital of Sicán with fluvial deposits 1.0 to 1.5 m thick. During this...
Late Holocene Climate Change and the Emergence of Hunter-gatherer Territoriality in the Late Archaic Texas Coastal Plains: An Analysis using Bioavailable Strontium (2018)
The Late Holocene was a time of sea level stability, increased moisture, and abundant resources. Existing models suggest that this environment set the stage for population packing and territoriality. In this presentation, strontium isotope ratios from the Loma Sandia mortuary site (2800-2600 BP) are used to evaluate the emergence of territoriality among hunter-gatherer populations on the Texas Coastal Plain. Assessing territoriality with human strontium data is facilitated by determining the...
Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Agro-Pastoral Diets at Shimao, Northern Shaanxi Province, China: Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Analysis of Human and Faunal Remains (2018)
The late Neolithic to early Bronze Age period (ca. 2800 BC–1900 BC) in the Ordos Region, Northern China was a transitional period, that included the adoption of agro-pastoralism, as well as increasing sociopolitical complexity. Subsistence economies were shaped by a variety of strategies that included a mixed agro- pastoral system focused on millet cultivation and herding of caprines and cattle, with limited contributions from hunting and gathering of wild plants. Here in this study we report...
Late Precolumbian Subsistence Change, Socio-political Transformation, and Ethnogenesis in the Upper Illinois River Valley (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Migration and Climate Change: The Spread of Mississippian Culture" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Post-AD 1000 was a time of tremendous change in the Upper Illinois River valley. The Terminal Late Woodland groups in the region were bordered on the south by emergent Mississippian petty chiefdoms of the Central Illinois River valley, on the north by Oneota and Mississippian societies, and on the east by Fort Ancient...
Law and Ethics: The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery Excavations in the Context of the Wisconsin Burial Site Preservation Statute (2018)
The 1987 Wisconsin Burial Site Preservation Statute (WisStats 157.70) serves as the basis for the protection of all burial sites in the State of Wisconsin and assures that all human burial sites be accorded equal treatment under the law regardless of age or affiliation. A burial site, under the law, refers to any place where human remains are buried and includes marked and unmarked cemeteries, Native American mounds, small family cemeteries, and other less obvious locations that are reported to...
Lead Isotopic Evidence for Foreign-Born Burials in the Classic Maya City of Holmul, Petén, Guatemala (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La Sufricaya, a Classic Period Maya civic-ceremonial complex in the city of Holmul, Petén, Guatemala, has several epigraphic elements that potentially link it to the Maya city of Tikal and the central Mexican metropolis of Teotihuacan. The La Sufricaya area boasts elaborate elite residential buildings, plazas, a ball court, and carved stelae; rulers from...
Life and Death of Lakam Elites at the Maya Center of El Palmar, Campeche, Mexico (2018)
During the Late Classic period (A.D. 600-800), Maya non-royal elites frequently appeared in courtly scenes, which are depicted on polychrome vessels and carved monuments. While epigraphic studies over the last two decades have gradually shed light on their political and ritual roles, little is known about their life histories and mortuary practices. One group of these elites held the title of lakam, which has been reported only at three archaeological sites. We detected tangible evidence of...
Life and Death of the Pleistocene Child: Children’s Burials in Gravettian Europe (2018)
The Gravettian (ca. 28,000-21,000 BP), has been referred to as the "Golden Age" of the European Upper Paleolithic. Innovations in technology, increased sedentism and the development of larger regional centers, the oldest known ceramics, some of the earliest evidence for loom-woven textiles, and the emergence of so-called "Venus" figurines all characteristic of this period. The Gravettian is also well known for its often spectacular single, double and triple burials of sub-adults including...
Life in the Cliffs: Analysis of Health and Trauma in Ancestral Puebloan Populations from Mesa Verde (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park have been studied extensively by archaeologists, primarily with respect to understanding living conditions in the region prior to the widespread depopulation in the 13th century. There are far fewer bioarchaeological studies based on the analysis of human remains. This study incorporates data on demography,...
Linking Life and Death at the Early–Mid-Holocene Hunter-Gatherer Cemetery of Zvejnieki, Lativa, Northern Europe (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Northeast Asian Prehistoric Hunter-Gather Lifeways: Multidisciplinary, Individual Life History Approach" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The nature of the relationship between the living and the dead as seen through funerary rites is central to many aspects of archaeological interpretation. Indeed, this was the focus of early processual/postprocessual debates, with the former seeing a “real,” if distorted, connection...
Lived Experiences of Disease and Trauma among Manteño Burials from Buen Suceso (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Community in the Past and Present through the 2022 PARCC Field School at Buen Suceso, Ecuador" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Skeletal measures of pathology and trauma can reveal lived experiences of individuals and broader patterns of health and disease within past communities. These are important lines of inquiry at both the individual and community level as they may reflect the identities held by those...