Bioarchaeology/Skeletal Analysis (Other Keyword)
401-425 (487 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Peering into the Night: Transition, Sociopolitical Organization, and Economic Dynamics after the Dusk of Chavín in the North Central Andes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Systematic bioarchaeological studies of skeletal remains in conjunction with mortuary analyses provide a unique space in which archaeologists can begin to reconstruct past populations, social dynamics, and cosmologies. Following the influence of late...
Salud y condiciones de vida de los pobladores prehispánicos de Sondor en los Andes sur centrales de Perú (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El trabajo de investigación tiene como objetivo el estado de salud y condiciones de vida de los habitantes de Sondor, durante el periodo de transición (Intermedio Tardío). El material de estudio procede de contextos funerarios hallados en los trabajos de excavación realizada el 2017, como parte del Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica Sondor Pacucha,...
Searching for the Denisovans (2018)
In 2010, a finger bone discovered in Siberia was assigned using DNA to a previously unknown human group, the Denisovans. The Denisovans interbred with both Asian Neanderthals and modern humans over the past 100,000 years; their geographic distribution is now thought to have stretched from the Siberian steppes to the tropical forests of SE Asia and Oceania. Despite their broad spatio-temporal range, the Denisovans are only known from 4 bones, all from a single cave. This patchy knowledge of an...
Serious Seriation: Age-at-Death Assessment of Skeletons from Caves Branch Rockshelter, Belize (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Caves Branch Rockshelter (CBR) is a large cemetery site in Central Belize used for burial by a rural Maya community during the Late Preclassic and Early Classic periods (~300 BC–AD 400). The CBR skeletal series is unusual in the region as it is large and appears to comprise a relatively complete mortality profile. However, due to poor preservation,...
Settled in Strange Lands: Forced Relocation as a Technology of the Inka Empire (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Seeing Migrant and Diaspora Communities Archaeologically: Beyond the Cultural Fixity/Fluidity Binary" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Why do empires force their subjects to leave home? From Neo-Assyria to the British West Indies, coercive migration policies have been adopted by expansive, multiethnic polities across time and space. One of the most ambitious projects of imperial forced relocation took place in the Inka...
Sex-Specific Patterns of Survival in the Context of Urbanization and Environmental Change in Medieval and Post-medieval London, England (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The State of the Art in Medieval European Archaeology: New Discoveries, Future Directions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Medieval and post-medieval populations in England experienced several crises, including famines and plague epidemics. These occurred at a time of increasing social inequality, urbanization, and shifting climatic conditions. This study examines temporal trends in survivorship (as a proxy for health)...
Silenced Undertakers (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Silenced Rituals in Indigenous North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chumash undertakers were third gender persons and postmenopausal women. The Spanish Mission system significantly disrupted traditional practices, especially through sexual violence as a silencing tool. I examine the impacts of the Spanish colonial effort on Chumash mortuary rituals, with regard to the concept of gendercide.
Skeletal Health and the Impact of Agriculture within the Mixtec Population from Etlatongo, Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca during the Middle Formative (2018)
Sedentism and agriculture had major impacts on early human societies by increasing social complexity. Some scholars attributed an intensification of inequalities to a greater dependency on agriculture. This dependency, consequently lead to decreased health status of the non-elite/rulers population. Our goal is to address the overarching question of, how did agriculture impact ancient societies? And specifically, does the emergence of agriculture correlate with decreased health? Therefore, we...
Skeletons in the Closet: Ethical, Moral, Pedagogical, and Intellectual Issues in Managing Unprovenanced Osteological Legacy Collections (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Legacy collections of human remains at teaching institutions present a unique set of ethical issues. They frequently are the result of decades of unknown sourcing. Even when purchased from medical supply companies, ethical standards over time shift, raising new issues. Hidden away, many institutions know that they hold these collections, yet they may not...
Skin and Bones: The Presence and Potential Implications of Dog Skinning in the Pre-Colonial Southwest (2018)
The presence of dogs across burial sites in the southwestern United States and worldwide has been well noted in archaeological literature. The ubiquity of canine burials attests to their historical role as complex social actors in human society, prompting actions and performances, taboos and transgressions. To access the true depth of meaning in many canine remains, then, we must examine them with the level of precision normally reserved for human burials. This paper offers a close reading of...
Small Mammal Isotopes as Proxies for Climate over the Holocene Period on the Eastern Snake River Plain, Idaho (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Reconstructing the prehistoric environment is vital to our understanding of past human use and occupation of a landscape. While many reconstructions, typically based on chemical and biological signatures found in sediment and ice cores, are available, we currently lack suitable records for Idaho’s eastern Snake River Plain. This is mainly due to the scarcity...
Social Inequalities by Diet in Archaeology: The Contribution of Isotopes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research about the biological impacts of social inequality is at the center of the humanities and social sciences. Social inequalities impact multiple determinants of health such as lifestyle, diet, and housing. Questions about inequalities, therefore, can be addressed by using isotopic data related to collected by archaeologists. This project compiles...
Social Inequality in the Middle-Late Neolithic? Stable Isotope Analysis of the Individuals from Beli Manastir-Popova Zemlja (Slavonia, Croatia) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beli Manastir (Slavonia, Croatia) is the largest Middle-Late Neolithic habitation site discovered in Croatia. A total of 37 individuals were found in different burial positions and different areas of this site, and sometimes within burial clusters, with only 3 individuals buried with abundant grave goods. The burials were, in most cases, placed between or...
Social Media as a Tool for Research and Outreach in Bioarchaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Social media has provided bioarchaeology a tool for collaboration with colleagues around the globe; interaction with legislators, the press, and the general public; a means to quickly disseminate research; an educational tool for reaching a younger audience; and, a means to employ the latest Web 2.0 technologies. The BioAnthropology News...
Society in Flux: Migration and Kinship during Sociopolitical Change in the Southern Lowlands (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the midst of conflict and change people are instigators, bystanders, or unwilling victims of larger sociopolitical machinations. Those living in the Southern Lowlands in the prehistoric and historic periods were familiar with the results of fluctuations in the social...
Socio-Economic Class Status and Health on the Roman Danube: Skeletal Indicators and Mortuary Treatment at Late Antique Viminacium (2018)
Cross-culturally and through time, anthropologists have found that--within hierarchical societies--elites tend to manage resources and allocate risk primarily to their own benefit. There is little reason to believe that Late Roman Imperial frontier elites would have behaved any differently. This paper examines the archaeological relationship between biological 'stress' or health--as inferred from skeletal remains--and socio-economic status / class--as evaluated on the basis of mortuary...
Sociopolitical Change and Its Effect on the Biology of a Medieval Polish Population through Isotopic Analysis (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Life and Death in Medieval Poland" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Jagiellonian Period (1386–1572) in Poland underwent a shift toward a feudal sociopolitical and economic structure leading to an increase in social stratification and unequal distribution of power, opportunity, and resources (e.g., food). The medieval site of Gać (fourteenth–sixteenth centuries) provides a unique opportunity to gain insight into the...
Spoiler Alert: Bioarchaeological Study of Cremation Funerary Urns with an Application of Computer Tomography (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Tzintzuntzan, Capital of the Tarascan Empire: New Perspectives" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Nine urns from the early Postclassic cemetery in Los Tamarindos (Tierra Caliente, Michoacán, Mexico) containing human cremains have been excavated with the support of a CT scan. Selected examples from this sample will be presented to demonstrate the analytical potential of the methodology that merges bioarchaeological...
The Stable Isotope Ecology of Agriculture in the Eastern Maya Lowlands from the Preclassic through Colonial Periods (2018)
The reconstruction of subsistence strategies using stable isotope analyses is integral to understanding the role of maize agriculture in the development and decline of ancient Maya society. Here we present stable carbon, nitrogen, and sulphur isotope data from over 230 radiocarbon dated human skeletal remains from western Belize dating from the Preclassic through Colonial periods (~1000 BC-AD 1700). Stable isotope data are also compared to paleoclimate proxy records to interpret the climatic...
Stable Isotope Evidence of Dietary Trends among Prehistoric Populations from the Semiarid Region, Chile (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The semiarid region of Northern Chile (29°–32° S) is a transitional ecological area, located between the extreme hyperarid conditions of the Atacama Desert and the Mediterranean ones of Central Chile, with a long history of human occupation (Archaic Period–Late Period). This study evaluates the stable isotope signatures, δ 13Cap, δ 13Ccol, and δ15N, of...
Stable Isotope Measurements of Weaning Age and Early Childhood Diet in the Ancient Andes: Variation in Early Life Experiences in Tiwanaku Society (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Understanding the complex roles and meanings of breastfeeding practices and childhood provisioning may help bioarchaeologists contextualize paleodietary studies and the role of foodways in the construction and maintenance of social identities. Here, we employ stable isotope measurements (δ15N and δ13C) of weaning age and early childhood diet derived from...
A Stable Isotopes Analysis of Ungulate Remains from Lapa do Picareiro: An Assessment of Refugia Concepts during the Middle Paleolithic and Transition to Upper Paleolithic (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Peninsular Southern Europe Refugia during the Middle Paleolithic" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans (AMH) adapted to a series of environmental changes during the Late Pleistocene and may have sought refugia in the southern reaches of Europe in response to environmental degradation. Explanatory models such as the Ebro Frontier Model propose that Neanderthals were adapted to...
Stable Isotopic Examination (δ18O, δ15N, δ13C) of Human Remains from the Santa María de Zamartze, Uharte-Arakil Municipality, Navarre Region, Spain (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An initial subset (n = 5) of the human remains (N = 155) recovered during the 2011 to 2015 excavation seasons from the Santa María de Zamartze church burial grounds were analyzed for stable oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon isotopic values derived from bone and tooth carbonate and collagen. As this site is positioned in close geographic association with a Medieval...
A Stable Isotopic Investigation into Diet and Mobility at the Medieval Cemetery at Sutton Road, Milton, Oxfordshire (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A stable isotope investigation of diet and mobility was conducted on individuals excavated from the medieval cemetery of Sutton Road, Milton, Oxfordshire. Fifty individuals were excavated from the cemetery, many of whom exhibited evidence for degenerative diseases and trauma. Skeletal analysis also indicates a significantly older population than is common...
Starch Remains from Human Teeth Reveal the Bronze and Early Iron Ages Vegetal Diet of Xinjiang, Northwest China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has long been a vital link between Europe and eastern Asia. In the past, understanding prehistoric diets in Xinjiang was based mainly on carbonized plant remains unearthed from archaeological sites and isotopic analyses of excavated human bones. Here, we report on our analysis of human dental residues preserved on...