Social and Political Organization (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Pacifico. Melissa Vogel.

El Purgatorio was the capital city of the Casma State, occupied from AD 700 to 1400. Neighborhoods at El Purgatorio were organized around social status, which was in turn related to a number of factors including occupation, access to and control over economic and ritual resources, and possibly length of tenure at the site. Neighborhoods were distinguished from one another by their architectural and topographical qualities, and exhibit both planned and organic elements. Neighborhoods also...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tom Froese. Linda Manzanilla.

Experts remain divided about the nature of the sociopolitical system of ancient Teotihuacan, which was one of the earliest and largest urban civilizations of the Americas. Excavations hoping to find compelling evidence of a powerful dynasty of rulers, such as a royal tomb, keep coming away empty-handed. However, the alternative possibility of a corporate or collective government, perhaps headed by a small number of co-rulers, also remains poorly understood. A third option is that the city’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Manuel Castro-Priego. Lauro Olmo-Enciso. Marcos Octavio Labrada Ochoa.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Innovations in Ecuadorian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The "Perduraciones" project, which has been taking place in the central area of the Ecuadorian coast since 2018, has focused part of their research on the characterization of the social space resulting from the process of articulating European colonization on the present coast of Ecuador during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. In the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Morrisset. George Chauca. David Beresford-Jones.

This is an abstract from the "Developments through Time on the South Coast of Peru: In Memory of Patrick Carmichael" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For nearly 600 years the Ica society flourished in the vast deserts of the Peruvian south coast. Rising to considerable regional influence during the Late Intermediate period (ca. 1000–1476 CE), little is known of its origins or later years. Our recent excavations in the lower Ica Valley have begun to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Amaroli.

This is an abstract from the "Reconstructing the Political Organization of Pre-Columbian Nicaragua" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since half a century ago, it has been recognized that the Early Postclassic in the territory of western El Salvador represents a sweeping departure from its Classic period antecedents, as seen in the type site of Cihuatán. Its nature has been variously described as generically Mexican, or central Mexican and Gulf...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dominique Michelet. Pierre Becquelin.

This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With the publication of the influential “Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens” (Martin and Grube 2000) along with the convincing analysis of the Classic Maya political universe in terms of city-states (Grube 2000), a Classic Maya political regime model seemed to have been set up, relying on divine kingship based more on the domination of people than of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kayeleigh Sharp.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Gallinazo sociopolitical organization is rarely considered outside the Virú Valley heartland. My recent work in the Lambayeque region of northern coastal Peru brings to light several anomalies that force reevaluation of long-standing ideas. Today, there are several persistent yet mistaken observations that continue to skew the perception of prehispanic Andean...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bradley Ensor.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Two decades of strontium isotope and aDNA research on Central European Neolithic cemetery populations have consistently interpreted patrilocality, which is now a foregone conclusion. This paper questions those interpretations from a social anthropological perspective. Models are presented for interpreting strontium isotope ratios and aDNA that consider the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sergio García Piedra.

This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El Museo del Jade y de la Cultura Precolombina del Instituto Nacional de Seguros, exhibe 2040 piezas arqueológicas de piedras verdes (*jades). A pesar de la limitada información contextual, posee un gran potencial para comprender la manufactura y uso de los colgantes de piedras verdes en Costa Rica. A partir de la última...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caitlin Sommer.

This is an abstract from the "Adopting the Pueblo Fettle: The Breadth and Depth of the Basketmaker III Cultural Horizon" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Basketmaker III period (A.D. 500-725) in the northern U.S. Southwest was typified by new technologies, new social and religious practices, and groups of people from distinct cultural backgrounds living in close proximity for the first time. In this sociopolitical milieu, new architectural forms...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Takeshi Inomata.

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. The Middle Usumacinta Archaeological Project started investigations in the Department of Tabasco, Mexico, in 2017. Its main objectives are to examine the relationship between the residents of the Maya lowlands and those of the Olmec region and to trace social change during the Preclassic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Hutson. Daniel Vallejo Caliz. Shannon Plank.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beginning in 2008, the Uci/Cansahcab Regional Integration Project has investigated the causes and consequences of the construction of an 18km long causeway that connected four ancient Maya sites with monumental architecture in the Late Preclassic period. This paper presents the results of recent excavations at Ucí, the largest site along the causeway and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Györgyi Parditka. Paul R. Duffy. Julia I. Giblin. László Paja.

The transition to the Middle Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin encompassed a broad range of changes in material culture, settlement and social organization. Upon first glance, the Körös-Region was no different from its neighbours. Tell sites emerged, population increased, farming intensified, and people engaged in long distance trade. The international Bronze Age Körös Off-Tell Archaeology (BAKOTA) project has studied this area through settlements and mortuary archaeology for over 11 years. Our...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mara Horowitz.

The small (1 hectare) site of Phlamoudhi-Vounari was built in Late Cypriot IA:1 and abandoned early in Late Cypriot IIA, a lifespan of c. 200 years. This paper presents a 3D model and spatial analysis suggesting that the site functioned as a stage during community gatherings (and greeting visitors). Vounari’s plan is unique on Cyprus: a likely man-made, eight-meter-high mound topped with a sequence of superimposed structures. Initially built with open access to the summit from the higher south...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean White.

This is an abstract from the "Research Hot Off the Trowel in the Upper Gila and Mimbres Areas" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mealing facilities include the tools (metates, manos), features (bins), and architecture (kivas, pueblo rooms) used in the process of grinding corn kernels and other materials at an archaeological site. The goal of this poster is to classify, catalog, and compare the properties of mealing facilities in the Mogollon Mimbres...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Elson.

This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological data from Southwest U.S. platform mound sites will likely not satisfactorily resolve the question of platform mound function and social organization. This is due to the ambiguities inherent in our data base and in our limited opportunities to excavate these features. Because of this, explanations given...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stanislava Chavez.

This is an abstract from the "A New Horizon: Reassessing the Andean Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) and Rethinking the Andean State" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tiwanaku has been described as an expansive state by archaeologists working in the first half of the twentieth century. At that time, the idea of a powerful empire in Bolivian prehistory aided and reinforced the nationalistic political narrative. However, archaeological data does not...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Verónica Vázquez López. Felix Kuppat. Kathryn Reese-Taylor. Armando Anaya Hernández.

This is an abstract from the "Regimes of the Ancient Maya" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The history of the Kanu’l dynasty and their Late Classic regime at Calakmul has been researched extensively since the 1990s. The most recent insights into the earlier episodes of Kanu’l politics have emphasized that their seat of power during the Early Classic was Dzibanche and that it was a powerful faction that took power in Calakmul in the early seventh...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Caseldine.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the publishing of Irrigation Communities: A Comparative Study in 1955, sociopolitical hierarchy has factored strongly in interpretations of irrigation system control. A lively debate has developed as to where control lies, ranging from a central authority (top-down) to water user cooperatives (bottom-up). Although Hohokam irrigation has appeared in that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michelle I. Turner.

The Aztec North great house is a monumental Chaco-era building at Aztec Ruins National Monument, in northern New Mexico. Its size, its shape and its dramatic hilltop siting all echo construction norms for other great houses at Chaco Canyon and its outliers, but excavation revealed a surprising set of architectural features. In addition to a fairly typical great house artifact assemblage, we found Chaco-style wall foundations and masonry veneers, but non-Chacoan adobe wall cores. Drawing on ideas...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Blomster. Victor Salazar.

The Early Formative evinces the emergence of public space, and more complex communities, in Mesoamerica. Previous archaeological research at the site of Etlatongo, Oaxaca, Mexico, identified a large village during the late Early Formative/Cruz B phase (1200/1150 – 850 BC), including an area tentatively identified as early public space. The Formative Etlatongo Project has concluded three seasons, from 2015 – 2017, of large-scale excavations, confirming the identification of public space in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victoria Ingalls. Jason Yaeger.

Public structures in the Maya region materialize ideologies and define centers of power as they create politically charged sacred landscapes. These locations are nexus points for community and polity making processes, embedding social hierarchies, ideologies, and social memories into the physical landscape. However, archaeologists have historically focused attention on monumental public spaces within large civic-ceremonial centers, and relatively little attention has been given to public spaces...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Birch. Sturt Manning.

This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper summarizes work completed to date by the Dating Iroquoia project. Our aim has been to construct refined regional chronologies for select Northern Iroquoian community relocation sequences through radiocarbon dating and Bayesian chronological modeling, including novel approaches for overcoming the ca. AD...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Pierce. Mike Lawrence.

Adjacent to Plaza B at Pacbitun is a Classic Period "palace" complex consisting of three conjoined courtyards each ringed by elevated range structures, likely serving elite-residential and administrative functions. Previous excavations indicated initial construction in the Early Classic period with numerous modifications made in the Late Classic, and preliminary evidence of occupation or use into the Terminal Classic period. The Pacbitun Regional Archaeological Project has begun to explore this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Devin Henson. Olivia Navarro-Farr.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Woodland period in eastern North America has traditionally been conceptualized as a cultural hiatus between the region’s Hopewell and Mississippian traditions. As a drastic (though not complete) reduction in the practices of monumental architecture and art produced with nonlocal materials occurred during this time, the end of the preceding Hopewell...