Social and Political Organization (Other Keyword)
101-125 (366 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Centralizing Central America: New Evidence, Fresh Perspectives, and Working on New Paradigms" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Southern Central American archaeology is a rich tapestry of variation that makes the task of discerning distinctions and commonalities a difficult one, hindered by a lack of systematic research, particularly in southern Costa Rica. This study offers initial findings from recent fieldwork...
Domestic Pottery: Styles, Variation and Social Organization at the Droulers Site (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Droulers is a prehistoric Saint-Lawrence Iroquois village occupied during the 15th century in Southern Quebec. The site has been excavated by Université de Montréal’s field school since 2010 and the goal of the excavation, under the banner of social archaeology, was to understand the social organization of the village. In continuity with the excavation, my MA...
Drums in the Deep: Archaeological Context and Contemporary Acoustics of Ceramic Drums Recovered from Late Classic El Perú-Waka’, Guatemala (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic drums appear in Classic Maya art, being carried in the hand or nestled between the legs of Native American musicians. However, they have received scant, if quite detailed, attention in the scholarly literature. This presentation seeks to expand our knowledge of these ancient musician instruments using a number of complete and partial drums recovered...
The Dwarf Motif in Classic Maya Monumental Iconography: A Spatial Analysis (2018)
Although scholars of Classic Maya art have described certain short-statured figures as dwarves and endowed them with mystical significance, the motif has gone undefined. This contextual analysis identifies the anatomical and cultural attributes of the dwarf motif and interprets its meaning within the ancient Maya conception of time and their ideological integration of the natural and supernatural. A spatial analysis of 45 depictions of short-statured individuals on archaeologically provenienced...
Early Chacoan Communities of the San Juan Basin (2018)
In the late summer of 2017, I conducted dissertation research at two Chacoan communities: Morris 40, on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, and Padilla Well, in Chaco Culture National Historic Park. I was assisted by a team comprised of Binghamton University graduate students and independent researchers from New Mexico and Colorado. We used remote sensing, geophysical survey, and material culture analysis to map and document these two communities. We evaluated the idea that migration from...
Early/Middle Formative Pottery Production and Exchange in the Emergence of Social Complexity in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse: Current Research in Oaxaca Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Multiple lines of evidence, including pottery production, multicrafting, goods and routes of exchange, architecture, and funerary practices, support the idea that Tayata in the Mixteca Alta was immersed in social transformations observed across different regions during the Early/Middle Formative (ca. 1400–350 BC). Changes at this...
Eating and Drinking in the Medieval Castle of San Giuliano (Province of Lazio, Italy) (2018)
The medieval Italian settlement pattern was transformed from the 8th - 12th centuries as people moved to inhabit defensible hilltops. The precise timing and reasons for this historical process, known as incastellamento, are not well understood. We initiated the San Giuliano Archaeological Research Project to provide high-resolution archaeological data for understanding this phenomenon. Two seasons of survey and excavation atop the San Giuliano plateau have identified walls and structures...
Eight thousand leagues of coastline and how many sites? A methodological insight into assessing shifting seashores, marine resources and socio-economic systems in prehistoric Mediterranean (2025)
This is an abstract from the "<html>Twenty Thousand Leagues (and Years!) under the Sea:<i> </i>Exploring the Place of Seashores in Prehistoric Socio-economic Systems</html>" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Mediterranean constitutes an ecological and cultural palimpsest, a region of intense millenia-long occupation as well as a precious archive of environmental changes and refugia-phenomena since the LGM. Although cultural sites from later...
Eighteenth-Century Life After Apoplexy: A Case of a Eighteenth-Century Aristocrat from Pomerania/Poland (2025)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Care and Power" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2023, research and restoration work was carried out in the von Wedel family crypt in Bród, Poland. This crypt was built in the second half of the eighteenth century to serve as the final resting place for the aristocratic von Wedel family. Among the individuals identified, the remains of an elderly man stood out due to lesions observed in the...
El cacicazgo en la experiencia de los Caranquis-Cayambis en la Sierra y en Daule, costa del Ecuador: Una aproximación desde la etnohistoria y la arqueología (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En la sierra norte del Ecuador, la cosmovisión andina, la geografía con su mosaico de nichos ecológicos, diversidad de recursos, y la necesidad de una seguridad social y alimentaria, exigió un sistema de gobierno práctico y muy visible, para resolver los problemas ecológicos...
El contexto arqueológico del Complejo Escultórico de La Victoria-Matacanela, Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz. (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Olmec Manifestations and Ongoing Societal Transformations in the Tuxtlas Uplands: A View from Matacanela" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En 1907 Eduard y Caecilie Seler, visitaron la Finca de Matacanela, ubicada en la porción sureste de la orilla del Lago de Catemaco en Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz. En los terrenos de esta finca, la pareja de alemanes recuperó una serie de monumentos que fueron trasladados a la entrada de la...
El festín y los muertos: encontrar dos rituales en la sociedad estratificada (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Social Dynamics in the North Highlands of Peru during the Formative Period: Pacopampa project’s Contribution for Understanding the Early Complex Societies in the Andes" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En esta ponencia, se muestran dos contextos del Periodo Formativo en el sitio arqueológico de Pacopampa: uno de festín y otro de los entierros en la Tercera Plataforma. Basado en los datos arqueológicos, se discutirá la...
El Jobillo Settlement Cluster: A Classic Maya Neighborhood? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Some significant social and spatial units of organization and analysis include neighborhoods, wards and zones. These intermediate scale units are important to understand Maya social organization and integration, especially in dispersed or sparsely populated regions such as La Corona’s in northwest Petén, Guatemala. This paper assesses criteria regarding the...
El papel del suelo en la conformación del contexto arqueológico en el área de El Fuerte en la antigua Tlaxcallan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Tlaxcallan: Mesoamerica's Bizarro World" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Este trabajo de investigación se desarrolló en el actual estado de Tlaxcala en un área denominada "El Fuerte", que formó parte del Estado tlaxcalteca en época prehispánica, y se inserta dentro del "Proyecto Arqueológico del Tlaxcallan. Hogares, Terrazas y Gobernanza en el Posclásico Tardío". El presente trabajo es un acercamiento a la...
Embedded Religiousness and the Kotosh Religious Tradition in the Peruvian Highlands: La Seductora (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations at La Seductora identified a circular structure with a central hearth and an underground ventilation shaft. We argue that the structure belongs to the Kotosh Religious Tradition. The KRT tradition dominated the Andean landscape, permeating not only religious interactions but also political and economic ones during the Late Archaic and Formative...
Embodied Identity in the Inka Heartland: A Comparative Bioarchaeological Perspective (2025)
This is an abstract from the "New Advances in Cusco Archaeology: From the Formative to the Late Horizon" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The bioarchaeology of the Central Andes has expanded dramatically since the 1990s, providing nuanced framings of identity, health, labor, conflict, and consumption across ten millennia. Bioarchaeological research in the Cusco region is less prolific compared to others such as the north coast and Titicaca basin,...
The Emergence of a Large Community at Aguada Fénix, Tabasco, Mexico, and Its Legacy (2024)
This is an abstract from the "States, Confederacies, and Nations: Reenvisioning Early Large-Scale Collectives." session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Aguada Fénix features an artificial plateau, which measures 1,400 × 400 m horizontally and 10–15 m vertically. Nine causeways and corridors radiate from the plateau. These monumental constructions were built between 1050 and 750 BC. This building, discovered in 2017, turned out to be the largest...
An Emotional Challenge: What Can We Infer about Capacities for Social Emotions in Archaic Humans? (2018)
Social emotions are central to human social lives, however whilst there has been much discussion about archaic human cognition in terms of analytical capacities, capacities in terms of social emotions are rarely discussed. A 'null hypothesis' of a lack of pro-social motivations is often assumed to be the most rational scientific perspective on how archaic humans felt towards each other. Over recent years accumulating evidence for complex social relationships in archaic humans argues against this...
Energetics Approaches to Early Ceremonial Centers in Highland Peru (1000-500 BCE) (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Social Dynamics in the North Highlands of Peru during the Formative Period: Pacopampa project’s Contribution for Understanding the Early Complex Societies in the Andes" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The late second millennium BCE is characterized by the appearance of several major highland civic-ceremonial centers including, Chavín de Huántar, Canchas Uckro, Pacopampa, Kuntur Wasi, Atalla, and Campanayuq Rumi, among...
Entangled: The Shifting Networks that Linked the Classic Maya of Belize’s Mopan Valley to Adjacent Regions (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. Some Mayanists have eschewed the notion that Classic Maya polities were territorially based, arguing instead that they were constituted through networks of political alliances that were continually reinforced through gifting, diplomacy, and warfare. That idea is our springboard...
Entre la vida cotidiana y el poder: Exploraciones en una terraza domésticas de la primera capital olmeca de San Lorenzo, Veracruz (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Los trabajos pioneros de investigadores como Matthew Stirling y Michael Coe, y, más recientemente, las exhaustivas investigaciones del Proyecto Arqueológico San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán (PASLT) bajo la dirección de Ann Cyphers, consolidaron el reconocimiento de San Lorenzo, Veracruz como la primera capital olmeca. Esta ponencia presenta una nueva fase en la...
Entre los Andes y la Selva: Una aproximación al desarrollo prehispánico en el valle del Alto Upano, Ecuador (2018)
Localizado en la alta amazonía ecuatoriana el entorno geográfico del valle del río Upano acoge una amplia diversidad ecológica y de suelos que, sin duda, resultaron atractivos para los diferentes grupos humanos que se asentaron en la región durante la época prehispánica. Por otra parte la ubicación estratégica hizo que el valle sin duda constituya un nodo importante en la interacción cultural entre los altos valles andinas y las tierras bajas amazónicas. Ambas situaciones fueron favorables para...
Erasing Borders: Integrating the Settlement Hierarchies of Central Belize and the Petén, Guatemala (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. Over the last 18 years, the Department of Conservation and Rescue of Prehispanic Archaeological Sites (DECORSIAP) in Guatemala has carried out extensive systematic surveys of the northeast region of Petén, Guatemala in order to better understand the internal and external...
Esculturas monumentales como herramientas políticas en la sociedad olmeca: Una perspectiva desde el sitio Estero Rabón (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Sculpture of the Ancient Mexican Gulf Coast, Part 1" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Las esculturas olmecas muestran un alto desarrollo estético desde su aparición. Sin embargo, estas esculturas no fueron sólo obras del arte sino también tenían una gran importancia socio-económica en la sociedad olmeca. Por ello, se piensa que estas esculturas monumentales fueron distribuidas por las elites olmecas. El sitio...
An Evaluation of Food during Sociopolitical Transitions at Formative Tres Zapotes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tres Zapotes is an important site in the broader discussion of Olmec cultural continuity and Formative period political economy with an archaeological record that spans the two millennia between 1000 BC and AD 1000. It is a key site for understanding the emergence of Classic period civilization from ancient Olmec roots in Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast...