Social and Political Organization (Other Keyword)
151-175 (366 Records)
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. This presentation will focus on the architectural landscape of the Capilla Mound and the Pacopampa Temple, which are part of the Pacopampa archaeological complex. Excavations at the Capilla have revealed elite tombs and...
Genetic Variation and Sociocultural Dynamics in Two Early Christian Cemeteries from Kulubnarti (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient DNA in Service of Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Skeletal remains from two contemporaneous Early Christian Period (550–800 CE) cemeteries at Kulubnarti in Sudanese Nubia have been the subject of a decades-long biocultural research program. Craniometric and dental analyses have suggested biological similarity between members of the "R" and "S" cemetery communities, while analyses of health and...
Geoarchaeological Investigations in the Upper Usumacinta Confluence Zone of the Southern Maya lowlands (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Repositioning Altar de Sacrificios on the Ancient Maya Landscape" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Altar de Sacrificios is situated on a wide alluvial floodplain in a dynamic fluvial environment subject to flooding and channel migration in the Upper Usumacinta Confluence Zone (UUCZ). Mounds in this region often occur in curvilinear groups along past river courses, suggesting ancient habitation followed meandering river...
GINI and the Indigenous Critique: Dynamics of Equality and Inequality in Eastern North America (2023)
This is an abstract from the "To Have and Have Not: A Progress Report on the Global Dynamics of Wealth Inequality (GINI) Project" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we utilize the systemic, empirically driven methodology developed by the Global Dynamics of Wealth Inequality (GINI) project in order to evaluate and compare differences in wealth accumulation for Indigenous eastern North American societies. These societies were predominantly...
The Great Houses of the Mesa Verde Cuesta (2018)
The Mesa Verde uplift has long been noted for its relative lack of great houses, notwithstanding its geographic position between Aztec and the Great Sage Plain. The notable exception has been Farview House, which has great house attributes, but not all regional archaeologists have agreed that it qualified as one. Yet, the Chaco period (950-1150 CE, also known as the Pueblo II period) was of the densest periods of occupation on the Mesa Verde uplift, which at that time also had a higher...
Greeks in the Mountains: New Insights on the Landscapes of Ancient Greek ‘Colonization’ in Calabria, Southern Italy (2018)
This paper investigates the political and economic landscapes of Greek ‘colonization’, using as a case study the upland and lowland landscapes investigated by survey and excavation by the Bova Marina Archaeological Project. The study region lies between two neighbouring ancient Greek city-states, Rhegion and Locri Epizephyrii, established in the late 8th-7th century BCE. Ancient classical texts present a picture of deep, long-term hostility between them, as well as with the indigenous...
Green Acres: The Valle de Yaxhom and Puuc Prehistory (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project: 25 Years of Research in the Puuc" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It has long been recognized that the two principal physiographic subdivisions of the Puuc are the wedge-shaped Valle de Sta. Elena, just south of the Puuc escarpment, and to its south, the Bolonchen Hill District. One goal of the PARB project was to explore the eastern manifestations of these two regions for...
Heart of an Ancient Maya City: Investigations of the Central E Group at Yaxnohcah, Campeche, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient Maya E Groups were important loci of sociopolitical continuity, sociocultural change, and social memory across millennia of lowland Maya civilization. As sustained generational foci of sociopolitical machinations and social memory, the built environment and significance of E Groups would have been continuously generationally reformulated to meet...
A Hierarchical Bayesian Approach for Estimating Gini Coefficients from House Floor Area: A Case Study from Prehistoric Japan (2023)
This is an abstract from the "To Have and Have Not: A Progress Report on the Global Dynamics of Wealth Inequality (GINI) Project" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Robust quantitative measures of wealth inequality are pivotal for investigating long-term social and economic changes from a comparative perspective. Notwithstanding criticisms on its reliability as a proxy of wealth inequality, the application of Gini coefficients on house size data has...
Historias de pukaras: Trayectorias locales y diversidad en dos asentamientos de la precordillera del Desierto de Atacama durante el Período Intermedio Tardío y Tardío (900-1532 dC) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Abordamos el fenómeno de los pukara durante los períodos Intermedio Tardío y Tardío (900-1532 dC) en la región de Tarapacá del Norte Grande de Chile, a partir del registro arquitectónico y cerámico de dos pukara ubicados en una misma localidad en la precordillera del Desierto de Atacama. Estos asentamientos muestran usos y formas de habitar con...
Historic Evidence of Social, Economic, and Gender Issues at Petrified Forest National Park: Variability in the Archaeological Signature of Historic Homesteads (2018)
The archaeological "wealth" in Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO) of Northeastern Arizona is not isolated to the well-known Ancestral Puebloan populations, but similarly includes Historic peoples. The westward expansion of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Northern Arizona represents a time of clashing cultures and a period of uncertainty combined with untold risks and rewards. Along the Rio Puerco in and near PEFO are five homesteads from this period that display different and unique...
History in the Round: Painted Cylinder Vases as Sources on Classic Maya Society and Politics (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Rollout Keepers: Papers on Maya Ceramic Texts, Scenes, and Styles in Honor of Justin and Barbara Kerr" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The cylinder vessel paintings assembled in the Kerr Archive cover a remarkable range of themes, with many of the best-known depicting fantastical beasts and other supernatural actors. But a not insignificant portion of the corpus features scenes of courtly performance and, as a...
House Society Models in Anthropological and Archaeological Theory: Chaco Canyon and the Prehispanic American Southwest. (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Kin, Clan, and House: Social Relatedness in the Archaeology of North American Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years, a growing number of archaeologists have explored the potential of expanding Lévi-Strauss’s concept of "house societies" to better understand local as well as regional development sequences. In this paper, I draw on the work of cultural anthropologists as well as archaeologists to...
How to Avoid Getting Stuck: Hierarchy, Heterarchy, and Anarchy in Southern California (2024)
This is an abstract from the "In Defense of Everything! Constructive Engagements with Graeber and Wengrow’s Provocative Contribution" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Precolonial California was home to some of the highest degrees of linguistic and cultural diversity seen in human history. This rich variability provides an excellent example for scholars to compare historical trajectories to understand how different societies developed along different...
How Unusual Is the Trajectory of Precolumbian Social Change in San Ramón, Costa Rica among the Trajectories of Chiefdom Development? A Comparison Exercise (2024)
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. Recent literature on comparative archaeology has pointed out the need for systematic comparisons of trajectories of social change that use primary quantitative data and standardized variables. This type of comparison has the potential to discover and explore the diversity and complexity in the...
Huanca Stone and Ancestor Veneration at Cerro San Isidro, Middle Nepeña Valley, Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "After the Feline Cult: Social Dynamics and Cultural Reinvention after Chavín" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Moro region of the middle Nepeña Valley, on the western slopes of the north-central Peruvian Andes, the fifth century BCE marked a major social crisis, perhaps best seen in endemic armed conflicts, unfinished monumental buildings, and the demise of Chavín-related artistic programs. In this balkanized...
Identifying Elite Maya Residential Spaces: Distribution of Polychrome Potter across the Maya City of El-Peru Waka' (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rediscovered in the 1960s by petroleum workers in modern day Petén, Guatemala, the ancestral Maya city of El Peru-Waka’ has been the subject of archaeological investigation since 2003. Located at the crossroads of two major trade routes and with a dynasty fully engaged in the geopolitics of Classic period, Waka’ is one of the longest surviving Maya cities...
Identifying Late Classic Political, Economic, and Cultural Affiliations at Pacbitun, Belize (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. For the ancient Maya of Pacbitun, the onset of the Late Classic period (AD 550-800) signifies a time of exponential site growth and heightened prosperity. While this florescence is evident in the archaeological record, recent studies have begun to demonstrate that this affluence...
Identifying Strategies of Integration and Cooperation during the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000–1480) at Sangayaico, South-Central Andes, Peru (2018)
The Late Intermediate Period (LIP) in the highlands of the Central Peruvian Andes was characterized by a marked intensification in economic specialization. In contrast to the preceding periods, in which mixed agro-pastoral groups appear to have dominated highland Peru, many LIP populations seem to have adopted increasingly specialized pastoral or agricultural strategies. This increased economic specialization would likely have fostered inter-group cooperation, as subsistence generally required...
Identifying the First Public and Domestic Constructions at Pacbitun, Belize (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Investigations in Plazas A and B of the site core at Pacbitun indicate that initial occupation began in the early Middle Preclassic period (900–600 BC). At this time, a small agricultural community was established in Plaza B beginning with a few domestic structures built just above bedrock. These early domiciles would also function as workshops for the...
Identity and Territory in the Sacred Valley During Inka State Formation (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 Late Intermediate Period (LIP, ca. 1000–1400 CE) was a time of accelerated sociopolitical change. In the Cusco region, culturally diverse populations engaged in dynamic interaction networks and were implicated in macro-level processes of political centralization. Over recent decades, scholars have reframed...
The Importance of Specialized Use Sites in the Settlement History of Iceland (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Climate and Heritage in the North Atlantic: Burning Libraries" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sandvík, located in the Westfjords of Iceland, seems to have been a seasonally utilized site focused primarily on winter fishing and fish processing. The site is situated directly on the coast, quite near to the main farm of Bær, and dates to very early in the settlement period of Iceland, which began around AD 877. Even...
Importance of U-2 Aerial Imagery of Iron Age Cities in the Middle East (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With this research, I hope to digitally reproduce the high-resolution U-2 photographs by specially processing my photographs of the imagery using photogrammetic methods, such as Agisoft Metashape to produce 3D surface models. With these models, I will deduce what implications the structures and features visible in the imagery and models have in association...
In search of submerged Late Glacial prehistoric coastal occupations in the Western Channel: the contribution of acoustic detection of flint assemblages (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. Research into late glacial communities in western France has made great progress in the last twenty years. In addition to being able to characterize the technical and symbolic systems of the various prehistoric communities that succeeded one...
Incipient Pottery Practices and Divergent Complexities in the Late Archaic Southeast (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Complex Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers of North America" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pottery technology has long played a central role in evolutionary narratives of early complex societies, most often through its perceived link to other cultural benchmarks such as sedentism, farming, and regionalization. Archaeological research over the past few decades, however, has largely discredited simplistic and monolithic accounts...