Social and Political Organization (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Keith Eppich.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wendy Bacon.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kellam J. Throgmorton.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Palomares.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Davide Zori. Colleen Zori. Veronica Ikeshoji-Orlati. Deirdre Fulton.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only José Echeverría-Almeida.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mauricio Cuevas. Lourdes Budar.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jocelyne Ponce. Francisco Pérez.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Iziar Martínez Rojo. Serafín Sánchez Pérez. Lane Fargher.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christian Mesia-Montenegro. Angel Sanchez-Borjas.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Takeshi Inomata.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Penny Spikins. Gail Hitchens.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason Yaeger. M. Kathryn Brown.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Estanislao Pazmiño.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jean Larmon. Vilma Fialko. Lisa Lucero.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hirokazu Kotegawa.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victoria Newhall. Amber VanDerwarker. Christopher Pool.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Perez.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Social complexity in pre-Hispanic societies within the North American Southwest has been studied through a variety of research avenues. Among the Virgin Branch people within the Moapa Valley of southern Nevada, archaeologists have pursued this topic through the study of architecture, burials and associated grave goods, and exchange networks. Among Virgin...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Perez.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of the Virgin Branch Puebloan Region" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Social complexity in prehispanic societies within the North American Southwest has been studied through a variety of research avenues. Among the Virgin Branch people within the Moapa Valley of southern Nevada, archaeologists have pursued this topic through the study of architecture, burials and associated grave goods, and exchange...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rissa Trachman. J. Alex Canterbury.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The current research in the Dos Hombres civic ceremonial center utilizes the lens of "everyday life" in order to understand the internal ritual, economic, social, and ideological activities of this ancient city, as well as how it interacted with the surrounding household hinterlands, and the socio-political and economic role this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tekla Schmaus. Bryan Hanks. David Reich. Margaret Judd. Andrei Epimakhov.

This is an abstract from the "From the Altai to the Arctic: New Results and New Directions in the Archaeology of North and Inner Asia" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient DNA studies have increased exponentially in recent years and have had tremendous impact on our understanding of early genomic patterning in many regions of the world. The vast Eurasian steppe zone has not been overlooked in these important breakthroughs. Several recent studies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Walden. Michael Biggie. Victoria Izzo. Julie Hoggarth. Rafael Guerra.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Traditionally anthropologists envisioned ritual as playing a functional role in the formation and ongoing cohesion of ancient complex societies. More recent perspectives consider ritual to represent a powerful tool of resistance, and therefore pivotal not just to the integration, but also the disintegration of polities. Situations in which a higher order...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victoria Poston. Maria Belen Mendez Bauer.

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 site of Tiradero is located next to the San Pedro River, a distributary of the Usumacinta River, in Tabasco, Mexico and contains evidence of occupation during the Late Preclassic and Terminal Classic periods. At the site, a Middle Formative Chiapas E-Group pattern is consistent with those...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Berrey.

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. The early complex societies of Central America and northern South America were once widely recognized for their organizational and cultural diversity. Since that time, greater emphasis has been placed on their shared cultural traits, as revealed through genetic and linguistic data and patterns...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dan Lawrence. Valentina Tumolo. Pertev Basri.

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. Investigating how different forms of inequality arose and were sustained is key to understanding the emergence of complex social systems, and archaeology has much to contribute to this discussion. In this paper we investigate inequality in ancient Southwest Asia using a variety of proxies...