Social and Political Organization (Other Keyword)
26-50 (261 Records)
This is an abstract from the "What Happened after the Fall of Teotihuacan?" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Toward the end of the sixth century AD, a great fire destroyed the ceremonial center of Teotihuacan, capital of the largest urban development in Mesoamerica. This event was the culmination of a long process of disintegration of Teotihuacan’s macroregional system, a process that began during the ancient city’s apogee. This presentation will...
Beyond the Big Picture: An integrative Paleogenomic study to address regional dynamics and political organization in the Peruvian Moche Culture (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. The genomic revolution opened up new dimensions for paleogenomic research, inconceivable only a decade ago. However, with a primary focus on big-picture population genetics like large-scale migration events, paleogenetics also became somewhat removed from problem-based archaeological research questions with a regional focus, addressing issues such...
Beyond the Household: The Evolution of Nonresidential Organizations During the Southwest Neolithic (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. The basic building blocks of human communities are residential groups held together by ties of kinship. As communities increase in number and size during the Neolithic, residential kinship groups persist, of course, but new institutions may emerge that draw their members from multiple residential...
Beyond the Knossian State: Urban Economy and Society at the East Cretan Site of Palaikastro (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. In scholarship on the Bronze Age Aegean, there is a robust conjunction of palace, town, and state. If we take the case of Knossos, then the presumed central authority represented by its palatial complex, and its surrounding town covering 100 ha, are generally thought to imply an associated territory under...
A Bioarcheological Study of a Trepanation Case with Special Reference to the Medical Care System during the Western Zhou Dynasty China (1045–771 BCE) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Therapeutic craniotomy is a kind of artificial trepanation used for treating head injuries. In this study, a skull with signs of trauma and trepanation from a young adult female who lived 3,000 years ago was assessed in the context of medical care systems and a policy of benevolence during the time. A blunt force assault on the left temporal bone induced a...
Blazing New Trails: Rethinking the Extent of the Ancestral Pueblo Road Network in the Northern San Juan Region (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Historically, research on prehistoric roads in the southwest has been heavily focused on Chaco and the San Juan Basin, however, these enigmatic anomalies extend into the Central and Western Mesa Verde Regions as well. LiDAR data for the Four Corners area has made it possible to peer through the trees and shrubs of the Great Sage Plain and observe the...
Blending Traditions: A History of Collaborative Prehistoric Research in the Carpathian Basin (2018)
The past two decades have seen a remarkable increase in the number of joint prehistoric archaeological research programs of US and local scholars in Eastern Europe. These collaborative projects are featured by the innovative blend of profoundly different theoretical and methodological traditions. In our introductory paper to the session, with a focus on the Carpathian Basin, we illustrate similarities and differences in North American and Eastern European perspectives and approaches to explore...
Bottom-Up Data on Sociopolitical Complexity in Ancient Samoa (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Supporting Practical Inquiry: The Past, Present, and Future Contributions of Thomas Dye" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Explanations of sociopolitical complexity are often linked to competition over the control of resources and changes in resource structure, including productivity, predictability, distribution, and other characteristics. These explanations also reference variables of human demography and the...
Building a Frontier? Preliminary Investigations into a Late Preclassic Maya Triadic Temple Group (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For the ancient Maya, the second century B.C. was a period of growth and consolidation; populations boomed, and a common set of cultural ideas spread across the Maya Lowlands. This expansion of ideas is evident in the widespread presence of chicanel ceramics, the spread of a unified Late Preclassic figural style found on mural and carved monuments, and in the...
Building Back Past Diné Communities: Ricos, Pobres, and Naat’aanii Status in Pericolonial New Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Property Regimes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the mid-1900s, American anthropologists characterized Diné society as a four-tiered social organizational structure with “natural communities” at the highest level. Often referred to as regional “bands,” these geographically defined, economically self-sufficient, multifamily social entities were loosely organized under the nominal leadership of...
Building Bronze Age Populations of the South Caucasus: Preliminary Bioarchaeological Results from the Kasakh Valley Archaeological Survey (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The South Caucasus Region: Crossroads of Societies & Polities. An Assessment of Research Perspectives in Post-Soviet Times" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bioarchaeological analysis of human remains excavated by Project ArAGATS in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Armenia has allowed for a unique view onto Bronze Age life and has offered a glimpse into the lived experience of populations constituting early complex polities....
Cakhay: A Strategic Classic Center in the Kaq’chik’el Maya Area (2018)
Archaeological survey of Cakhay, the largest Classic site (200-800 A.D.) in the Maya Kaq’chik’el area, was carried out in 2017 by the Proyecto Arqueológico del Área Kaq’chik’el (PAAK). The goal of the survey was to determine the limits of the site and survey its periphery. Reconnaissance of 20 sq km found that populations were nucleated on the hillside surrounding the defensive and religious center with some look out sites in the periphery. Within the center and the nucleus of the site,...
Can we define a British Iron Age? (2018)
The Iron Age in Britain has traditionally been seen as a period of hierarchical, warrior-based, Celtic societies, characterised by hillforts, defended settlements and elaborate weaponry. The dominant interpretive models have emanated from Wessex – that area of central southern England where the largest and most impressive hillforts are found. In recent decades, however, archaeologists have increasingly recognised the marked regional differences inherent in Iron Age societies across different...
Canas, Canchis and Cuzco: What Was the Scale of Community Allegiance in the LIP? (2018)
The Inca encountered the Canas and Canchis ethnic groups when they expanded out of Cuzco. Canas sites in the herding areas of Espinar show larger scale and more developed settlements than most of those in their agricultural region of the upper Vilcanota Valley. This raises questions about the scale of ‘community’ (village, kinship group, subsistence group, ethnic group). But to address this we need to consider the degree to which allegiance to leaders, ancestors and huacas as well as the...
Capitalizing on GINI (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. The CfAS’s Inequality Project focuses on economic inequality, a feature of modern society that has attracted both increasing public concern and growing historical and social research because of its critical implications for individual, national, and global well-being. The Inequality...
Care and the Disregard of Care in Medieval Ireland (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mind the Gap: Exploring Uncharted Territories in Medieval European Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years, bioarchaeologists have become interested in developing archaeologies of care. Their goal is to articulate evidence of disease/trauma/impairment on skeletons with social processes that shape healthcare and other forms of assistance. Realizing the full potential of this perspective requires...
Casas Grandes Culture in the Sierra Madre of Sonora (2019)
This is an abstract from the "25 Years in the Casas Grandes Region: Celebrating Mexico–U.S. Collaboration in the Gran Chichimeca" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation will summarize results from ongoing research on the late prehistoric period of the Sonoran Sierra Madre. Thus far, investigations focused on the Sahuaripa and Fronteras valleys. These valleys are approximately equidistant from Paquimé at 185 and 165 km, respectively. In...
Ceramic and starch grain evidence and the social factors behind pan-Amazonian occupation processes ca. 3,500 BP (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human agroforestry and landscaping practices in the Amazon Forest are now well-accepted phenomena among Amazonian archaeologists. Along the Amazon River, the oldest evidence of visible landscape modifications is largely associated with contexts in which pottery from the Pocó-Açutuba Tradition is identified, from 3,500 years BP. This tradition, in...
Charismatic and Religious Aspects of Maya Rulership: An Interpretation of the Coronitas Temple Complex of La Corona (2018)
The Coronitas Group at La Corona presents a unique architectural setting, consisting of five pyramidal temples aligned in a north-south row and several attached structures. Excavations in this group have been carried out since the beginning of the project, providing important data concerning the function of these temples throughout the site’s occupation. A detailed chronological analysis has shown that this architectural complex was one of the main ceremonial areas of the site, evinced by not...
Chibchan Enlightenment (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. This presentation explores interpretations of past Indigenous political complexity in the Isthmo-Colombian Area. The paper argues that a preoccupation with hierarchy carries unforeseen consequences for the epistemology of the area and proposes a critique; that the various societies of the area...
Children of Casas Grandes: A Molecular Examination of Subadults at Convento and Paquimé (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bioarchaeological research has played a significant role in understanding the Casas Grandes region of Northwest Mexico. Excavations at the archaeological sites of Convento and Paquimé recovered at least 652 burials dating to AD 700–1450, providing a robust skeletal population for investigations, including research on population demographics, patterns of...
Classic Maya Wahys: What, Who, Where, and Why? (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 Kerr cataloging project at Dumbarton Oaks is creating opportunities to re-examine iconographic motifs and hieroglyphic texts on Maya pottery. One avenue in which this has been fruitful is the analysis of vessels depicting wahy creatures. In modern communities, ways are powerful...
Comercio y cultura en El Tajín de los primeros años del Epiclásico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Movement of People and Ideas in Eastern Mesoamerica during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries CE: A Multidisciplinary Approach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La historia de los primeros años del Epiclásico (ca. 750-850 dC) en El Tajín, Veracruz, no es sólo la historia de esta antigua ciudad. Hay toda una serie de factores que participan de ella en distintos momentos de su desarrollo cultural. Varios de ellos se...
A Commons Approach to Violence and Inequity: Public goods, Enchaining, and the Reconstitution of the Shang Kingdom under Wu Ding (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. In Chinese archaeology the question of how large-scale political collectives came into being is usually understood under the rubric of “state formation.” In addition to the issue of the potential reification of an anachronism in the state concept, early complex polities are generally imagined in terms of...
Community Formation through Movement: Focal Nodes and Community Landscapes of the Mopan River Valley, Belize (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Manifesting Movement Materially: Broadening the Mesoamerican View" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Movement is often implicitly assumed when exploring the ancient makeup of communities. We conceptualize movement at different scales of interaction – at the hyperlocal through households, as well as between and across communities, polities, and landscapes. Here, I will explore how movement to/from focal nodes on a...