Social and Political Organization (Other Keyword)
26-50 (202 Records)
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Community Structure in Times of Stress and Change: Communal Dining in the Northern Southwest (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of community connections becomes ever more important as our current society faces challenges brought on by advancements in technology, unprecedented health crises, and a changing global climate. By studying community events in the past, we can begin to examine the impact of community structure during times of stress and change. This paper presents...
Community Ways and Historical Paths in Brazilian Southern Coast (5000–600 BP) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. By presenting isotopic (87Sr/86Sr, d15N, and d13C) data from human bones buried in shell-matrix sites (sambaquis) in Southern Brazil, this paper discusses how different ways of community coordination and organization can lead to alternative historical paths.
Complexity, Rituality, and the Origins of Paquimé (Casas Grandes), Chihuahua (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological investigations in the prehispanic American Southwest/Northwest Mexico region have provided rich insight into the development of sociopolitically complex polities in the Phoenix Basin, Chaco Canyon, Rio Grande valley, and northwestern Chihuahua. In all of these places, sociopolitical complexity is linked to the development of and elite control...
A Computational Approach to Initial Social Complexity: Göbekli Tepe and Neolithic Polities in Urfa Region, Upper Mesopotamia, Tenth Millennium BC (2018)
Extensive archaeological field work and multidisciplinary research in recent decades shows that communities of sedentary hunter-gatherers during the tenth millenium BC built the earliest presently known monumental structures during the PPNA (ca. 9600–8800 BC) at the ceremonial site of Göbekli Tepe and nearby PPNB settlement sites in present-day Urfa province, southeastern Turkey. However, the earliest evidence of agriculture dates to a later period (early PPNB, ca. 8750 BC, terminus post quem)...
Conflict, Spatial Organization and Group Identity during the Late Intermediate Period in the Bolivian Southern Altiplano (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond the Round House: Spatial Logic and Settlement Organization across the Late Andean Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Late Intermediate Period, the Southern Altiplano region was characterized by the presence of conflict and fortified settlements. These societies have been described as having a corporate leadership, linked to a founding ancestor, which granted them privileged access to...
Constructing a Colony: Investigating Stress from Endogenous Cortisol in Archaeological Hair from a Lupaqa Colony at Estuquiña (2018)
Using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to obtain segmented cortisol levels, these cortisol levels can reconstruct periods of heightened month-to-month duress leading up to death. Segmented cortisol levels provide a more nuanced understanding of stress variation through biocultural change and lived experiences in antiquity. This study aims to reconstruct periods of duress through assaying endogenous cortisol in archaeological hair (n=11) from the site of Estuquiña and investigate the...
Constructing the Social Fabric of a Community: Household Service Relationships to the Ceren Village (2018)
Volcanic preservation allows for detailed reconstructions of a variety of social relationships and material boundaries at Ceren. Service relationships are inferred from proximity of households associated with special-function structures, such as the religious complex, the sauna and the community governance center. These data show a social function of providing service relationships from each household to the community. Socioeconomic functions are also evident in the form of other...
Contextualizing the “Tuxtla” Statuette: Epi-Olmec Writing and Representation in Tres Zapotes, Veracruz, Mexico and Its Hinterland (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Coffee, Clever T-Shirts, and Papers in Honor of John S. Justeson" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The greenstone figure known as the Tuxtla Statuette is significant as one of 12 objects with an Epi-Olmec text, and the first to be described in the scholarly literature. For over a century it was misidentified as having been recovered from the Sierra de los Tuxtlas, near the town of San Andrés Tuxtla, Veracruz. The author...
Continuities and Discontinuities in a Thousand Year Old Fishing Village on Huanchaco Bay, North Coast of Peru: The Pampa la Cruz Case (2018)
Traditionally, Andean archaeologists label residential settlements as "Salinar" or "Moche" and automatically assumed they "belong" to a particular society/culture. Since 2010, I have been excavating multiple sites around Huanchaco bay, located in the littoral of the Moche Valley, North Coast of Peru. One particularity of this coastline is that there is still an active group of fishermen exploiting the sea resources using traditional technology. The continuity between the earliest occupation...
Core-Hinterland dynamics in New Zealand Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept of ‘hinterland’ encompasses ideas of distance, marginality and challenge and is often contrasted with ‘core’, which in turn implies centrality and resource richness. In this paper we address the applicability of both these concepts in New Zealand and examine their role in understanding long-term Maori history. We suggest that high...
Creating a Case for a Classic Period Provincial Polity at Pacbitun, Belize (2018)
The Late Classic period (AD 550 – 800) at Pacbitun, Belize brought about heightened prosperity evinced in a surge of architectural development and an increase in precious exotic materials. However, despite continued growth, by the close of the Late Classic Pacbitun’s affluence appears to have diminished considerably. To the north, settlements of the Belize River Valley also seemingly undergo a concomitant florescence and economic decline. Research suggests the pecuniary instability of the Belize...
De Facto Refuse, Termination Deposits, and Abandonment Processes: Contextualizing the "Problematical" (2018)
Archaeologists working in the Maya area frequently find dense deposits of artifacts that are classified ‘terminal deposits,’ ‘final deposits,’ or ‘problematical deposits’. These classifications may accurately reflect a deposit’s stratigraphic placement, but ultimately mask or even misrepresent the diverse social behaviors which led to the creation of such deposits. Excavations in the courtyard in front of Structure B-6 at Xunantunich, Belize, exposed a dense deposit of artifacts. Through...
De Tepeticpac, a Tlaxcallan, a Tlaxcala: el forje del estado tlaxcalteca del Posclásico tardío (1250-1519 d.C.) a la Colonia temprana (1519-1600 d.C.) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology and Material Culture of the Spanish Invasion of Mesoamerica and Forging of New Spain" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El contacto entre tlaxcaltecas y españoles en 1519 inicio un periodo de cambios fundamentales en las relaciones de poder entre los altepemeh del altiplano central mesoamericano. Para Tlaxcallan, la alianza representó una oportunidad para sortear los problemas políticos, bélicos y económicos...
Deciphering the Dairy Site: Settlement Dynamics and Early Hohokam Developments (2018)
The Dairy site is a long-lived prehistoric locality situated at the juncture of the Tortolita Mountains piedmont and the Santa Cruz River floodplain north of Tucson, Arizona. Although the site has yielded important evidence of early Hohokam settlement and cultural developments, the sporadic nature of investigations, the lack of data from early fieldwork, and the destruction of significant portions of the site by the original Shamrock Dairy operation provide substantial challenges to...
Defining the Organization of Middle Sicán (Peru) Governance (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. What do the multiplicity and coexistence of monumental mounds commonly called huacas at a single site represent about group(s) that built them? Do these huacas symbolize distinct, unrelated (in terms of kinship), competing sociopolitical groups or, conversely, related, multiple lineages, or something else? These questions guide our ongoing research at the...