Social and Political Organization (Other Keyword)
51-75 (261 Records)
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...
Current Research on Early Social Change in the Utcubamba Basin (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 contrast to a long history of study of the Late Intermediate period societies of the Utcubamba Basin, research focusing on pre-Middle Horizon social change has only begun within the last 10 years. In this paper we examine existing literature from early archaeological contexts and introduce findings from our...
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...
Dentition, Kinship, and Status in the Mopan-Macal Triangle: Small-Sample Insights into Classic Maya Social Organization in Central Western Belize (2018)
Classic Maya social status is more complex than an elite verses non-elite dichotomy. Research suggests that a "middle" status group exists. However, the social segment from which they arise is unknown. This study focuses on individuals from the urban center of Buenavista del Cayo who are below the ruling elites in the "middle" rungs of social status, and those from the neighboring farming community of Guerra who are recognized as nonelites. Previous research suggested that no biological affinity...
Design Analysis, Social Identity and Ancestral Pueblo Migration: Southwest Colorado to Northern New Mexico (2018)
Between PIII and PIV the Southwest saw the largest shift in population from the Mesa Verde region (SW Colorado) to the Northern Rio Grande (N. New Mexico). Traces of this migration are difficult to identify in material culture, but Pueblo oral traditions document the migration from the North and discuss two moieties: summer and winter. My research aims to understand dual division within Pueblo society and whether summer and winter moieties can be referenced through ceramic designs before and...
The Development of Sociopolitical Complexity among Chumash Hunter-Gatherer-Fishers on California’s Northern Channel Islands (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. The Chumash of the Santa Barbara Channel region of southern California are well known among archaeologists for developing complex sociopolitical systems within a hunter-gatherer-fisher subsistence system. This includes the advent of both hereditary high-status leaders and craft specialization in the form of shell bead and stone drill...
Diamonds in the Rough: What Do the Sculpture Fragments Discovered in the Teotihuacan Mapping Project/Ground Stone Collection Tell Us about the Social Organization of the City? (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Teotihuacan: Multidisciplinary Research on Mesoamerica's Classic Metropolis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of sculpture at Teotihuacan—as at many other sites—has traditionally focused on larger, more elaborate sculptures from civic-ceremonial contexts. As a result, less is known about the distribution, ubiquity, and diversity of the use of sculpture in other contexts and, specifically, what relation it has...
Dinámica cultural durante el Formativo Inferior y Medio en la Cuenca de México: Tlatilco y Tlapacoya (2018)
Dos de los sitios más relevantes en el Centro de México durante el Formativo Inferior y Medio fueron Tlatilco y Tlapacoya, los que presentan una gran riqueza cultural. Sin embargo, la relación entre ellos y la función que tuvieron en su época son grandes interrogantes que aún persisten; esta revaloración será abordada a través de la revisión y comparación de sus materiales arqueológicos (cerámica y figurillas), incluyendo los de otros sitios ubicados tanto dentro, como fuera de la Cuenca de...
Disease Ecology of Human Treponematoses in the Southwest US/Northwest Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human treponemal diseases (yaws, endemic syphilis, and venereal syphilis) have a long and storied past in the North American Desert West, with the earliest case dating back roughly 1,500 years. The identification of lesions associated with treponemal disease at two Cienega phase (400 BCE–50 CE) sites in southern Arizona and northern Sonora, however, move...
Dispersed Centrality: A Ceremonial Organization Underpinning Hohokam Platform Mound Ceremonialism (2019)
This is an abstract from the "WHY PLATFORM MOUNDS? PART 1: MOUND DEVELOPMENT AND CASE STUDIES" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The period between the collapse of the ballcourt system (ca. A.D. 1070) and the formalization of Civano phase platform mounds (ca. A.D. 1300) has long perplexed Hohokam scholars. Before and after this period, members of Hohokam society gathered together at centralized locations to participate in and observe public...
Diversity in Southern Central America: Exploring Late Aguas Buenas / Early Chiriqui Period Sites in the Diquís Subregion (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. 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...