Quantitative and Spatial Analysis (Other Keyword)

176-187 (187 Records)

Using Ethnoarchaeology to Identify Spatial Patterns of Behavior in Domestic Dogs (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew O'Brien. Todd Surovell. Randy Haas.

Domestic dogs (Canis familaris) are a common presence in nomadic cultures, but archaeology still struggles to identify them in the absence of their faunal remains. What we lack is a means to identify behaviors that manifest themselves in the archaeological record that are in clear association with domestic dogs. One avenue is carnivore modified bone. What experimental studies indicate is that we can isolate patterns of feeding associated with particular carnivores, but what has not been...


Using Event History Methods to Analyze the Diffusion of Dynastic Rituals in Classic Maya Society (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Scholnick. Viviana Amati. Jessica Munson.

This is an abstract from the "Novel Statistical Techniques in Archaeology I (QUANTARCH I)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Diffusion of innovation describes the way novel cultural traits or information spread in a population. Understanding the specific factors that account for the spread of these innovations calls for a multivariate approach. Event history analysis provides a set of statistical methods to explain and predict the occurrence of...


Using Multispectral Drone Imagery for Identification of Prehispanic Agricultural Features (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriela Ore Menendez. Steven A. Wernke.

In recent years, the use of multispectral satellite imagery has become an increasingly viable option for archaeological site detection and classification. Nevertheless, the high costs and relatively low resolution of multispectral data present challenges for local-scale archaeological feature detection. In this presentation, we will examine the advantages and limitations of using UAV aerial multispectral imagery as a means of local-scale feature detection. We compare results of remote sensing...


Using the Neotoma Paleoecology Database for Specimen Level Stable Isotope Data (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Veres. Suzanne Pilaar Birch. Jack Williams. Eric Grimm. Russ Graham.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Neotoma Database (neotomadb.org) functions as an interdisciplinary, open access database for the paleoecology community. Primary data types include proxies such as pollen, vertebrate remains, diatoms, and middens. As stable isotope data become ever more ubiquitous in our study of the past, a new repository within Neotoma has been created, allowing for the...


Volumetric Analysis of Neckless Jars and Bottles in Early Horizon Nepeña, Peru (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Sutherland. David Chicoine.

This contribution explores feasting practices discernible from the pottery assemblage at three Early Horizon archaeological complexes in the lower Nepeña Valley, north-central coast of Peru: Caylán (800 - 1 BCE), a large town or city interpreted as the primary center of a multi-tiered polity; Samanco (500 - 1 BCE), a small coastal town involved in production and exchange of maritime resources; and Huambacho (600 - 200 BCE), a ceremonial center associated with agricultural production. In feasting...


Welcome to the Machine: New Techniques in Predictive Modeling for Improving Data Quality in Zooarchaeology (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Gilmore. Jonathan Dombrosky. Lisa Nagaoka. Steve Wolverton.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Zooarchaeological Methods" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Taxonomic identification is a key goal of faunal analysis, but few controls are in place to ensure data quality. Comparative collections and identification guides offer valuable information; however, the validity of faunal identification can be questioned without assessing each feature’s utility for differentiating taxa. Analysis of biometric...


What Are the Chances? Estimating the Probability of Coincidental Artifact Association with Megafauna Remains (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Madeline Mackie.

There has long been a debate about the frequency of megafauna hunting or dismemberment by early Paleoindians in North America. Proposed megafauna kill sites are heavily scrutinized. Sites which contain limited artifacts, but no projectile points are often discounted or classified as ‘possible’ kill sites due to their limited cultural materials. This begs the question, just how likely (or unlikely) are artifacts to be accidentally associated with megafauna remains? Using a computer model, the...


What’s Shape Got to Do With It? Evaluating the Degree to Which Motion and Material Type Influence Edge Outline of Obsidian Flakes (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Anne Melton. Emily Briggs. Kele Missal.

Often in the study of stone tools, without the application of microarchaeological studies and the presence of microwear, little is left to distinguish how the tool was used originally and what the tool may have been processing. Was it used for scraping? Sawing? Slicing? Was it slicing bone? Scraping animal hide? Is it even possible for archaeologists to discern such behaviors from the tool without having access to definitive microwear traces and/or residues? In this study, we test whether the...


Why Is There Math in My Archaeology? The Modern Foundations of Quantitative Archaeology Written Decades Too Soon (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Loughmiller-Cardinal. James Scott Cardinal.

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. Fifty years ago, what was arguably the most important paper ever written for modern work in quantitative archaeology was published in “American Antiquity.” Unfortunately for its author, and generations of archaeologists, few took notice of it at the time. With few citations, more than half of which have occurred in just...


You’ve Got Tools: Evaluating Comparability Among 3D Lithic Angle Measurement Tools (2023)
DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Anne Melton. Emily Liu. Jeff Calder. Katrina Yezzi-Woodley.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is widely accepted that angle measurements taken on lithic artifacts form a crucial part of lithic analysis. Thanks to advances in 3D-scanning technology, researchers now have virtual angle-measuring options. However, since these new virtual tools were created independently and thus are utilizing their own “suite” of algorithms dependent on the...


Zooarchaeology and Spatial Analysis at Tepe Farukhabad: New Life for Legacy Data (2018)
DOCUMENT Citation Only Polly Burnette-Egan.

This poster presentation presents a reanalysis of legacy faunal material, collected by Henry Wright and the zooarchaeological analysis conducted by Richard Redding, during the 1968 excavation on the Deh Luran Plains in southeastern Iran at the 4th-millennium site Tepe Farukhabad. It behooves all researchers to give more attention to the existing data sets already collected and available for research. In that vein, this study re-evaluates the faunal data sets at Tepe Farkuhabad and looks for...


ZooaRchGUI: Novel Implementations to the Statistical Package for Archaeologists in the R Programming Language (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only John Rapes. Jesse Wolfhagen. Max Price. Erik Otárola-Castillo.

This is an abstract from the "Novel Statistical Techniques in Archaeology I (QUANTARCH I)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of zooarchaeological data illuminates some of the most important and challenging questions in archaeology. Statistical and other quantitative methods are frequently employed to address these questions by evaluating hypotheses with empirical evidence. Such methodologies range from standard "statistical tests" to novel,...