Coastal and Island Archaeology (Other Keyword)
101-125 (277 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies I: Stratification and Correlation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Marquesas Islands comprise part of East Polynesia, a culture area that also includes Hawai'i, New Zealand, and Tahiti. Calcareous sand dunes are rare in the Marquesas but play an outsized role in Polynesian archaeology. Dune sites yield remarkably rich evidence of human settlement and the preservation of organic remains is...
From Frog to Bat: The Extraordinary Bestiary of the Pre-Columbians from the Caribbean (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Intangible Dimensions of Food in the Caribbean Ancient and Recent Past" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Zooarchaeological studies bring information on the history of the vertebrate faunas during the last 30000 years and especially on their relationships with human activities since 5000 years in the Lesser Antilles. In such an oceanic island environment, the Pre-Columbians have mainly exploited animals from the...
From Shore to Mountain: Insights into Resource Selection and Processing along the Central California Coast (2018)
Salvage excavations conducted in the 1970s at the Red, White, and Blue Beach site (CA-SCR-35), located in northern Santa Cruz County on the central California coast on Monterey Bay, recovered a large and diverse vertebrate faunal assemblage with a well-defined Middle Period (2800–900 cal BP) component. Few faunal assemblages from this area of the Central Coast have been thoroughly analyzed and little is known about resource selection and processing during this time. I use archaeofaunal data from...
Front-Loading Backfilling: Site Stabilization of a Cliffside Shell Midden at l’akayamu (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present the design of a sampling project at one of the three archaeological sites composing the Late/Historic village of l’akayamu on limuw (Santa Cruz Island, California). We developed our methods with two goals: first, to support effective site stabilization post-excavation; second, to recover fragile artifacts eroding from a sea cliff while...
The Function of Woodland Period Shell Rings as Seen at the Mound Field Site (8WA8) (2018)
What purpose did Woodland period shell rings along the Gulf Coast of Florida hold? These unique architectural features have been explained as specific patterns of trash disposal, protection against flooding events, and as barriers from intruders, among other things, but no answers have stood to truly explain their proliferation and significance during the Woodland period. Recent excavations in 2015 by Dr. Mike Russo (National Park Service) and in 2016 by Dr. Tanya Peres (Florida State...
Gardens in the Aleutian Islands: Landscape Management by Unangan/Unangas Ancestors (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prehistoric large village midden sites in the Aleutian Islands provide soil chemistry and drainage environments optimal for the growth of plants that feature prominently in Unangan/Unangas traditional subsistence. Previous interpretations view this as fortuitous and non-deliberate. We argue that evidence suggests instead that plants useful in subsistence and...
Genetic and ZooMS Identification of Marine Mammal Bone from Norse Sites in Iceland and Greenland: Insights into Historic Ecology and Norse Economies (2018)
Evidence from Arctic and North Atlantic archaeological sites shows marine mammals were frequently used by Norse settlers in Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Archaeofaunal assemblages often yield a wealth of complete bones, however, species-level identification is not possible for heavily fragmented specimens. Therefore, specific details about marine mammal utilization are often unquantified and marine species identification largely remains unverified. This paper reveals utility of ZooMS...
Geoarchaeological Insights from a Late Pleistocene–Terminal Holocene Site on Isla Cedros, Baja California (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Far West Paleoindian Archaeology: Papers from the Next Generation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Current geoarchaeological investigations of the Cerro Pedrogoso (Rocky Hill) site on Isla Cedros, Baja California, seek to provide a context for a Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene human occupation along the Pacific coast. Here, a rich assemblage of artifacts signals the presence of maritime coastal adaptations from at...
Geoarchaeological Prospection for Late Pleistocene Deposits in the Paleo-Tahkenitch River Valley, Oregon Coast (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology from Western North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological record of the paleo-Tahkenitch River valley, situated on the Oregon coast, spans the early to late Holocene. Previous work at the Tahkenitch Landing site (35CS43) has demonstrated human response to postglacial marine transgression, transitioning from an inland river valley to a productive estuary in the early Holocene to a...
Geomorphological Development and Implications for Human Settlement of Southern Yap, Western Caroline Islands (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human population dispersals across Remote Oceania were some of the most remarkable long-distance voyages in history. Recent collaborative research focused on the timing, drivers, and complexities of these voyages has led to an increased understanding of these movements, but many questions still remain unanswered. This is especially true for Yap, a group of...
Geophysical and Archaeological Explorations of the Center of the Creighton Island Shell Ring (9MC87), Georgia, USA (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Creighton Island Shell Ring (9MC87) is one of several Late Archaic shell rings, circular or “U”- shaped deposits of shell and soil, in coastal Georgia. Radiocarbon dates suggest the shell ring was constructed in at least two phases: constructed initially around 2000–1810 BC, and ceasing around 1920-1730 BC, indicating rapid construction and slightly...
GIS Approaches to Modeling the Shifting Andean Coastline through the Holocene (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The long-term study of changing social and ecological patterns along the Andean coastal strip throughout the Holocene requires the identification of archaeological sites and their data of various ages. The presence of a broad continental shelf offshore of much of the Peruvian Andes has meant that early sites on this shelf have been inundated by early Holocene...
The Greater Chiriquí Fringes: A Perspective from the Coiba National Park Islands on the Pacific Coast of Panama (2018)
The islands of the Coiba National Park (CNP) are located on the continental platform of Panama and the southeastern fringes of the Greater Chiriquí cultural region. During the period of the earliest human migrations to the isthmus (ca. 13,000 - 10,000 a.P.) these islands were connected to the mainland, although the current state of research cannot provide evidence of being inhabited earlier than ca. 1800 B.P. Multidisciplinary research aimed to study the long-term impacts of human on the insular...
High-Resolution Geophysical Characterization of Geology and Acoustic Water Column Signatures in Willamette Valley Reservoirs, Oregon, USA (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Inland flood-control reservoirs represent a novel analog for studying submerged terrestrial landscapes. The same scale and time-independent processes that impact coastal environments through sea-level changes are also produced through a reservoir’s annual draft and fill cycles. Within these...
The Hippos Who Would Not Die: Akrotiri Aetokremnos, Cyprus, and a Scientific Dilemma (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Akrotiri Aetokremnos, a collapsed rockshelter in Cyprus, was excavated over 30 years ago. The site caused controversy for two reasons: it was the oldest site on the island, and it was associated with extinct pygmy hippopotami. The first issue has been resolved, with over 70 radiocarbon determinations centered around 10,000 cal BC, placing the site in the...
History on the Edge: Loss of the Ocean State's Past (2018)
Hurricane Sandy impacted Rhode Island’s south coast on October 29, 2012. Storm surge and wind-driven waves eroded considerable sections of the shore damaging historical and archaeological sites located at the contact between the land and sea. Emergency response and preservation planning archaeological surveys conducted in response to Hurricane Sandy represent the first large scale, systematic attempts to identify and evaluate vulnerable archaeological sites situated along the Rhode Island coast....
Holocene Human Adaptations on the Pacific Coast of Central America (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Human Behavioral Ecology at the Coastal Margins: Global Perspectives on Coastal & Maritime Adaptations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Holocene human adaptations to the Pacific coast of southern Mesoamerica and Central America are documented at a number of locations from southern Mexico to Panama. Evidence comes from Archaic-Period shell mounds, Early Formative sites at the edge of dry land behind the mangrove...
Holocene Paleoenvironment and Demography of the New Guinea North Coast (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Pacific islands are often used as model cases of human-environment systems and the development of biocultural diversity. In comparison to the smaller islands of the southwestern Pacific, the prehistory of the north coast of New Guinea remains poorly understood, particularly prior to ~2000 BP. We draw together a variety of archaeological evidence collected...
Home Is Where the Hearth Is: Narragansett Indian Houses and Homes on the Eve of European Contact (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Hearth and Home in the Indigenous Northeast" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Site RI 110 on the southern Rhode Island coast has yielded evidence of a large Narragansett Indian settlement occupied between AD 1000 and 1500. Archaeological investigations exposed more than 20 individual *wetus (house sites) within an approximate 0.81 ha (2-acre) portion of the larger site. This paper will describe precontact Narragansett...
Human Behavior or Environmental Change: Zooarchaeological Research on Shell Midden Sites at Guanglu Island, China (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New Thoughts on Current Research in East Asian Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The zooarchaeological research on Xiaozhushan, Menhou and Wujiacun shell midden sites, which are located in Guanglu island, provides empirical materials to understand the transformation of animal resources acquisition patterns from fishing-hunting economy to livestock way. This paper analyses the reasons for the appearance of...
Hunted or Scavenged?: Investigating Acquisition of Dolphins and Porpoises at the Par-Tee Site Using Zooarchaeology and Ancient DNA Identifications (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The large quantity of archaeological cetacean remains recovered from the Par-Tee site allows insight into the potential hunting of smaller cetaceans. Using the Smithsonian’s Department of Vertebrate Zoology Marine Mammal Collection as a comparative, I identified four small cetacean species in the midden: harbor porpoise, Dall’s porpoise, bottlenose dolphin,...
Ichthyoarchaeological Analysis of ScMo-350 on Mo’orea, French Polynesia (2018)
ScMo-350 is located on Mo’orea Island, northwest of Tahiti in French Polynesia. Our ichthyoarchaeological analyses assess which fish taxa were utilized by the pre-contact Ma’ohi, and how those taxa may have changed over time. Our diachronic approach investigates fishing activities over a c. 1,000 year period, between AD 900-1800. We broadly divided this beach ridge site into four excavation blocks to aid in spatial analyses of the recovered artifacts. Fish specimens were heavily concentrated in...
Illuminating the Obscure: Using Legacy LiDAR Data to Define and Interpret a WWII Airfield on the Island of Tinian, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) (2018)
Tinian International Airport in the CNMI is a repurposed portion of West Field, a WWII U.S. airbase constructed in 1944 for B-29 operations against Japan. In 2017, HDR conducted a cultural resource inventory for proposed airport infrastructure improvements, focusing on West Field and the adjacent Japanese-built Gurguan Point Airfield. Survey was complicated by dense secondary forest that obscures the two airfields, rendering many features invisible from the air. To assist with mapping these...
Impact of Oyster Overharvesting in Southwest Florida by Calusa Native Americans (2018)
Recent research has demonstrated that overharvesting of Eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) by Calusa Native Americans was severe enough during the Caloosahatchee cultural period (500 BC–AD 1500) to have influenced the population demography of the shellfishery (Savarese et al., 2016). A shift to smaller individuals without a change in oyster growth rate was documented from the Late Archaic into the Caloosahatchee when Calusa population size increased considerably in the region. Modern oyster...
Implications for Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology: Coastal Geomorphological Mechanisms on the Local Scale in the San Pasquale Valley, Bova Marina, Reggio Calabria (2018)
Marine reconnaissance off the coast of San Pasquale, Calabria in southern Italy revealed a dense offshore terrestrial peat deposit dating to the mid Holocene. Subsequent radiocarbon dating of samples revealed a conflict with regional relative sea level curves and local patterns of terrestrial uplift. As such, initial analysis suggests that these deposits result from a local hyperpycnal flood event and are not subaerial drowned deposits resulting from Holocene coastal evolution and rapid marine...