Coastal and Island Archaeology (Other Keyword)
176-200 (277 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The "Neolithic Revolution" in the Near East and Anatolia is the oldest known in the world. This transformative economic and social event occurred in several mainland locations, and conventional wisdom was that it did not spread to the adjacent Mediterranean islands until relatively late, essentially being a "Neolithic footnote." Cyprus has the oldest...
New Evidence for Ceramic Systems in Precolumbian Bocas del Toro, Panama (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For several thousand years before the arrival of Spanish explorers in 1502, Bocas del Toro, Panama, was home to numerous vibrant cultures. However, this area has seen only sporadic archaeological study over the past century. While surveys and excavations have revealed several multi-period settlements, with complex, multiphase ceramic assemblages, Bocas del...
New Evidence from the Hokfv-Mocvse Shell Ring (5000–4800 cal BP) on the Emergence of Ring Sites on the South Atlantic Coast (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Coastal Environments in Archaeology: Ancient Life, Lore, and Landscapes" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Circular and arcuate shell rings along the South Atlantic coasts are the vestiges of some of the earliest known villages in North America. Most rings date to the Late Archaic period (5000–3000 BP) and are often associated with early pottery production, providing important insights into Indigenous economies,...
New insights from old collections: Investigating bird bones from Pacific Northwest shell middens (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Middens to Museums: Papers in Honor of Julie K. Stein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Julie Stein has been a leader in facilitating research on legacy collections in the Pacific Northwest Coast. Although challenges exist when working with existing collections in museums and repositories, re-analyses of these assemblages have the potential to provide valuable information and support the conservation ethic in...
New Perspectives on the Native History and Archaeology of Block Island (2018)
Supported by the U.S. National Park Service's Historic Preservation Fund program to identify coastal archaeological sites damaged by 2012's Hurricane Sandy in Rhode Island, archaeological surveys of Block Island were conducted in 2014 and 2015. The survey identified 163 archaeological sites of which 33 were tested and partially excavated. Previous archaeological surveys of Block Island concluded that a high frequency, density, and complexity of Woodland (2700 – 400 years before present (B.P.)...
The Ngake 001 Site: Surface Mapping and Subsurface Investigations (2018)
The Ngake 001 site is located on Manihiki Atoll in the northern Cook Islands. In all, the site covers an area of roughly two hectars and consists of four coral-edged courts, two small coral-edged enclosures, a possible well, part of a lagoon shore path, and a mound and trench system that provides access to the islet’s Ghyben-Herzberg freshwater lens. Multiple surveys, by the authors and others, suggest that the Ngake 001 site is situated at the center of a large prehistoric village complex that...
Obsidian Trade at the Edge of the Maya World (2018)
The position of Vista Alegre at the Northeastern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula, a gateway between the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, made it a strategic location for circumpeninsular maritime trade in Pre-Colombian times. A robust sample of obsidian artifacts from the Terminal-Postclassic transition increases our understanding of trade relations between the eastern and western sides of the Maya world. Technological and source analyses of obsidian artifacts from the site are presented to fill...
Of Marsh and Mangal: Political/Historical Ecology in Tampa Bay’s Coastal Wetlands (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Today, dense mangrove forests dominate the intertidal wetlands of the Tampa Bay Estuary System in west-central Florida. Following the publication of seminal ecology studies in the 1960’s, sub-tropical mangrove forests became a major focus of coastal environmental protection and restoration initiatives in Florida. Recent GIS-based historical research by the...
Origin and Use of Shell Bead Money in Southern California (2018)
The Chumash Indians of southern California made and used beads of stone, bone, and a variety of species of shell for over 8,000 years. A noted shift in shell beads occurred about 800 years ago with the appearance of a new bead type, cupped beads, made from the thick callus of the Callianax biplicata, a portion of the shell that had previously not been used. These types of beads were common throughout the Chumash region and elsewhere during the Late period and have been identified as money beads...
Outcrops, Toolstone Distribution, and Source Profiles of Chert Quarries on Santa Cruz Island, CA (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this poster, we synthesize the body of previous and continuing research of chert quarries on the East End and Isthmus of Santa Cruz Island, CA since 1985. Santa Cruz Island chert quarries have been integral to interpretations of craft specialization, the development of social complexity, and material conveyance among peoples on the Northern Channel...
The Paleo Suwannee Project: Offshore Research in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The goal of the project is to find and map a portion of the submerged Paleo-Suwannee River in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. The main goals of our research are to find the Suwannee River channel offshore and map any archaeological sites encountered, and produce geological (sedimentological) and habitat (species and landscape) maps of the area at multiple...
Paleo-sediment Coring Studies in Micronesia: A Review and Critique (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paleo-sediment coring studies by archaeologists, pioneered in Micronesia by Steve Athens and colleagues, including myself, in the 1980s, are reviewed and assessed for their contributions to archaeological science in the western Pacific within a CRM context. It is suggested that while data generated...
Paleoshoreline Reconstruction: A First Approximation to Submerged Prehistoric Landscapes of Isla Espíritu Santo, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Liquid Landscapes: Recent Developments in Submerged Landscape Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient coastline modeling is an effective method for reconstructing submerged prehistoric landscapes, allowing us to understand the human use of the coastal zone through time. Here we present data from Espíritu Santo Island, one of the oldest human settlement areas in the Baja California Peninsula. This study...
The People of the Lagoon: Sambaquis and Ecological Management on the Southern Brazilian Coast (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. Sambaquis (shellmounds) are conspicuous structures at ecologically productive and diversified coastal settings along the Brazilian extended seashore. We have studied one of those hot spots in some detail. At Santa Marta lagoon area, on the southern coast, mound builders have long...
PEOPLE3k: Demographic Boom and Bust Cycles of Coastal Hunter-gatherers Cycles Track Shifting Upwelling Conditions in Northern Chile (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Global Perspectives on Climate-Human Population Dynamics During the Late Holocene" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Extensive archaeological shell middens can be found throughout coastal northern Chile, where they span more than 9,000 years. They contain abundant terrestrial plants and shellfish remains and can often accumulate very quickly and/or episodically. We use multiple radiocarbon dates to measure local...
A Perfect Storm: Alternative Mitigation Strategies for Louisiana’s Gulf Coast (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Accelerating Environmental Change Threats to Cultural Heritage: Serious Challenges, Promising Responses" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A concatenation of natural and anthropogenic processes involving coastal erosion, subsidence and relative sea-level rise are obliterating evidence for millennia of sustainable human communities on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast. The Mississippi River Delta Archeological Mitigation (MRDAM)...
Petrographic Analysis of Pre-Columbian Pottery From Nevis, Eastern Caribbean (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Cross-Cultural Petrographic Studies of Ceramic Traditions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prehistoric Amerindians in the Eastern Caribbean often used local materials in the manufacturing of ceramics, and in some cases, transported these as they migrated. Given the ubiquity of ceramics in the Caribbean, they are useful in discerning past movements, and spheres of interaction. However, studies of this nature are scarce...
Placing the Early Pre-Latte Period Site of San Roque on Saipan in Its Broader Context (2021)
This is an abstract from the "When the Wild Winds Blow: Micronesia Colonization in Pacific Context" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This comparative assessment of the San Roque site in northern Saipan to other early Pre-Latte period sites in the Mariana Islands, circa 1500–1100 BC, presents far from uniform data that suggest that maritime settlers of the archipelago may have targeted a range of natural settings for survival upon arrival. These...
Possible Prehistoric Translocation of Non-human Primates to Remote Oceania (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. New archaeological excavation at the Ucheliungs site, located in the Rock Islands region of Palau (northwest tropical Pacific), has yielded evidence of mortuary activity and small-scale marine foraging dating to the earliest period of human settlement in the Palauan archipelago, ca. 3000 BP. The assemblage includes a small number of artifacts consisting of...
Precontact Coast Salish Seasonality in Social Networks: A Modeling Approach (2018)
A crucial aspect for examining the production and reproduction of material culture among complex foraging societies such as those of the Pacific Northwest Coast is understanding the relationships between social networks and assemblage diversity. This model examines one small aspect of this issue, seasonal variation in social network size. The model is ethnographically informed by Coast Salish ethnographic household sizes. Assemblage richness and evenness in discrete artifact styles are examined...
Preliminary Investigations on a Coastal Caribbean Island: A Multi-proxy Environmental Study at the Sabazan Amerindian Site, Carriacou, Grenada (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Amerindian, enslaved African, and European peoples who successively settled the Caribbean island of Carriacou beginning AD 400 encountered a distinctive environment marked by recurrent drought, few terrestrial fauna, and the largest reef system in the region. Evidence suggests Carriacou’s ecology was altered dramatically by humans, reflecting efforts to...
Public Engagement through Maritime Landscapes (2018)
The future of American Archaeology lies in its ability to engage the public and demonstrate the field’s relevance to a broad range of communities. One way that maritime archaeology can contribute to this future is through identifying and interpreting maritime landscapes. A maritime landscape approach draws on the "lure of the sea" that attracts many people to shipwreck studies, but engages larger constituencies through place-based history. Geographic space is one of the things that all people...
Puertos, materiales y productos de intercambio (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Coastal Connections: Pacific Coastal Links from Mexico to Ecuador" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Desde los primeros estudios arqueológicos desarrollados en el occidente mesoamericano han sido encontrados diversos rasgos culturales, vocablos y artefactos similares a materiales existentes en el noroeste sudamericano. Destacan entre ellos los materiales Capacha, los de tumbas de tiro y la metalurgia, aportando...
Push and Pull, Part II: Modeling the Inland Exploration and Settlement of Fiji (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Geospatial Studies in the Archaeology of Oceania" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous GIS-based analyses (2017) by the authors have identified the ranges of several classes of terrestrial fauna that would inhabited the island of Viti Levu in prehistory. The ranges and habits of reptiles (giant tortoises, iguanas, and snakes), flightless birds (megapodes and giant pigeons), and bat and seabird colonies intersect in...
Reading the Unseen: The Lagoa de Óbidos Maritime Cultural Landscape (2018)
Lagoa de Obidos is an example of a decaying sea body that has influenced human occupation since, at least, the Mesolithic period. In fact, in historical times, humankind has been fighting, and losing, against the natural disappearance of this body. This has led to the continuous adaptation of the local populations, and in fact reinventing innovative ways of cooperation with the environment. Starting from harvesting resources in pre-historical times, to building maritime infrastructures in...