Coastal and Island Archaeology (Other Keyword)
151-175 (366 Records)
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...
A History of Archaeology on Key West (2024)
This is an abstract from the "*SE Hope for the Future: A Message of Resiliency from Archaeological Sites in South Florida" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The island of Key West has a rich and fascinating history as the “southernmost point” of the continental United States. Because of its strategic and iconic location, Key West is the most heavily developed and altered island in the Florida Keys. Despite the island’s infamy and storied past,...
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...
Improved Representation of Paddled Propulsion in a Deterministic Ocean Voyaging Model: Bronze Age Scandinavian Example (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Negotiating Watery Worlds: Impacts and Implications of the Use of Watercraft in Small-Scale Societies" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Here we describe the implementation of a realistic representation of paddling propulsion on a deterministic ocean voyaging computer model. Due to lack of quantified information on the impact of environmental parameters such as winds and currents on paddling, in a previous version of the...
In Search of the Spanish Wells: Freshwater Resources and the Florida Keys (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Florida Keys present a unique ecological and archaeological setting in the United States, but one which has traditionally been discounted as too marginal of an environment to support year-round occupation by Indigenous communities prior to colonization. Anecdotal accounts of “Spanish Wells” reliably employed for freshwater during the colonial and early...
In Small Organisms Forgotten: Micro-fauna from Shell Middens at Crystal River (8CI1) and Roberts Island (8CI41) as Potential Proxies for Paleo-Climate (2018)
Crystal River (8CI1) and Roberts Island (8CI41) are neighboring mound and village complexes on the central Gulf Coast of Florida, occupied mainly sequentially across the first millennium AD. Stratigraphic excavations, coupled with extensive radiocarbon dating, permit relatively fine-grained observations regarding the prevalence of fauna over time. Oyster dominates faunal remains from all periods, but higher relative frequencies of small gastropods are evident in Midden Phases 2 and 4. Sponge...
The Inland Life of Southeast Alaska (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The focus of archaeological research in Southeast Alaska has long been on coastal sites. Over the past decade new inland sites have been recorded on Prince of Wales Island, including the first early Holocene lakeshore site. Waterfalls presenting natural fish barriers to migrating salmon also preserve evidence of Holocene human activity far removed from early...
Innovation, Intensification, and "Maritimeness" 4,500 Years Ago at Chignik, Alaska (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. On the south side of the central Alaska Peninsula, close to culture-history's boundary between "Eskimo" and "Aleut," lies Chignik. Most archaeological investigations and explanations in the broader region have emphasized the overwhelming importance of resources derived from the sea. But at Chignik, evidence of a divergent facet of maritime adaptation has been...
Insights into Rock Art Pigment Provenance and Microenvironment at Ashlu Rockshelter, British Columbia, Canada (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Advances in microanalytical methodologies enable archaeologists to examine characteristics of rock art pigment and surrounding microenvironment to nanoscale resolution. The information gleaned through microanalysis is valuable for reconstructing archaeopigment preparation technologies and provenance, and to evaluate the condition and stability of rock art...
Integrated People, Practices and Knowledge in the Archaeology of Southwest Madagascar (2018)
Since 2011 the Morombe Archaeological Project has undertaken archaeological survey, excavation and oral history recording in the Velondriake Marine Protected Area of southwest Madagascar. The project’s aims are to investigate diachronic human-environment dynamics and refine our understanding of the region’s settlement history by leveraging multiple scientific techniques and the collective historical and socio-ecological knowledge base of Velondriake’s living communities. The project is run by a...
The Integration of Island and Mainland Maya Communities: Perspectives from Ambergris Caye, Belize (2018)
After a span of over twenty years archaeological investigations have resumed at the San Pedro site, located in downtown San Pedro, Ambergris Caye. Investigations in the early 1990s revealed portions of a Spanish contact period Maya community that was settled as early as the 14th Century CE. Based on previous as well as ongoing investigations at the San Pedro site and other Maya sites on the island and the mainland, it appears that communities on the caye were linked to one another in various...
Interaction and Isolation in Manislan Mariånas: 1500 BC–AD 1769 (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper addresses long-term processes of inter- and intra-island interaction and isolation in the Manislan Mariånas (Mariana Islands), spanning their first occupation (ca. 1500 BC) to the end of the Jesuit colonial mission (AD 1769). I focus on mobility, ocean communication and networking, engagement with the sea, and social intersectionality. CHamoru...
Introducing COASTAL in Nova Scotia: Community Observation, Assessment, and Salvage of Threatened Archaeological Legacy (2018)
While the technological and methodological challenges facing archaeologists seeking to address the coastal erosion issue are noteworthy, the responsibility to formulate ethical, engaged, and collaborative research methodologies is equally pressing. The impact of coastal erosion and sea level rise on archaeological sites creates significant challenges for Indigenous peoples engaged in reclaiming their own histories and rights. Archaeologists studying threatened sites must therefore also be deeply...
Investigating Subsided and Drowned Shell Middens in Coastal Louisiana: Research at Sites 16SB47 and 16SB153 (2018)
Archaeologists from Coastal Environments, Inc., (CEI) reassessed the National Register eligibility of the Bayou St. Malo site (16SB47) and site 16SB153, located adjacent to one another on the southeastern shore of Lake Borgne in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. Previous investigations at the two sites suggested that cultural remains occurred only on the marsh surface adjacent to the lake, primarily as redeposited, wave-washed materials, and that neither site was eligible for inclusion in the...
Investigations of a Submerged Prehistoric Midden on Hjarnø, Denmark: Climate, Sea Level and Culture (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Palaeoeconomic and Environmental Reconstructions in Island and Coastal Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Shell middens, or shell-matrix deposits, occur in large numbers across the coastlines of the world from the mid- Holocene onwards, often forming substantial mounds, but they become smaller, rarer or absent as one goes back into earlier periods, suggesting a world-wide process of economic intensification....
Island Garbology: Methodology, Challenges, and Contributions to the Archaeology of Barbuda (2024)
This is an abstract from the "At the Frontier of Big Climate, Disaster Capitalism, and Endangered Cultural Heritage in Barbuda, Lesser Antilles" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Islands like Barbuda are particularly sensitive to waste management policies and behaviours; in addition to having to manage their waste daily, they also suffer the effects of tourism and the marine litter washed up on their coasts. These challenges are certainly not new,...