Coastal and Island Archaeology (Other Keyword)
201-225 (366 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Humans had established presence on California’s Channel Islands by the Younger Dryas (YD) Period (~12.9-11.7 ky BP), during which stable sea level was relatively stable for ~1 ky. No archaeological sites from this time have been identified on the nearby continental shelf, likely destroyed by subsequent rapid sea level rise, but submerged paleochannels...
Marine Turtle Consumption: From Ancient Taboo to Conservation Management (2018)
Remains of marine turtles occur regularly in the archaeological record. They provide insights into ancient subsistence and community practices. They also contain crucial information that can be used to create baselines for conservation. Their explanatory power is increased when the species exploited are identified. Here we describe an osteomorphological method which allows us to analyze fragmented postcranial elements of common Cheloniidae (Caretta Caretta and Chelonia mydas) to species and...
Maritime Mobility during the Western Mediterranean Iron Age (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mediterranean Archaeology: Connections, Interactions, Objects, and Theory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research on the topic of seafaring in the western Mediterranean during the Iron Age has often focused on Greek, Etruscan, Roman, and Phoenician activity. By contrast, the maritime endeavors of other coastal populations have largely been ignored. Yet, historical accounts and archaeological evidence indicate that...
The Maritime Mode of Production: The Role of Seafaring in Bronze Age Societies (2018)
As exemplified by Viking and Bronze Age societies in northern Europe, we model the political dynamics of raiding, trading, and slaving as a maritime mode of production (MMP). It includes political strategies to control trade by owning boats and financing excursions, thus permitting chiefs to channel wealth flows and establish decentralized, expansive political networks. Such political institutions often form at edges of world systems, where chieftains support mobile warriors, who were...
Maritime Settlement of Fuego-Patagonia Archipelago: New Archaeological Records from the Middle Holocene (6300-5000 BP) at Navarino Island, Chile (55º S / 67º W) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the context of research reassessing the chronology and distribution of early evidence for maritime settlement at Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, we have developed surveys in different areas of the archipelago to expand the geographical scale of the search, thus allowing us to incorporate aspects related to the geographical directionality of the process....
Maritime to the Max: The Keys to Success for Small Island Populations in the Caribbean (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. The land-sea dichotomy has structured many historic debates surrounding coastal populations in the pre-Columbian Caribbean. Settlement, subsistence, exchange and cultural affiliation have all been measured on a terrestrial versus marine continuum which often undervalues the primacy of...
Martha’s Vineyard Beach Economy: Scavenged Seals and Washed-up Whales at the Frisby Butler Site (2018)
Marine mammals, including whales and seals, were a source of meat, blubber, baleen, and bone to the settlers of Martha’s Vineyard from the earliest occupation until the historic period. Numerous species of whales have been observed in New England’s shallow waters, including migratory species like the North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) and other marine mammals like the Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Wampanoag on Martha’s Vineyard and...
A Material Science Consideration of New World Encounters: Multi-method Approaches to the Archaeology of the Caribbean (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following a recent review of excavated materials from the island of Mona (Puerto Rico), this paper examines the transformation of cultural and technological practices brought about by New World encounters. We focus on the affective material conditions that emerge in the 16th century Caribbean by applying a materials science approach to the newly integrated...
Microstratigraphic and Biomolecular Identification of Seaweeds in the Mesolithic of Atlantic Iberia, SW Europe (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mesolithic shell mounds are prominent testaments of the prehistoric coastal adaptations along the Atlantic shores of Europe. In the Iberian Peninsula, postglacial hunter-gatherers largely turned to coastal regions and lived...
Middle Holocene Projectile Points from the Santa Cruz County Coast of Northern Monterey Bay, California. (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Insights into Pyrodiversity and Seascape Management on the Central California Coast" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A group of Middle Holocene aged archaeological sites along the Santa Cruz County Coast have produced a large number of chert and obsidian projectile points. Sites SCR-3, SCR-7, SCR-10 and SCR-40 have the same range of point types and materials, and are all within 10 miles radius of each other. ...
Mission Period Glass Beads from the Northern Channel Islands of California (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Glass beads were an important trade item and symbol of culture contact for Native Americans in coastal California and the Channel Islands where people had manufactured shell and stone beads for some 10,000 years. Glass bead assemblages from the northern Channel Islands, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and San Miguel, all entered the collections of the Smithsonian’s...
Mito y rito, en tanto política y gobierno, en la costa de los Andes Centrales durante el Tawantinsuyu (2018)
Las formaciones sociales de carácter imperial se articulan desde sus propias dinámicas, reproducidas desde sus relaciones y su territorio. Estos mecanismos deben ir reformulándose en el proceso de expansión, integrando las dinámicas sometidas políticamente, desarrollándolas y transformándolas, originando nuevas formas políticas dentro los antiguos procesos regionales y en el propio centro imperial. El caso particular del Tawantinsuyu parece generar tres tradiciones integradoras diferenciadas, y...
Modeling Climate, Ocean Productivity and Human Population Dynamics on the North Pacific Rim (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. We explore human population trends for several maritime regions around the North Pacific Rim over the last several thousand years. These data show correlated but oscillating patterns of populations from the eastern to the western Pacific. Two alternative models explain the patterns of population peaks and...
Modeling Socioecological Transformation in Coastal East Africa: A Case Study from Unguja Island, Zanzibar, Tanzania (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Islands around Africa: State-of-the-Art and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists in the Pacific have viewed islands as “laboratories” for studying social, agricultural, and ecological transformations. Can a similar approach be applied to the near-shore island environments of coastal East Africa, and what might island case studies contribute to broader anthropological understandings of East...
Modeling the Early Settlement of Yap, Western Caroline Islands (2018)
In recent decades, increased research on the early human settlement of islands in western Micronesia (northwest tropical Pacific) has resulted in a relatively clear picture of the Palau and the Mariana Islands being settled between ca. 3200-2800 years cal BP. Despite an increased understanding of when the two major archipelagos were settled, human arrival in Yap, a group of four small islands situated between the two other islands groups, remains unclear. New radiocarbon dates from the southern...
Modeling the Use of Seaweed for Fire by Hunter-Gatherers in the Atacama Desert (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of fire is essential for contemporary human populations. Yet the presence of an active population in the coastal Atacama desert, with limited land-based combustible, leaves us with the intriguing possibility that the ancestral...
Monitoring, Planning, and Treating Archaeological Sites for Climate Change (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Triage: Prioritizing Responses to Climate Change Impacts on Archaeological Resources" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Fort Eustis portion of Joint Base Langley-Eustis is a peninsula of 8,000 acres bounded by Skiffes Creek, the Warwick River, and the James River on Virginia's coastal plain. The installation has 233 identified archaeological sites. Thirty-one sites are subject to erosion by the surrounding...
The Most Inhospitable of Environments: Enslaved Life in the Rice Fields of the Santee Delta (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Wetlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Located between Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the Santee Delta is a unique wetland habitat characterized by tidal marshes and low-lying barrier islands. Situated between the North and South Santee Rivers, the delta is a critical stopping point for a number of migratory birds and is also a popular duck hunting destination. However, historically,...
The Msikaba Red Sand Dunes: Middle Pleistocene Lithic Technological Variability in Pondoland, South Africa (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances and Debates in the Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Msikaba Red Sand Dunes along South Africa's Pondoland coast are a recently discovered open-air site complex that documents Middle Pleistocene lithic technological and morphological change. The deposit comprises ancient dune surfaces stacked over time with repeated sea-level highstand events. Initial excavations and...
Multi-Proxy Analysis of Sea Lion Hunting in the Northwestern Pacific (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Around the Pacific Rim sea lions have served as a valuable food source for coastal communities throughout the Holocene and as a globally valued product in the expanding Eurasian and American colonial and imperial trade networks of the past few centuries. In this talk I discuss the hunting of both Japanese and Steller sea lions in the northwestern Pacific....
A Multi-proxy Investigation of Settlement on Pingelap Atoll, Pohnpei State, Federated States of Micronesia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pacific atolls are generally regarded as challenging places to live. In addition to being far from other land masses, most have low biodiversity, limited access to freshwater, and are susceptible to extreme weather. However, settlers established residence on atolls in the Micronesian region as early as 2,000 years ago. This paper presents the first major...
The Mystery Dogs of Remote Oceania: An Archaeological and Ethnohistorical View of Domestic Dog Introduction and Loss in the South Pacific (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Current Zooarchaeology: New and Ongoing Approaches" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Domestic dogs comprise one part of the suite of plants and animals transported by voyagers to the islands of Remote Oceania. The distribution of these, and other domesticates, is inconsistent from island to island and from archipelago to archipelago. New archaeological fieldwork, zooarchaeological analysis, and AMS dating demonstrate...
Natural and Anthropogenic Effects on Coastal Environments along the East Cape of Baja California Sur, Mexico (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. Changes to coastal environments from natural and anthropogenic factors have influenced human subsistence and settlement patterns throughout the Baja California peninsula. These changes are visible both in the archaeological record and present-day human settlements. We discuss long-term human-environment...
Natural-Cultural Contexts of the First Inhabited Seashores of Remote Pacific Oceania: 1500–1100 BC in the Mariana Islands (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. People first migrated to the remote-distance Pacific Islands around 1500 BC, and their ancient sites have provided insights into the physical and cultural world that these people had inhabited. Geoarchaeological investigations have clarified the composition of the coastal landforms and ecosystems, availability of...
Navigating Paradigms: Site Location and Settlement Patterns in Watery Environments from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Southern Patagonia (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. Reconstructing past seafaring presents major challenges. Beyond the archaeological invisibility of watercraft, a key issue is that theoretical models and archaeological predictions concerning aquatic movement are less developed than for terrestrial cases. We apply an explorative and...