Material Culture and Technology (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brady Kelsey. Steven Brandt. Elisabeth Hildebrand. Gary Stinchcomb.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavations of the Late Pleistocene levels at Mochena Borago Rockshelter in SW Ethiopia, dating >50–35ka, have revealed one of the densest concentrations of modified ochre in eastern Africa. Here we consider technological variations of ochre and associated processing tools through studies of use-wear, trace elemental signatures, and artifact spatial...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ester Echenique. Francisca Gili. Paola González. Daniel Pavlovic. James Davenport.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of Diaguita pottery have advanced towards the definition of decorative styles. In this regard, new studies and radiocarbon dating from the El Olivar archaeological site have significantly contributed to a new understanding of pottery traditions and chronological assignments of ceramic styles. The purpose of this work is to explore pottery...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Veronica Williams. Calogero Santoro.

This is an abstract from the "Alfareros deste Inga: Pottery Production, Distribution and Exchange in the Tawantinsuyu" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Based on Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA), we tried to decode Inka polychrome ceramics from northern Chile valleys, traditionally assumed of having been introduced by the Inka State from the Lake Titicaca region (more than 500 km away). The results show that these conspicuous Inka...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carmen Ting. Athanasios Vionis. Vasiliki Kassianidou. Thilo Rehren.

This is an abstract from the "The Movement of Technical Knowledge: Cross-Craft Perspectives on Mobility and Knowledge in Production Technologies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite marking the beginning of glazed ware production in Cyprus in the 13th century, the Paphos-Lemba production was a short-lived one and was replaced by other productions in the Famagusta, Lapithos, and Nicosia region. However, we know very little about the glaze...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katharina Zinn.

This paper explores the possibility to extract information about sensory experiences inherent in the material culture of ancient Egypt which are often overlooked due to the difficulty to track them in the material. By implementing new intellectual frameworks like New Materialism and the consequent application of methodologies from archaeology and anthropology we gain insight in the actions of ancient bodies. Taking inspiration from Latour’s actants (2005), Barad’s agential realism (2007) and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Silvia Tomaskova. Muzi Msimanga.

Our 2017 fieldwork in the Northern Cape, South Africa presented us with a dilemma: how do methods of rock art research aimed at studying image making help us understand petroglyphs that may not be "images". The site Wildebeest Kuil near Kimberley, Northern Cape has two discrete areas of engravings: an area covered with distinct images of animals, humans, "geometric patterns" (80% of engravings), and a second adjacent area covered with peckings and stone modifications that do not easily translate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Mentzer. Ivo Verheijen. Britt Starkovich. Jordi Serangeli. Nicholas Conard.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Science and African Archaeology: Appreciating the Impact of David Killick" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When conducting micro-X-ray fluorescence (µXRF) analyses of archaeological and geological materials, diffraction peaks, which are produced by crystalline materials, are typically unwanted and methods are devised to minimize their impact on the sample spectrum. Here, we explore the intentional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yoli Ngandali. Michael Lewis.

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. Recent discussions in the Historic Preservation Office of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde have focused on the interpretation of the use-life of decorated ground stone bowls in the Willamette Valley of Western Oregon. Historically, these belongings have been looted, sold off, gifted, or...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yubitzy Truong.

This is an abstract from the "Digitizing the Past: Studying Ancient Ground Stone Toolkits Using Modern Technology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study discusses the ergonomic use of ground stone tools, specifically manos. A mano is a handheld tool used for processing foods and other materials. Through analysis of wear patterns, size and shape of artifact HG UWI 2158, this and other similar artifacts can reveal why they were chosen for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marta Diaz-Guardamino.

Formal approaches to rock art traditionally focused on meaning and representation. Rock art images and panels were treated as static representations of symbolic frameworks while their materiality and active role in cultural production were overlooked. Rock art is the product of the dynamic interplay between people, tools and the rock surface. The properties of the rock panel have the capacity to shape rock art production as much as the skill and knowledge held by the engraver/painter and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Roldan. Marisol Cortes-Rincon. Abby Barrios.

Digital tools, such as photogrammetry and virtual environments have been around for decades. However, it was not until the past decade that the academic community introduced such tools into their work and have taken such discipline seriously. For this reason, the practice, management, teaching and potential of digital archaeology has remained a lagging field. As a response, this paper will provide a guide for traditional archaeologists to assist in the transition to the digital medium. An...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Zetz. Marisol Cortes-Rincon Ph.D.. Kristen Harrison. Raylene Borrego. Hannah Vizcarra.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A wealth of digital data is produced during an archaeological excavation and because so much of the fieldwork is unrepeatable, once the site is fully excavated, the digital records must be archived in a manner that best facilitates reuse. This paper presents the ongoing undertaking of digitizing data for the Dos Hombres to Gran Cacao Archaeology Project...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan White.

Although the archaeology of marginalized groups has been increasingly discussed in recent scholarship, people with disabilities remain largely unstudied. Recent works on this topic have paved the way for a dedicated examination of people with disabilities in the archaeological record. This paper reviews published material to critically examine physical evidence for disability and accommodation in New Kingdom Egypt and Classical Greece, both areas and periods with rich material culture, extensive...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zev Cossin.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The trillion dollar market for e-commerce sales has transformed the infrastructural landscape into one that delivers commodities to consumers in record time. Amazon Prime freight containers and delivery trucks have provided a ubiquitous convenience that has changed the material realities of our everyday lives in substantive ways. In this paper we explore...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edward Knell. Erik Otárola-Castillo. Matthew Hill.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prior univariate and multivariate morphometric analysis of Paleoindian age Lake Mohave and Silver Lake projectile points from the Mojave Desert, California, revealed these types are distinguishable 80% of the time. Building on the prior study, we use landmark-based Geometric Morphometric (LGM) analyses and complementary non-LGM variables to assess whether...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Semon.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Chaco Collection at the American Museum of Natural History has more than 1,900 catalogued ceramic objects. Ceramic research in this collection tends to focus on the full-sized vessels, such as cylinder jars, pitchers, corrugated jars, and bowls, while less attention is given to the miniature vessels. In this poster, I present a breakdown of miniature...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Jones.

This is an abstract from the "Digitizing the Past: Studying Ancient Ground Stone Toolkits Using Modern Technology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Hell Gap National Historic Landmark (NHL) has yielded many ground stone artifacts that have yet to be analyzed. Ground stone artifacts can expand our understanding of Folsom lithic technologies. Ground stone tool collections are cumbersome and difficult to access. Many researchers are solving this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Noll.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Olcott Phase is recognized in archaeological deposits by a relatively small variety of tool types, with the leaf-shaped “Olcott” point being among the most recognizable. Other key attributes of the Olcott toolkit include heavily relying on local toolstone and lithic reduction techniques emphasizing durability and flexibility. Unidirectional,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Seebach.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Two hunters discovered a small cache of fifteen finely-worked bifaces near Whitewater, Colorado in 1976. As has become customary for assemblages of this type, the deposit has been considered as one of Clovis affiliation (13,050–12,750 calBP). The size, workmanship, and manufacturing details of the analyzed pieces are certainly reminiscent of artifacts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Annalisa Amber.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study examines 188 vessels from the Moche Valley in northern Peru from the Museo Larco online collection, to determine the distribution of Moche bulk luxury items from urban centers to surrounding towns and rural communities. For this study, the term "bulk luxury" refers to the widespread availability of elite goods produced in large quantities that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lísabet Guðmundsdóttir.

This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Iceland was settled by the Norse in the late ninth century and Greenland was settled from Iceland around AD 1000. Although these countries are quite dissimilar in landscape and geology, they have a similar flora in which the only forest-forming tree is birch. Birch alone...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Werner. Flannery Surette.

This is an abstract from the "Experimental Pedagogies: Teaching through Experimental Archaeology Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The first ostrich eggshell beads appeared across parts of Africa 50 ka and represent one of the earliest forms of ornamentation. Far from being uniform, research shows differences in bead diameter which cluster regionally and chronologically. These clusters are thought to represent distinct bead making traditions...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Václav Hrnčíř.

This is an abstract from the "Exploring the Intersection of Ethnography and Technology: Understanding the Evolution of Human Technologies through Ethnographic Research" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human technologies have a long evolutionary history. However, most early technologies have perished over time, especially those made from organic materials. In the absence of archaeological evidence, comparative ethnology can provide valuable...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ekaterina Menkina. Scott Macrae. Vo Thi Phuong Thuy. Le Ngoc Han.

This is an abstract from the "The Current State of Archaeological Research across Southeast Asia" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The drone-imagery sub project uses drone based aerial photography and photogrammetry to document the water gates, walls, enclosures, canals, and shrines of Hoa Lu, supplementary to the IRAW@HoaLu settlement and survey research. Amidst the urban-landscape development, the cultural and natural features are subject to time....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Morgan Clark.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. More than mere accessories, the earflares that ancient Maya peoples donned were essential. Nothing indicates this more than the fact that their ornamental use was not limited ears; indeed, elite bodies dripped with them. Stelae from Tikal and Cobá depict rulers with long strings of them around their necks. Some earflares, as with an example from Pomona, are...