Material Culture and Technology (Other Keyword)
301-325 (563 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology from Western North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A new study at the Cooper’s Ferry site (10IH73) located in west central Idaho focuses on the contents of pit feature 110 of Area B. Feature 110 (F110) has been dated between ~9938 ± 36 BP (11,352–11,264 cal BP) and ~9867 ± 36 BP (11,278–11,223 cal BP) and contains WST points, debitage, and faunal remains. Notably, the F110 faunal record includes a...
Lithic Technology in Spanish Colonial Dixon, New Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I explore the lithic technology used in the Spanish colonial outpost of Dixon (or Embudo), New Mexico, before the arrival of the Chili railroad line in 1877. With limited access to metal, the Spanish colonists turned to the native technology of lithic tool production to overcome this absence. By focusing specifically on the obsidian found in...
Lithic Technology of Manufacturing Stone Tools at Gravel Quarry Source Locations using Heat-Treatment (2018)
Prehistoric flintknappers world-wide typically used heat-treatment to improve the flakeability of lithic materials after initial reduction into smaller-sized packages. In contrast, along the eastern escarpment of the Southern High Plains of Northwest Texas, Late Archaic-age (4,500-2,000 rcyBP) flintknappers used heat-treatment to improve large quartzarenite clasts prior to initial clast reduction. Heat-treatment in this case was used as part of procurement at quarry gravel source locations....
Lithics and the Late Prehistoric: Networks and Interaction on the Southeastern Columbia Plateau (2018)
The people of the Columbia Plateau have been frequently characterized as a homogenous culture despite a 3,000-year depth of history and large spatial extent. Moreover, differences in artifact form, assemblage composition, and household features belie this characterization. The changing natural and social environment can be detected in modifications in cultural technology, and relationships among distinct groups can be inferred. The research presented here tracks these changes. By using concepts...
The Lithics of Late Coalition Period Tewa Pueblos: Negotiating Tewa Society in the Rio Chama Valley (2018)
In Ohkay Owingeh’s origin tradition the Tewa peoples emerged into this world from the north and traveled south as two separate groups – the Summer and Winter people – before coming together to create a new society in the Rio Chama valley of northern New Mexico. This history parallels our archaeological understanding of diverse peoples, likely migrants from the Mesa Verde region and indigenous Rio Grande populations, who settled the Chama in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. However, the...
A Little Bird Told Me: Use-Wear Analysis and Replication Studies as a Means to Identify the Function of Birdstones (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among the most enigmatic ancient North American artifacts are the objects collectively known as birdstones: Small ground stone objects, usually made of banded slate, that take the generalized form of a simplified bird or a bird’s head, sometimes with protruding "popeyes." The vast majority of...
Little Bronze Things: What They Do and How They Do It in the Early Bronze Age in NW China (2018)
Small bronze objects, some tools, others ornaments, and yet others of undetermined function, are the earliest known Bronze objects in China. Many of these objects are found in sites from Northwest China that date to the early part of the second millennium BC. Their manufacture seems to have been conducted locally on a small scale in this region, and yet the transformation of matter that their production entailed played a role in large scale transformations of society – ultimately culminating...
Looking for Evidence of Corn Processing (Nixtamalization) at Angel Mounds (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Advancing the Archaeology of Indigenous Agriculture in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mississippian peoples (circa eleventh–fourteenth centuries CE) in the midwestern and southeastern United States have long been proven to be and defined by their maize agricultural practices. Due to the nutritional deficiencies of subsisting solely on maize as a crop when unprocessed, researchers have linked all maize...
Los Tallanes y su entorno regional entre 500 y 950 dC: Algunas reflexiones desde la tecnología de la cerámica paleteada y sus contextos (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Them and Us: Transmission and Cultural Dynamism in the North of Peru between AD 250 and 950: A Vision since the Recent Northern Investigations" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Los pocos datos existentes sobre el origen de los Tallanes provienen esencialmente de la etnohistoria, según la cual este grupo estaba inicialmente asentado en los Andes, desde donde habría migrado hacia la costa norte bajo la presión de grupos...
Lucayan Stone Celts: A Preliminary Overview of Style and Typology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in the Archaeology of the Bahama Archipelago" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Exotic hard stone materials (e.g., jadeites, cherts, basalts) and artefacts were imported into the entirely limestone Lucayan archipelago (The Bahamas/Turks and Caicos Islands) post-AD 700, to fulfil both functional and ceremonial needs. Many of these pieces were removed from their original contexts during the 19th/early 20th...
The Lure of the Sea: Objects and Behaviors (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Iron Age of Northwest Portugal: Leftovers of Behavior" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is generally accepted that Iron Age folk left the sodden lands in the valleys of large rivers and choose to settle on high ground, in locations with natural defenses, but very often near water sources. Agropastoral interests likely were part of the decision, but so were proximity to the mouth of major rivers and to the sea....
Making Khipu Cords (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Cordage, Yarn, and Associated Paraphernalia" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While Andean khipus—indigenous knot-and-cord recording devices—have been extensively studied over the past hundred years in their final, completed form, relatively little attention has been paid to the process by which they were made. As such, the level of agency that khipu makers, called khipukamayuqs, had in producing khipus is not fully...
Making Kin out of Stone: Production of Landscape and Collectivity in Ancient Peru (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Crafting Culture: Thingselves, Contexts, Meanings" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation details different strands of evidence we have on the organisation and kin-based significances of carved stone monoliths during the late prehispanic period of ancient northern Peru (ca. AD 500-1532). Ethnohistorical documents suggest that it was close kin who carved and erected stone images of esteemed forebears; the...
Manufacture of Late Neolithic Pottery from the Southern Balkans: An Integrative Approach (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Throughout their life, from manufacture to final discard, ceramic vessels participated in different human activities within Neolithic communities throughout the Balkans. As a result, vessels, potters, and users are involved in a relational interaction leading to a continuous negotiation of various aspects of the Neolithic world. The outcome of this relation is...
The Manufacture of Northern Fluted Points: A Production Sequence Hypothesis (2018)
Fluted projectile points have been found in the archaeological record of the North American Arctic for over 50 years. Only recently, however, have fluted points found in buried contexts associated with dateable materials and included in region-wide comparative analyses provided chronological, morphological, and technological evidence to support the cohesion of the Arctic specimens as their own fluted variant: the Northern Fluted Complex (NFC). Few sites have provided the opportunity to observe...
Manufacturing Costs of Long Pestles in Late Period Central California: Results from Replicative Experiments (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Formal Models and Experimental Archaeology of Ground Stone Milling Technology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The shift to mortars and pestles is associated with the acorn-based resource intensification in central California, which is also linked with decreased mobility and changes in social organization. Many long (>35 cm) and completely shaped pestles are associated with Late period California (cal AD 1265–1770)...
Margaret Lyneis and the Pottery Traditions of Corn Creek and Ash Meadows in Southern Nevada (2018)
Margaret Lyneis examined pottery collected from surface and excavation contexts at two of southern Nevada’s desert oases, Desert National Wildlife Refuge and Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. These rich islands of springs and lush vegetation were occupied fairly continuously from the Early Archaic period, with farming practiced during the Formative and Post-Formative periods. Dr. Lyneis’ investigations demonstrated, for the first time, that pottery was made locally during the later periods,...
Maritime Archaic Spearpoints: A New Examination of Their Context and Chronology (2018)
This research focuses on the morphology, chronology, and provenience of nipple-based spear points found in Newfounland and Labrador. Nipple-based points are primarily thought to date between 7500-6000 B.P. and are associated with the early Maritime Archaic tradition, Newfoundland and Labrador’s earliest inhabitants. A recent find of a nipple-based point at the Stock Cove site (CKAl-3) in eastern Newfoundland suggests that, based on a series of new AMS dates, the chronology of this point type...
Material Culture and Chronology at Colha, Belize: Recent Findings and Future Directions (2018)
Lithics, ceramics, and other artifacts, recovered from the 2017 Colha, Belize field season, are utilized to gain insight into chronological developments and changes at the ancient Maya site. Maya material culture recovered from excavations at Colha are presented and interpreted by context. Each artifact category is briefly defined, described, and placed into a general site context. The estimated time range for the recovered material culture extends from the Late Archaic to the Late Preclassic....
Material Culture in Pambamarca Ecuador: Comparing Finds from Two Inkan Fortresses (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As the Inka expanded north at the end of the 15th century, they were met with fierce resistance from the País Caranqui societies in Northern Ecuador. A prolonged standoff occurred, visible in the plethora of fortresses along the northern frontier. Excavations completed by the Pambamarca Archaeology Project north of Quito at three Inka fortresses within the...
Material Properties, Sensory Experience, and Production Techniques in Early Chinese Bronze Casting (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Craft and Technology: Knowledge of the Ancient Chinese Artisans" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The extraordinary bronze ritual vessels of Shang- and Zhou-period China were produced by casting in multi-part ceramic molds. Laboratory analysis of casting-mold fragments has found that these molds were made from an unusual ceramic material—a paste that was quartz-rich, clay-poor, highly porous, and therefore quite unlike...
Materials Characterization at the National Museum of the American Indian: (Mostly) Non-destructive Analysis (2018)
The use of portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) for in-situ elemental analysis is becoming widespread in archaeology and cultural heritage studies. Archaeologists and conservators routinely use pXRF instruments in the field and many museums use them in-house for identification of pigments, metals, and inorganic pesticide residues, characterization of minerals and determination of alloy composition. The NMAI Conservation Department has been using pXRF for over fifteen years for a variety of...
Maya Butchers in Santiago de Guatemala: A Technological Analysis of the Disassembling of Cattle in Colonial Guatemala (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers in Animal Management: Unconventional Species, New Methods, and Understudied Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In colonial Guatemala, cattle constituted a vital element of Hispanic lifestyles through the supply of meat but also by providing basic materials necessary to a multitude of crafts. By the mid-sixteenth century, this flowering industry was thriving thanks to the rapid growth of herds. While the...
Mazapan Style Figurines at El Palacio: What Significance for The Early Postclassic Interregional Interactions in Northern Michoacán? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mesoamerican Figurines in Context. New Insights on Tridimensional Representations from Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent work conducted in Northern Michoacán by the CEMCA in the Zacapu Basin, 30 km North of the Tarascan core-region, shed light on a specific and poorly defined time period at the region before the Tarascan kingdom: The Early Postclassic. The local phase Palacio ranges from A.D. 900 to...
The Meaning of a Sample of Teeth Pendants from the Paleolithic Bacho Kiro Cave in Bulgaria (Exc. 1971–1975) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Variability: A Reassessment of Its Meaning, Afforded Range, and the Relation to Process" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bone artifacts from the past are indicators of increased diversity in human behavior and culture. Determining the bone tool type can provide information about past technology, cultural provenience, symbolic expressions, and the type of exploited fauna that inhabited different geographical regions....