Ritual and Symbolism (Other Keyword)
51-75 (348 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Unusually saturated black pigment in the Kunwarddebim (rock art) at the north-eastern end of the Madjedbebe rockshelter prompted an in situ analytic program of Raman and portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. Here described results suggest a complex paint recipe for this black paint: a mix of bone black, magnetite rich minerals, and some organic...
Conceptualizing the Cloth of the Consecrated Child. Textiles Associated with Chimú Mass Sacrifice in Huanchaco, North Coast of Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study discusses broader questions surrounding the textile remains uncovered with the victims of the largest series of mass child sacrificial events on the North Coast of ancient Peru. Recent investigations are helping to understand Chimú (approx A.D. 1000 - 1450/1470) sacrificial practices and the ideologies fueling their performance. In contrast,...
Consumo de plantas psicoactivas en Chavín de Huántar: Primeras evidencias directas en tubos de hueso en contexto de la Galería 3 (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Chavín de Huántar’s Contribution to Understanding the Central Andean Formative: Results and Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En 2018 el Programa de Investigación Arqueológico y Conservación en Chavín de Huántar excavó la nueva Galería 3 del Atrio de la Plaza Circular, donde fueron reconocidos cuatro eventos deposicionales que consisten en concentraciones de cerámica, carbón, restos óseos y bienes...
The Context and Meaning of Medio Period Casas Grandes Stone Effigies (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This project presents the analysis of groundstone effigies from Paquimé, Chihuahua, Mexico. Paquimé was the center of the Medio period (A.D. 1200–1450) occupation of the Casas Grandes region. These effigies are small figurines ground to resemble humans and animals. Our analysis, based on Di Peso et al.’s (1974) Casas Grandes report, indicate that mountain...
Contexts and Meanings of Prehispanic Underwater Offerings Discovered in the Volcanic Lakes of Nevado de Toluca, Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Underwater and Coastal Archaeology in Latin America" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Nevado de Toluca is a volcano located in the central region of Mexico. At 4,200 m above sea level, there are two lakes inside its crater with evidence of rituals and prehispanic offerings. Archaeological evidence, recorded by both underwater and terrestrial archaeological practices, indicates a close symbolic relationship between...
Contexts of Ash Deposits in Jornada Mogollon Pithouse and Pueblo Settlements and Reflections on Their Meanings (2018)
The archaeological identification of intentionally deposited layers of ash at Jornada pueblo and pithouse settlements is complicated by several factors and intentional ash deposits are seldom identified unless preserved in a sealed context or buried by a layer of impermeable natural sediment or cultural deposits. When clear evidence of intentional ash deposition is observed, it may be assumed that there was a significant meaning underlying the inclusion of ash in a special context or deposit. ...
Contextualizing the Differences Between Upper Gila and Mimbres River Valley Ceramic Design Elements (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Local Development and Cross-Cultural Interaction in Pre-Hispanic Southwestern New Mexico and Southeastern Arizona" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster updates our previous research that examined similarities and differences between upper Gila Valley and Mimbres Valley painted ceramic designs. That work focused on the identification and quantification of stylistic elements and demonstrated that there are some...
Continuity and Discontinuity: Ritual from the Iron Age to the Early Medieval Period in Ireland (2024)
This is an abstract from the "New Work in Medieval Archaeology, Part 2: Crossing Boundaries, Materialities, and Identities" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While religion in Ireland is conventionally divided into the pre-Christian Iron Age and the Christian Early Medieval period, it seems obvious that the actual transition was far more complex. The details and focus of ritual shifted in certain ways to incorporate the new beliefs, and these can be...
Conversion on the Periphery: Bioarchaeology of Religious Identities in Early Medieval Bohemia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Life and Death in Medieval Central Europe" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ninth and tenth centuries in Central Europe have historically been characterized by political consolidations around Christian leadership. As Christianity gained influence in the region, conversion altered far more than religious beliefs: political landscapes, material culture, and bodies were also transformed. The skeletal remains and...
Crafting Bones: An Analysis of a Worked Bone Assemblage from a Mississippian Ceremonial Complex in Northeast Florida (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bone has been used as a medium for crafting both tools and decorative items since our earliest ancestors; however, this important component of material culture has often been overlooked, with the few published studies focusing on assemblages from either a utilitarian or burial context. The Mill Cove Complex, located along the St. Johns River near...
A Cross-Comparative Study of Problematic Deposits from M13-1 at El Perú Waka’ and the North Acropolis at Tikal (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological research on problematic deposits has provided a generic category for otherwise unexplainable bodies of evidence for ritual activity. This research focuses on data from two similarly constituted problematic deposits in the Maya area, one very well known from the North Acropolis at Tikal, and one lesser known from civic ceremonial structure M13-1...
Cycles of Time and Body Partibility at the Ancient Maya Site of Chan Chich, Belize (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Embodied Essence: Anthropological, Historical, and Archaeological Perspectives on the Use of Body Parts and Bodily Substances in Religious Beliefs and Practices" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological record of the ancient Maya reveals many examples of the living returning to human interments to exhume skeletal elements, expose the elements to fire or smoke, or to paint them with red pigment. At the ancient...
The Dark Arts: Mississippian Dramatic Delusions and Theatrical Illusions (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Magic, Spirits, Shamanism, and Trance" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Demonstrating one’s spiritual power through dramatic theatrics, based on deceptions and illusions, has long been the purview of ritual practitioners in their efforts to gain, legitimize, and maintain political and social advantages. Exclusive and secretive ritual sodalities, which often form the institutional framework for corporate-based magical...
Death, Dying and Horlicks: Structured Deposits as Problematic Stuff in European Prehistory (2018)
Personal possessions are inherent in the construction and maintenance of social identity. In some prehistoric cosmologies, artefacts may even have been integral to an individual’s personhood. As such, they can become culturally and ritually charged objects within a community. What happens then to this social remnant of an individual when they die? Objects that are on the one hand redundant but on the other too problematic to be casually discarded. In the increasingly materialist and consumerist...
Deer Offerings in the Stone Age of Eurasia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Embodied Essence: Anthropological, Historical, and Archaeological Perspectives on the Use of Body Parts and Bodily Substances in Religious Beliefs and Practices" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Deer Cult was a primary element of the myth-ritual complex of ancient hunter-gatherers. Deer worship included rituals related to natural and economic cycles, including the human life cycle. In the Upper Paleolithic,...
Deer Stones and the Bronze to Iron Age Transition in Mongolia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "From the Altai to the Arctic: New Results and New Directions in the Archaeology of North and Inner Asia" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Bronze Age Mongolian culture known for its memorial deer stones and khirigsuur burials (DSK complex), dating to 1300–700 BCE, persists over several hundred years with little change in ritual art and architecture. Deer stones are memorials to deceased leaders that display...
Deviancy, an Alternate Means of Child Veneration at the Maya Site of Colha (2018)
The veneration of space is a process that at times incorporates deviant practices as a method of signifying key importance. The deposition of burnt infant remains and associated grave goods diverges from burial norms at the Maya site of Colha. In May of 2017, archaeologists with the Programme for Belize Archaeological project returned to the site after a multi-year hiatus. The burnt skeletal remains of an infant, between the ages of 1.5 and 2.5 were found in association with burnt pottery...
Digging the Scene: More on the El Perú-Waka’ Burial 39 Figurines (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. The ancient Maya resurrection ritual depicted by the 23 ceramic figurines methodically arranged by mourners at the feet of the deceased ruler interred in El Perú-Waka’ Burial 39 continues to be a source of intriguing information about the Classic Maya. More recently, extensive examination...
Discard, Stockpile, or Commemorative Cairn: Interpreting the Bison Skull Pile at the Ravenscroft Late Paleoindian Bison Kill, Oklahoma Panhandle (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bison crania without mandibles form a vertical cluster in the earliest of two arroyos at the ~10,400 year old Ravenscroft bison kill site in the Oklahoma panhandle. The skulls were stacked on the arroyo floor, eventually forcing subsequent kills to relocate to an adjacent arroyo. A combined total of five winter kill events have been documented in the two...
Discovery of a Late Preclassic Ceremonial Bundle at the Ancient Maya Center of Yaxnohcah Using Environmental DNA Analysis (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A dark-stained feature near the base of a 1 m thick platform in the Helena complex of the Ancient Maya city of Yaxnohcah was found to contain remains of medicinal plants, a plant containing hallucinogens (likely used for divination), and a plant used in the manufacture of weaponry (spears and bows). The feature was...
The Disintegration of Style and Memory: Mound 3 Assemblages at Lake Jackson (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Art Style as a Communicative Tool in Archaeological Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At the 75th annual meeting of the Society of American Archaeology, Claudine Payne proposed that Lake Jackson’s Mound 3 served as a repository for ritual heirlooms that could no longer be used in the manners their creators intended. This paper revives her hypothesis to examine the role of this archaeological context at the...
Dogs of Death: An Evaluation of Canid Remains from a Mortuary Eneolithic Cave Site in Ukraine (2018)
Burials of dog skulls and full dog skeletons have been uncovered at several Eneolithic Tripolye (5100-2900 cal BC) sites suggesting that dogs held a special symbolic role for the Tripolye compared to other domestic fauna. To evaluate human-dog relationships in Tripolye culture and funerary context, we examined dogs from a single mortuary site (Site 17) located in Verteba Cave (3951-2620 cal BC), Ternopil Oblast, Western Ukraine. Symbolic representations of canids have been observed on some...
The Dogs of War: A Bronze Age Initiation Ritual in the Russian Steppes (2018)
At the Srubnaya-culture settlement of Krasnosamarskoe in the Russian steppes, dated 1900–1700 BCE, a ritual occurred in which the participants consumed sacrificed dogs, primarily, and a few wolves, violating normal food practices found at other sites, during the winter. At least 64 winter-killed canids, 19% MNI/37% NISP, were roasted, fileted, and apparently were eaten. More than 99% were dogs. Their heads were chopped into small standardized segments with practiced blows of an axe on multiple...
Double-Headed Serpent in the Southeastern Maya Frontier: Late Classic Deposit Unearthed from San Andres, El Salvador (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper aims to report a new ritual deposit dated to the Late Classic (A.D. 600-900), unearthed at San Andres, El Salvador. The items in the ritual deposit include vessels, Spondylus shells, and two pieces of jade artifacts, one of which was decorated with a double-headed serpent. In this paper, I present new data obtained from our recent excavation and...
Dressed to Kill: Richly Adorned Animals in the Offerings of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Animal Symbolism in Postclassic Mesoamerica: Papers in Honor of Cecelia Klein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the course of four decades, the Templo Mayor Project (1978–2018) of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has excavated more than two hundred offerings in the area corresponding to Tenochtitlan’s sacred precinct. These rich Mexica deposits from the fourteenth, fifteenth, and...