Ritual and Symbolism (Other Keyword)
226-250 (348 Records)
The Somali Coast has long been a center of global commerce. At the confluence of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, port cities like Zeila and Berbera witnessed the arrival of Greek and Roman traders (ca. AD200) and Chinese merchants (ca. AD1300). Contacts with Muslim merchants from the Arabian Peninsula (ca. AD800) were particularly transformative, and by the tenth century, communities across Djibouti and Somaliland were converts. Scholars have hypothesized that pre-Islamic "monument sites"...
The Religious Nature of Defended Sites: Chip's insights at Cerro Baul (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Thinking Big in the Andes: Papers in Honor of Charles Stanish" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chip has always been a big thinker about the capacity for violence in the human species and has pioneered ways of thinking about warfare in the Andean past that has revolutionized the field. He has also explored the roles of ritual and symbolism in his more recent work and his insights have influenced the ways the current...
Religious Practices of Pre-Columbian Pacific Nicaragua (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Reconstructing the Political Organization of Pre-Columbian Nicaragua" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Colonial period ethnohistorical sources recorded the religious practices of the Contact period Nicarao of Pacific Nicaragua, including a pantheon of deities, use of a ritual calendar, and other ceremonies. These were closely affiliated with the religion of Nahua central Mexico, linked to the purported migration of...
Renovación del templo en Chavín de Huántar en el Periodo Formativo Tardío: Una interpretación desde el estudio de los materiales (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 esta presentación expondremos sobre los análisis realizados a los objetos hallados en contextos de ofrendas, asociados a lo que hemos definido como la renovación del templo en Chavín de Huántar, practica ritual realizada durante el Periodo Formativo Tardío (900-450 aC). Los...
Resting in Meaning: Symbolism from St. Henry’s Cemetery (11S1742), East St. Louis, IL, 1866–1908 (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. St. Henry’s Catholic Cemetery (11S1742), located in East St. Louis, IL, was in use between 1866 and 1908 and mainly served the surrounding German and Irish communities. Despite repeated claims of full relocation since its closure, the presence of burials on site has been debated. However, recent excavations reveal a likely large number of burials were...
Ritual and Cultural Process in the E-Group Complex at Holtun, Guatemala (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Holtun: Investigations at a Preclassic Maya Center" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we present data from investigations of Group F, or the E-group complex at Holtun, Guatemala. Named for the group at Uaxactun where this specific architectural compound was first identified, the Holtun E-group contains a large pyramidal structure to the west and a range structure to the east. First believed to be celestial...
Ritual and Death: A Paleopathological Analysis of Skeletal Remains from Salango, Ecuador during the Guangala Period (100 BCE-800 CE) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There are many questions that have yet to be answered about the prehistoric people of Ecuador, especially along the southern coast. In particular, more studies are needed in order to understand how people lived and interacted with each other and the landscape at the important ritual site of Salango. Salango was occupied from 4000 BCE through Spanish contact...
Ritual and Domestic Life at Usacorral: Preliminary Investigations and Community-Based Research at a Long-Occupied Community Site in the Northern Callejón de Huaylas, Peru (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Usacorral is a 10 hectare mixed-use and long-occupied ceremonial, habitation, and agropastoral complex situated at 3,625 masl in the north-central highlands of Ancash, Peru. Preliminary fieldwork at Usacorral employed test excavations, mapping, spatial analysis, and community-based research methods to understand the site’s occupational history and...
Ritual Circuits and the Distribution of Exotic Sherds in Hopewell Contexts (2018)
The exchange of exotic goods between disparate geographic and cultural groups across the Midwest and Southeast is a hallmark of the Hopewell Period. Ceramics Are recognized by archaeologists as an important component of this interaction sphere. This exchange is usually conceptualized as whole vessels moving across the landscape. In this paper, it is posited that sherds could be the unit of exchange instead. Using ritual circuits as a theoretical framework, this preliminary paper seeks to lay a...
Ritual Closure: A Countermeasure to Witchcraft (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Research Hot Off the Trowel in the Upper Gila and Mimbres Areas" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists routinely encounter ceremonially closed buildings and sites yet specific explanations about why this occurs and how to frame it remain murky. For the American Southwest and likely many other parts of the world, fear of witchcraft may explain these closures. We argue in this poster that ritual burning and the...
A Ritual Complex at Etzanoa (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The National Park Service held its Remote Sensing Workshop at Etzanoa in May, 2023, and Wichita State University followed with a field school in June. The results of both suggest that the area investigated was the site of a variety of ritual activities. Remote sensing there has included thermal imaging from a drone, magnetometry, resistivity,...
Ritual Deposition of Avifauna in the Northern Burial Cluster at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon (2018)
Birds are an important part of both modern and historic Puebloan ceremonialism: live birds, stuffed birds, and bird wings and feathers are used in prayers, in ceremonies, as sacrifices, and in the creation of ritual paraphernalia. Archaeological evidence suggests birds held a similar role in the past for some prehispanic Southwestern groups, including members of the Chaco phenomenon. Pueblo Bonito is one member of the Chaco system that might be expected to contain evidence of ritual use of...
Ritual Human Sacrifice among the Tarascans (2018)
This study reports on osteological remains excavated from the Great Platform at Tzintzuntzán, the Postclassic (A.D. 1300-1522) Tarascan ceremonial capital. The osteological deposit was first uncovered by Alfonso Caso in 1937-1944, re-visited by Rubin de Borbolla and Roman Piña Chan during the 1960’s, by Efrain Cardenas in 1992, and most recently in 2011 by the Proyecto Especial de Michoacán. In 1992, 194 skull fragments (MNI=40) and 28 modified femur fragments were recovered while the most...
The Ritual Lives of Southwest Dogs (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dogs, as the first domesticated species, have held a wide range of roles in human societies including hunting assistants, guardians, companions, and food sources. In this poster we will explore their ceremonial roles through a comparative analysis of the life histories of ritually deposited dogs. Specifically, we will compare Southwest dog burials to a late...
The Ritual Performance of Gift Exchange in Archaic Greece (2018)
Gift exchange is most often discussed as an economic transaction. Whether goods are exchanged for social, political or cultural capital, the model for examining the practice is based on a commodity framework. However, gift exchange is also a performance, often with prescribed behaviors based on the culture and the individuals participating in the exchange. This behavior clearly falls within the realm of ritual as much as that of trade or economics. In this paper, I discuss gift exchange as a...
Ritual Performances in and around Caves in Bronze Age Sardinia (2018)
This paper understands performance as an embodied, site-specific and temporary event. It consequently emphasizes the diversity of ritual performances identifiable archaeologically, not only in the context of different types of cave and rock-shelter, but also between these and other types of site in the landscape. In doing so, the paper evaluates the liminality of these places and ritual performances, which were – to varying degrees – separated spatially, temporally and symbolically from the rest...
Ritual Traces and the Challenges of Detecting Late Precontact Rituals at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, IL (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Silenced Rituals in Indigenous North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ethnographic accounts of indigenous communities throughout the United States illustrate the many ways that ritual activities were deeply embedded into everyday life. However, moving to the American Midwestern archaeological record, treatments of ritual are typically limited to large, ceremonial sites and these everyday rituals...
Ritual Transformation in Formative Period Oaxaca: A Comparative Analysis of Deity Impersonation, Nagualism, and Hybrid Beings (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse II: Current Research in Oaxaca Part 2" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A hallmark of ancient Mesoamerican art and religion is the ability of powerful ritual practitioners, sometimes referred to as “shamans,” to transform themselves. The Olmec were-jaguar is probably the best-known example of the phenomenon. However, artifacts from different regions of Mesoamerica demonstrate that this was a diverse...
Ritual Use of the Rejolladas of Tahcabo, Yucatán (2018)
In Tahcabo, Yucatán, 5% of the town’s municipal land is contained within rejolladas. Rejolladas, like cenotes, are sinkholes formed in the karstic bedrock of Yucatán, although they do not reach to the level of the water table. They make for ideal gardens when located within settlements, as their low elevation allows for the collection of deep and moisture-rich soil that provides an advantage for the cultivation of almost any plant. At the nearby site of Kulubá it has also been shown that...
Ritual y sacrificio de cocodrilos en la ofrenda constructiva del Juego de Pelota de Tlalixcoyan, Veracruz (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Los Rituales del Juego de Pelota en la Costa del Golfo / Ballgame Rituals in the Gulf Lowlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Trabajos de investigación sobre arquitectura dañada del Juego de Pelota realizados en el Complejo Monumental de Tlalixcoyan, Centro de Veracruz, permitieron documentar ofrendas de dedicación y múltiples etapas constructivas durante el Clásico. En una de las etapas iniciales, los constructores...
Ritual, Material Culture, and Interaction in the Epiclassic Basin of Mexico: Contextualizing a Temple Assemblage from Chicoloapan (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Interactions during the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic (AD 650–1100) in the Central Highlands: New Insights from Material and Visual Culture" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Central Mexico’s Epiclassic period (550–850 CE) was a time of significant social change, marked by the breakdown of the Teotihuacan state, political fragmentation, the migration of large numbers of people, and the adoption of new practices and...
Ritualidad acuática en Media Luna y su relación con el juego de pelota (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Los Rituales del Juego de Pelota en la Costa del Golfo / Ballgame Rituals in the Gulf Lowlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El análisis del contexto arqueológico sumergido, Media Luna, localizado en San Luis Potosí, México, ha permitido profundizar en los ritos mortuorios y en los actos de oblación que las comunidades de Río Verde realizaban en torno al agua durante el periodo Clásico y Posclásico Temprano...
Rituals of Maya Royal Women in Classic Period Inscriptions (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Role of Women in Mesoamerican Ritual" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Classic Maya period inscriptions provide us with extensive documentation of the rituals and ceremonies that Maya elites performed as part of their royal duties. Throughout this paper we will discuss those that were overseen by women belonging to the royal houses of the polities of the Maya lowlands, which have been recorded through the images and...
Rock Art Sites in the Permian Basin, New Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Role of Rock Art in Cultural Understanding: A Symposium in Honor of Polly Schaafsma" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sacred Sites Research, Inc. and Versar Inc., working in cooperation with the Mescalero Apache Tribe and the Hopi Tribe, recorded and evaluated 17 rock art sites in New Mexico's Permian Basin, a project supported through the Bureau of Land Management programmatic agreement. Sixteen of the sites...
Ruptured: Bodies, Boundaries and Reproductive Loss in Bioarchaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The concept of the bounded body is powerfully resonant within the post-industrialised western world; it is performed and reinforced through cultural practices which observe the maintenance of bodily space and the delineation of individual bodies. Recent research on the developmental origins of health and disease hypothesis, epigenetics and...