Archaeometry & Materials Analysis (Other Keyword)
1-25 (632 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The University of South Dakota (USD) archaeological field school in summer 2024 took place at the Soapsuds Row area of Fort Meade at the Bear Butte Creek Historic Preserve in Sturgis, South Dakota. The term “Soapsuds Row” refers to the housing originally used by laundresses employed by Fort Meade in the late AD 1800s. The 2024 archaeological work focused...
About Islands and Islanders: Mobility, Connectivity, and Identity in the Balearic Islands (Mediterranean Sea) during the Bronze Age (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeologies and Islands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Bronze Age, the archaeological record of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea reveals a conspicuous prevalence of similarities across all the islands within the archipelago. To elucidate the mechanisms underlying this convergence phenomenon within the archaeological record, we developed a study centered on the analysis of mobility and...
Acoustic Effects at Las Cuevas Cave (Western Belize): An Archaeoacoustic Analysis of a Maya Cave (2018)
The site of Las Cuevas (western Belize) has been identified as a mid-sized, Late Classic ceremonial and administrative center. Interestingly, given the importance of caves in Maya religion, the underneath part of the site has a large cave system. Research so far on this cave has focused on aspects that are common in cave archaeology: 1/ structures - in this case on the one hand the series of platforms built around a central, sunk cenote and on the other the walls subdiving the narrow part of...
Aesthetics and technology: gold and silver ornaments in the Qin First Emperor’s bronze chariots (2025)
This is an abstract from the "New materials and new insights for our understanding of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and early imperial China" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among the most spectacular finds at the Mausoleum of China’s First Emperor (259 - 210 BC) are the Terracotta Army built to protect him in the afterlife, and the two sets of bronze chariots designed and buried to facilitate his travel in his underground kingdom. Hundreds of...
After Monumentality: The Late Paracas Component at the Site of Campanayuq Rumi in the Peruvian South-Central Highlands (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Borders at the End of a Millennium: Life in the Western Andes circa 500–50 BCE" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Campanayuq Rumi, located in the Peruvian south-central highlands, flourished as a major ceremonial center during the late Initial period and early Early Horizon (ca. 1000–500 BCE). While it ceased to function as a Chavín-related center and an important node of interregional interaction around 500 BCE,...
An Agate Basin Point from Michoacán, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Late Pleistocene Stemmed Points across North America: Continental Questions and Regional Concerns" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A complete black obsidian Agate Basin Point was found in a rockshelter in the state of Michoacán, Mexico, during the excavations realized by the CEMCA team. Despite the fact that the stratigraphy of the shelter had been completely disturbed, this point was found associated with a complete...
Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: An Introduction (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: Interregional Interactions and Social Transformations in the Middle Preclassic Period" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among the many Middle Preclassic sites in the Middle Usumacinta region, Aguada Fénix is, by far, the largest and possibly one of the oldest. A large, rectangular platform was built at its center, measuring 1,400 × 400 m. The construction of this artificial...
Alcohol Production and Consumption at Zhouyuan: Continuity and Change Across Dynastic Transition (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Technology, Production, and Social Changes in Chinese Archaeology" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study investigates alcohol production and consumption practices at the Zhouyuan site during the Chinese Bronze Age. Using microfossil analysis, including starch, phytolith, and fungal identification, the research examines fermentation technology, and use of vessels associated with brewing and consumption. By...
The American Upper Paleolithic and Its Origins (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Late Pleistocene Archaeology of the Northern Pacific Rim" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A number of North American sites predating ~14.5 ka, well before an ice-free corridor became available, have relatively large stone tool assemblages that allow some assessment of the underlying characteristics of the lithic tradition they share. These assemblages have a broad technological...
Analyses of Pastes and Polychromy of Chupícuaro Pottery: A Diachronic Comparison Using a Noninvasive Approach (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Reassessing Chupícuaro–Cuicuilco Relationships in Light of Ceramic Production (Formative Mesoamerica)" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pottery is one of the hallmarks of the societies that emerged in the present-day Acámbaro Valley known as the Chupícuaro culture (ca. 600–100 BC). The aesthetic features of Chupícuaro ceramics range from complex forms of monochrome ware to polychrome varieties based on three main...
Analysis of Burned Hematite from Boxed Springs Site (41UR30) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Boxed Springs (41UR30) is an Early Caddo archaeological site, known for its earthen mounds and looted cemetery. Gradiometer results from 2020 revealed multiple circular features throughout the southern area of the site, likely indicative of domestic structures. In addition to presumed structures, gradiometer results indicated several anomalies, which were...
An Analysis of Ceramic Compositions from Canchas Uckro, Ancash, Peru: Implications for Trade in the Formative Andes (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Canchas Uckro (ca. 1100-850 BC) is a large monumental platform situated above the Puccha River approximately 25 km north of Chavín de Huántar. Recent excavations have revealed monumental features that suggest the Canchas Uckro played an important role within the political landscape. Ceramic analysis has likewise linked the site to broader economic spheres of...
Ancient Manganism in the Andes: A Bioarchaeological View (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient Chinchorro people of northern Chile used manganese as part of their mortuary rites (7000–3000 BP). Chinchorro artifacts (n = 12) reveals the presence of manganese up to 64% measured with portable X-ray fluorescence. In addition, bone chemistry analysis from Chinchorro mummies (n = 68) using atomic absorption spectrometry reveals for the first...
Appearance of the bifacial stemmed points in Paleo-Sakhalin Hokkaido Kurile Peninsula (PSHK) (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Late Pleistocene Archaeology of the Northern Pacific Rim" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The precise locations and mechanisms of the emergence of ancient North American populations, which developed from a mix of East Eurasian and Ancient North Eurasian groups around 25,000 years ago, followed by a period of isolation and subsequent migration to the Americas after approximately...
Application of archaeometric methods to forensic anthropology casework to resolve medicolegal significance (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human remains cases processed through the medicolegal system come from a variety of different circumstances. Protohistoric and prehistoric human remains are often submitted to law enforcement, and these remains often lack burial context and provenience. This presents a problem not only for law enforcement, who curate the remains as an unresolved case, but...
An Appraisal of the Middle Preclassic Pyrite Mirrors from Tomb 1 of Chiapa de Corzo (2024)
This is an abstract from the "And They Look into the Mirror for Answers: Mirror Analysis to Understand Its Holder" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Smith and Kidder were among the first to highlight pyrite prehispanic mirrors as “marvels of painstaking craftsmanship” (1951: 44). These mirrors presented a reflective surface consisting of 20–50 pyrite tesserae with beveled edges, perfectly cut, and average 2 mm in thickness. The first known examples...
Archaelogical Analysis of a Colonial Copper Smelting Furnace from Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacan, Mexico. (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in South Central Michoacán México, Ongoing Studies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1788 the Spanish Crown wanted to evaluate the mining industry in New Spain in order to start the implementation of new technologies, change the domain and administration of the mines, and create new foundries that would help the mining industry to have more eficiency in all the processes related to this activity. That is...
An Archaeogeochemical Perspective on Ancient Maya Land Use and Climate Change: The Case of Lagunas de Yalahau, Yucatan, Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent theoretical advances emerging from Historical Ecology have reoriented thinking regarding human-environment relations in many ancient contexts. Consistent with this research program, the concept of the Maya Forest-Garden introduced by Ford and Nigh and Rivera-Núñez and Fargher’s work on Kanan Ka’ax, among others, have provided a more integrated...
Archaeological Evidence for Islamic Uses of Megalithic Structures in al-Andalus (CE 711-1492) (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At the time of the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the landscape was dotted with countless ancient sites, including megalithic monuments constructed between the 6th and 3rd millennium BCE. Were these sites ignored, defaced, or destroyed, as they dated to the time before Muhammad (Age of Ignorance/ jāhilīyah), or is there archaeological evidence for...
Archaeological Implications of Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene Paleoceanographic Change in the Cedros Island Region, Mexico (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Late Pleistocene Archaeology of the Northern Pacific Rim" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> The Late Pleistocene to early Holocene (~20,000-7000 cal BP) was marked by warming climates, rapidly rising sea levels, shifting oceanic conditions, and profound paleolandscape changes along North America’s Pacific coast. Dramatic transformations in the coastal environments of Baja...
Archaeological Mollusks from Xalla (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Palace of Xalla in Teotihuacan: A Possible Seat of Power in the Ancient Metropolis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Project “Teotihuacan, élite y gobierno” (Teotihuacan elite and government) has excavated 420 artifacts made of mollusk shells. Ninety-one of them are objects and 166 are valves or fragments that present traces of human modification; 163 are fragments with no traces of human work. In this paper the...
Archaeological Science in Southern and Eastern Africa (2023)
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. African archaeology has a rich tradition of archaeological science. Sophisticated chronostratigraphies underpin our picture of human origins; archaeometric studies of provenance, trade, and exchange are reshaping our understanding of how societies developed; and my own field of bone chemistry and...
Archaeological Textiles from Victorian Era Saskatchewan (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Fiber and Perishables in Archaeology and Beyond" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Past, and present, fiber objects fulfill an incredible array of human necessities, from utilitarian hunting and fishing tools to powerful symbols of sociocultural and political identity like clothing and personal adornments. For archaeologists and anthropologists, fiber objects offer opportunities to explore common questions including...
Archaeology of Culiacán Valley: An Integral Approach (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Culiacán valley is located in central Sinaloa. It is well known in archaeological literature because of the excellent quality of its pottery. Nevertheless, archaeological knowledge is limited due to the lack of continuity in research during last seventy years. This work presents a new perspective on the region through integral research carried out by the...
Archaeology of new plants and flavors in Post-Inca Andean Cultures: An Archaeobotanical Introduction to the Colonial Indigenous World from Tarapacá. (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Materialidades, representaciones, vegetales y animales del mundo Colonial de Andinoamérica y Mesoamérica" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeobotanical studies in Tarapacá, Northern Chile, have mainly focused on pre-Hispanic plants like maize, potatoes, and quinoa. Hence, the study of plants introduced during the post-Inca period (from the 16th century onwards) has been limited. These new plants, brought from...