Archaeometry & Materials Analysis (Other Keyword)
426-450 (484 Records)
The Paracas culture and its impressive pottery tradition developed along the south coast of Peru in the Early Horizon period (approximately 800-100BC). A scientific study of manufacturing techniques and materials of post-fire painted Paracas ceramics at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) found a correlation between changes in material use and iconography and vessel form across time. Differences between colorant composition in the Formative/Early...
The Technical Study of Two 16th Century Mexican Pictographic Documents in the NMAI Collection (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Two mid-16th century Mexican pictographic documents in the collection of the National Museum of the American Indian, a codex on amate paper from the Valley of Mexico and a lienzo on a large cotton textile from Puebla, have...
A Technological Approach of Textile Production in Late Postclassic Tlaxcallan (2018)
Textile production had a pivotal role among Late Postclassic societies including ancient Tlaxcallan, a prominent altepetl of the Puebla-Tlaxcala region. Several scholars have studied prehispanic cloth and garments production based on 16th century historical sources, but using little archaeological evidence. In particular, poor attention has been paid on the technology of textile production based on archaeological artifacts, especially in relation to spinning techniques and the different fibers...
Technologies of Clay: Pottery, Architecture, and the Transformation of Mud in the Atacama Desert (South-Central Andes) (2018)
In the Atacama Desert, pottery is one of the main technological changes of the Formative Period (ca. 2700 BP). The initial industry (LCA type) is characterized by a stylistic homogeneity coupled with a wide geographical distribution. Compositional analyses, however, have shown a significant regularity in pastes, suggesting the use of localized sources of raw materials and/or specific production centers—indicative of a well-defined recipe and style. Provenance studies have identified a locus of...
The Technology of Capturing Color: Complementary Analyses of Pigment Cakes and Chalks (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Coloring the World: People and Colors in Southwestern Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The brilliant range of colors seen on painted media in the U.S. Southwest represents only one stage in an intricate sequence required to make paint. Capturing color from the natural world, harnessing it into a palette, and incorporating it into the material cultural repertoire represents a skillset with deep roots. The...
Temporal Patterns in Diet and Population Movement within Greater Cahokia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Migration and Climate Change: The Spread of Mississippian Culture" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At its peak, Greater Cahokia had a population of over 30,000 people, and engaged in social, political, and religious interactions that covered the midcontinent. The factors that influenced the rise and dissolution of Greater Cahokia between ca A.D. 1000 and 1300 remain a focus of inquiry. Archaeobotanical and isotopic...
Ternimal Classic Copper Production at El Coyote, Honduras (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Centralizing Central America: New Evidence, Fresh Perspectives, and Working on New Paradigms" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists have long speculated that western Honduras was one source of the copper artifacts found in southern Mesoamerica from the tenth century onward. Until now, there has been little field evidence to back up this claim. Work conducted at the major political center of El Coyote in 2002,...
Testing the Efficacy of Sulfur Isotopes from the Maya Site of Chulub (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable isotope analysis of carbon (13C/12C) and nitrogen (15N/14N) are often used to reconstruct ancient Maya diets. While these two isotopes provide us with a broad understanding of past subsistence practices, carbon and nitrogen are limited in their ability to differentiate freshwater and terrestrial based diets. Similar problems exist in other areas of the...
Testing the Geographical Sourcing of Rivercane Using Pb/Sr Isotopes and Trace Elements in Arkansas and Oklahoma (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of rivercane in ancient basketry and other ancient materials presents an opportunity to understand how culturally important objects were used and moved across the landscape. Examples of ritual and subsistence related basketry have been found at Spiro and in the Ozark Mountains, some of which are expected to come from other locations. Modern plant...
Testing the Trance Hypothesis: Identifying Hallucinogenic Compounds from Quids at Pinwheel Cave, California (2018)
For decades, debates have raged over the role of trance in the origination of rock-art. However, there remains almost no direct evidence of the ingestion of trance inducing material at any rock art site world-wide. The site of Pinwheel Cave has a large element thought to represent the opening of the flowering Datura. Dozens of quid, or 'chews' - i.e. masticated fibres of unidentified plant material - are found within the ceiling of the cave. A sample of this was taken and analysed to determine...
Theoretical Reflections on Textiles and Environment in the Northern Great Basin (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Textiles are often given short thrift in archaeological research and reporting, due in large part to their rarity and thus limited depth of analysis. Recent studies have demonstrated a variety of new analytical techniques, revealing new potential in archaeological and anthropological textile studies. Unfortunately, over ten years into these developments, few...
Thermal Analysis as a Means to Understand Prehistoric Heat Treatment and Performance Differences in Tool Stone (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Thermal analysis (TGA/DTA/STA) has seen sporadic use as an archaeometric technique. Recent papers on archaeological mortars, plasters, ceramic pigments, and paints have sought to understand recipes or mineralogical components by thermal decomposition, especially where traditional chemical analysis by mass spectrometry is limited due to the multiple forms a...
The Thorny Problem of Spondylus Sourcing in the Ancient Andes (2018)
Archaeologists have long been fascinated with the exploitation and exchange of Spondylus spp. across the ancient world. This is especially true for the Andes, where the "thorny oyster" has been found far afield from its tropical breeding sites along the coasts of Ecuador and northern Peru. However, factors such as the uneven development of archaeology between Peru and Ecuador and the persistence of certain myths about Andean Spondylus have led to a "black-boxing" effect where exchange from...
Thread Production in Ocotelulco, Tlaxcallan, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Tlaxcallan: Mesoamerica's Bizarro World" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological excavations undertaken by the Tlaxcallan Archaeological Project have recovered an important sample of spindle whorls from Late Postclassic – Early Colonial (1420 -1540 A.D.) domestic contexts in Ocotelulco, a subsection of the urban site of Tlaxcallan, Mexico. In this paper, we present the results of the analysis of identified whorl...
Tiwanaku Pastoralism, Highland Bofedales, and Grasslands in Far Southern Peru: Creating a Strontium Baseline and Isoscape to Understand Cultural Connections (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Camelid pastoralism was an economic mainstay of the Tiwanaku Empire (~AD 600-1000). Communities of colonists in Moquegua, Peru were connected to their Tiwanaku capital near Lake Titicaca through an informal trade route traversing the altiplano. One component of Tiwanaku hegemony involved the movement of goods via llama caravans...
The Toltec Diaspora as Political Action (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Movement of People and Ideas in Eastern Mesoamerica during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries CE: A Multidisciplinary Approach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological chronologies and material-culture evidence indicate large-scale migrations of Nahua peoples to eastern Mesoamerica in the ninth and tenth centuries CE linked to the collapse of the Toltec state at Tula Chico in about 850 CE. This event...
Tools Fit for a Queen: Interdisciplinary Study of a Set of Ancient Maya Weaving Implements (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Materials to Materiality: Analysis and Interpretation of Archaeological and Historical Artifacts Using Non-destructive and Micro/Nano-sampling Scientific Methods" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper reviews our interdisciplinary study examining a set of carved deer bones comprising what appears to be a weaving or sewing kit for an ancient Maya royal woman bearing the Sa’ emblem glyph associated with...
Traces of Integration: A Study of Early Colonial Ware by Imagenology Methods (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Tzintzuntzan, Capital of the Tarascan Empire: New Perspectives" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The capital of the Tarascan empire was located in Tzintzuntzan (Michoacán, Mexico), which reached its peak during the Late Postclassic (AD 1350–1525). At the time of contact, there was an almost unique continuous transition, showing a historical process of long duration, where different traditions converged. Among the...
Tracing Late Quaternary Highland-Dryland Social Connectivity in Southern Africa with Ostrich Eggshell Bead Strontium Values: Preliminary Results (2018)
Humans have frequented southern Africa’s highest reaches – Lesotho’s Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains – for ≥90,000 years. As with many high mountain systems worldwide, the Maloti-Drakensberg cast a rainshadow over closely neighboring arid lowlands (the eastern Karoo Desert). Based on previous archaeological and paleoenvironmental work in highland Lesotho, researchers have posited that source populations for human dispersals into the mountain zone often originated in the Karoo, particularly during...
Tracking Kelp-like Marine Seaweed Fuel in the Archaeological Record of Atacama Desert Coast through Raman Spectroscopy: Insight from the Analysis of Macro- and Microremains of Charred Particles (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeophycology: New (Ethno)Archaeological Approaches to Understand the Contribution of Seaweed to the Subsistence and Social Life of Coastal Populations" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of seaweed as fuel has been mentioned in ethnographic sources from different world regions. Still, the archaeological record of seaweed burning is limited to contexts where preservation is exceptional, and the macroscopic...
Tracking Paleoaridity through Multi-isotope Analyses of Ostrich Eggshells at Spitzkloof Rockshelter A, South Africa (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable isotopes in ratite eggshells record information about the birds’ diet during shell formation, making them valuable proxies for paleoenvironmental reconstruction. Here we present the results of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen stable isotope analyses in ostrich (Struthio camelus australis) eggshell (OES) collected in excavation at Spitzkloof A, a rock...
Tracking Population Movement and Interaction in Southern Appalachia: Elemental Analysis of Early Mississippian Pottery from Etowah (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Twenty Years of Archaeological Science at the Field Museum’s Elemental Analysis Facility" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Migration, pilgrimage, and other forms of movement and culture contact have long been recognized as important forces of social change. Social interaction among culturally diverse groups has been demonstrated archaeologically as an important causal factor in Mississippian origins throughout the US...
Trade And Production of Steatite Vessels in New England (2018)
This research examines the trade and production of steatite vessels during the Archaic Period in New England. The study focuses specifically on a quarry Located in Barkhamsted, Connecticut where recent excavation has supplemented prior investigations from 1949 to 1951. The material from this site is located at Yale’s Peabody Museum and the archaeology lab at Central Connecticut State University. We also examine the artifact assemblages from other sites in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Along...
The Trade of Tortoiseshell between the Caribbean and Europe during the 17th–18th Centuries: An Archaeological and Biomolecular Approach (2018)
Tortoiseshell is made from the scutes of sea turtles; historically, hawksbill turtle was the main source of tortoiseshell but other species might have been used. Between the 17th and 18th c. tortoiseshell obtained in the Caribbean was traded on North American and European markets. Tortoiseshell was used for making combs, fans, boxes, in bookbinding, and as veneering for furniture. Excavations in European workshops (Paris and Amsterdam) attest of the use of this exotic material into luxurious...
Tradition and Transformation during the Middle Horizon to LIP Transition: Visual and Compositional Analyses of Tumilaca and Estuquiña Pottery in the Moquegua Valley, Peru (2018)
In many Andean regions, the shift from the Middle Horizon to the Late Intermediate Period, or LIP, is archaeologically identified by stylistic changes. In the Moquegua valley, southern Peru, LIP (ca. AD 1250-1476) Estuquiña architecture and portable material culture is starkly different from that associated with terminal Middle Horizon (ca. AD 950-1200) Tumilaca populations. Until recently Tumilaca settlements were thought to have been completely abandoned prior to the appearance of Estuquiña...