Ethnography/Ethnoarchaeology (Other Keyword)
1-25 (435 Records)
This is an abstract from the "After Cortés: Archaeological Legacies of the European Invasion in Mesoamerica" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the late-nineteenth century, Maya refugees fleeing the violence of the Caste War of Yucatan (1847-1901) briefly reoccupied the ancient Maya ruins of Tikal. Unlike the numerous Yucatec refugee communities established to the east in British Honduras, those who settled at Tikal combined with Lacandon Maya, and...
Abandoned Cities in the Steppe: Roles and Perception of Early Modern Religious and Military Centers in Nomadic Mongolia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Towns and cities have been an integral part of the Mongolian nomadic society for more than a millennium, and abandoned urban sites from various periods dot the land, inscribing memories of lost empires and long-gone alliances into the cultural landscape. The relation between sedentary urban and mobile pastoralist lifeways has constituted a key...
Abandonment Processes in Manabi, Ecuador: Ethnoarchaeological Interpretations from the Cloud Forest (2018)
The purpose of this research is to determine the manner in which site abandoned occurred in Manabí, Ecuador. The Manteño were one of many pre-Hispanic cultures exchanging local resources, engineering new technologies, and mass-producing goods along the coast of Ecuador. Successful in their chiefdom and independent from the expanding Inca Empire, the Manteño remained culturally uninterrupted for more than 800 years. The focus of this research is to understand the interruption and thus...
Absent and Present: Contested Landscapes and Undocumented Migration at the U.S.-Mexico Border (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In pursuing archaeological research on contemporary undocumented migration at the Arizona-Sonora border, it became necessary for me to address the myriad and potent absences that made the entwined processes of undocumented migration, humanitarian efforts on behalf of migrants, and border security aimed against migrants tangible to me through scales of space and time....
Across Boundaries: Origin of Microblade Technology in NE Asia under a Macroecological Approach (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology on the Edge(s): Transitions, Boundaries, Changes, and Causes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The spread of microblade technology has been explained using human migration and cultural transmission under the culture-historical paradigm of a "refugium model" that illustrates movements of foraging societies from Transbaikal eastward to the Paleo-Sakhalin-Hokkaido-Kurile (PSHK) Peninsula and to North China in...
Agave Bloom Stalk Ovens in the Southern Chihuahuan Desert (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Hot Rocks in Hot Places: Investigating the 10,000-Year Record of Plant Baking across the US-Mexico Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fire cracked rock (FCR) and hearth features represent one of the most commonly observed cooking features encountered by archaeologists. This research presents an ethno-archaeological context in which FCR utilization and discard is observed, providing a Middle Range theoretical...
Agave Roasting Pits of the Mescalero Apache (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Hot Rocks in Hot Places: Investigating the 10,000-Year Record of Plant Baking across the US-Mexico Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the main staple foods of the Mescalero Apache was Mescal or Agave. The heart of the plant is cooked in an earth oven for four days. The plant is then eaten straight out of the oven or dried for storage and supply. Today the roasting of Mescal is still done every year in...
Analysis of a Jun/Wasi Nut Cracking Stone from Western Ngamiland, Botswana: Implications for the Origins of Hominin Technology (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A nut cracking stone collected from a 1960s dry season occupation site at Dobe (Western Ngamiland, Botswana) shows not only evidence of cracking and pounding of mongongo nuts and other uses, but also repetitive flaking around the periphery. This flaking is reminiscent of the putative anvil stones from Lomekwi, Kenya (~3.3 Ma) and reinforces the idea that...
Ancient Maya Agriculture: The Intersection of Archaeology, Soil Science, Ethnobotany and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One enduring mystery of the ancient Maya is how they managed to feed large populations in a tropical environment and land resources that have long been characterized as hostile and challenging for agriculture. The traditional academic and popular perception of Maya agriculture, both ancient and modern, was based on the cultivation of maize, beans, and...
Andean Philosophies, Social Theory, and the Use of Analogies in the Interpretation of Andean Built Environments (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dedication, Collaboration, and Vision, Part I: Papers in Honor of Tom D. Dillehay" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dr. Tom Dillehay has significantly advanced Andean studies and archaeological theory and method, and a short presentation could never do justice to the extraordinary breadth of Tom’s many contributions. In my paper, I focus on Tom’s invaluable investigations of Andean ideologies of space and his pioneering...
Animism and Agency in the Amazonian Landscape: A Consideration of the Ontological Turn Utilizing Perspectives from Modern Runa Communities (2018)
Modern kichwa-speaking Runa peoples inhabit much of Ecuador’s Upper Amazon. Ethnographic study focusing on Runa communities of both the Pastaza and Napo Rivers indicate these groups share many of the views, collectively known as Amazonian Perspectivism, that characterize numerous lowland cultural groups. This paper will detail some of the ways in which Runa persons perceive and interact with their environment, focusing on relations with socially salient plants and animals thought to be persons,...
An Animist Shamanism: The World behind San Rock Art (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Painting the Past: Interpretive Approaches in Global Rock Art Research" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Hunter-gatherer cosmology in southern Africa is very clearly multinatural; persons human and nonhuman working to behave intelligibly to each other so that relations are brokered and maintained. Until recently, however, rock art interpretations have implied a physical division between realms animal and human,...
Ants for Breakfast For Everyone! The Legacy of James Skibo’s Work on the Kalinga Ethnoarchaeological Project (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Method and Theory: Papers in Honor of James M. Skibo, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1988, James Skibo lived and worked in a small village along the Pasil River in the northern Philippines. His observations there of women cooking, and the material traces of vessel use, still have a lasting impact on archaeological ceramic analysis 30 years later. In this paper I consider some of Skibo’s...
Archaeological Applications of Optimal Foraging Theory: Employing Bayesian probability modeling to estimate profitability parameters for rare and extinct prey (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Novel Statistical Techniques in Archaeology II (QUANTARCH II)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Reconstructing the subsistence strategies of past hominin populations remains one of the most important endeavors of archaeological studies. However, the presence and relative frequency of species alone, recovered as faunal material in archaeological contexts, is insufficient to reconstruct the complex foraging decisions made...
An Archaeological Perspective on Oral Traditions, Regarding Migration, of the Northern Caddoan Speaking Tribes (2018)
Affiliating prehistoric archaeological sites with contemporary indigenous communities in American archaeology is often met with skepticism and criticism. As a means for overcoming the inherent criticism; I utilize the oral traditions, regarding migration, of the Northern Caddoan speaking tribes as a means to construct a relative chronology for which these populations moved across the landscape in prehistory. Then I compare the relative chronology with the archaeological record. By comparing site...
The Archaeology and Anthropology of Megafauna Exploitation in the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Southern Africa has some of the world’s largest elephant (Loxodonta africana) populations. Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe all allow elephant hunting by safari company clients. Wildlife departments in the three countries engage in problem animal control (PAC) to reduce human-elephant conflict (HEC). Local indigenous community members, while not allowed to...
Archaeology and Comics: Cons, Concerns, and Creativity (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Tomb Raider to Indiana Jones: Pitfalls and Potential Promise of Archaeology in Pop Culture" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Popular culture is important for gaging how archaeology is understood by the public. It allows us to evaluate what aspects of our discipline the public finds interesting and what the public misunderstands, despite a wealth of academic and scientific knowledge. This paper will focus on how...
Archaeology as Anthropology: Chaîne Operatoire and the Analysis of Contemporary Technologies (2018)
The application of archaeological methods to modern contexts is an emergent trend in cultural anthropology. This paper presents a case study of chaîne opératoire methodologies in the analysis of modern technologies. New materialist ontologies and digital archaeologies offer powerful tools for understand the past. Behavioral archaeologists apply method and theory to relationships between people and things in all times. Dawdy, McGuire and others address the current archaeological turn in...
Archaeology in Public Schools (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper, focused in Bloomington, Indiana public schools, discusses how students understand and how students experience classroom interactions with objects. This research was conducted in an attempt to increase STEM skills and involvement with archaeology museums. Using collections and archaeology kits, I brought interactive experiences to classrooms to...
Archaeology Moms: Mobility, Parenting, and Privilege in Archaeology (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Beyond Leaky Pipelines: Exploring Gender Inequalities in Archaeological Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the great parts of being an archaeologist is that it is an excuse to travel: for jobs, research, and conferences. Yet some of us are more free to travel than others. In this paper, I will focus on the experiences of parents—mothers in particular—to explore how the expectations of mobility in...
An Archaeology of Hope: How the Past Informs Indigenous Futures in the Southern Amazon’s “Arc of Deforestation" (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in the Xingu River Basin: Long-Term Histories, Current Threats, and Future Perspectives" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Two decades of relentless agropastoral development has reduced the closed tropical forests to small patches in most of northern Mato Grosso, within the so-called “arc of deforestation” along the southern margins of the Amazon’s closed tropical forests. There are larger blocks in two...
The Archaeology of Pastoral Landscapes in Mountain Areas of the Central Pyrenees and North of Spain (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Long-Term Pastoral Dynamics: Methods, Theories, Stories" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Seasonal pastoralism is a livestock strategy which shaped Mediterranean landscapes since ancient times. The recent development of archaeological research in mountain chains of south-west Europe has provided us with new data and interpretative models to study the livestock practices starting from their pre-historic...
Archaeology of the Past, Present, and Future: Insights From Youth Engagement in Old Harbor, Alaska (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This past summer, we traveled to Kodiak, Alaska to conduct archaeological fieldwork as part of the Old Harbor Archaeological History Project (OHAHP). This year, OHAHP partnered with Old Harbor community organizations to co-facilitate a cultural camp for local Indigenous youth. Serving as counselors, we aimed to expose Indigenous youth to archaeology by...
Archaeology, Indigenous Archiving Practices, and the African Past: Researching the History of Atlantic Slavery in Peki, Ghana (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Crafting Archaeological Practice in Africa and Beyond: Celebrating the Contributions of Ann B. Stahl to Global Archaeology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses the creative use of indigenous and conventional archives and archaeological data in unearthing the history of Atlantic slavery in Peki. This frontier Ewe community in present-day Ghana led the pan-Ewe Krepi state out of Akwamu and Asante...
Architecture of Pre-Columbian Northeast Honduras (2018)
In 2017, the postclassic settlement of Guadalupe on the north-east coast of Honduras revealed remnants of wattle and daub (bajareque) constructions. This was an important finding as information on precolonial architecture in north-east Honduras has been scant, due not only to the low number of archeological investigations in the area, but to the use of highly perishable materials in these constructions. Despite this, recent ethnographic reports have provided indispensable information about...