Hunter-Gatherers/Foragers (Other Keyword)
1-25 (352 Records)
The earliest occupations in the Salt Puna —a high elevation desert in the Andes Mountains — date to the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary and are relevant to the discussion of the timing of the first exploration and colonization of South American elevations above 3500m, as well as the relationship between mountain environments and other ecological areas. The wooden shafts used in the extractive technologies of the earliest hunter-gatherers originated outside the Puna, in the eastern lowlands....
The Absence (or Presence) of Footwear during the Eastern Great Basin Archaic (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Approaches to Archaeological Footwear" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excluding much younger examples of distinctive Fremont-era and Promontory Phase moccasins, footwear of any sort seems to be largely, if not entirely, absent from the archaeological record of the Eastern Great Basin during the preceding millennia. This apparent pattern stands in sharp contrast to the well attested and venerable woven sandal...
Adding to the Paleoenvironmental Framework for Early Settlement of Interior Alaska: New Perspectives on Local Changes in Vegetation and Hydrology from Plant Wax N-Alkanes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of Alaska, the Gateway to the Americas" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Many paleoenvironmental reconstructions from interior Alaska are based on pollen assemblages from lacustrine cores, which are sometimes challenging to relate directly to terrestrial conditions experienced by early human occupants. Here we use compound-specific stable isotope analysis of plant wax n-alkanes (δ13C wax and δDwax values) to...
After the Ice Age in the Ozarks (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fluted point techno-complexes of the Ozarks include Clovis, Gainey, Folsom, and Dalton. Folsom point-making people are comparatively less well represented in the interior Ozarks possibly because of the lack of grasslands and bison. In this presentation, we explain the origins and evolution of Clovis technology and the exploitation of lithic resources from...
Analysis of the Faunal Distribution at the Weed Lake Ditch site (35HA341), Southeastern Oregon (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Weed Lake Ditch is an open-air site located on the relict shores of Pluvial Lake Malheur in the Harney Basin of southeastern Oregon. Excavations by the University of Nevada, Reno and the Center for the Study of the First Americans (CSFA) have revealed multiple stemmed points and crescent lithic technology in buried contexts. Faunal remains from the site are...
Analysis of the Fenley Hunter Obsidian Flake from the Tule Springs Archaeological Site, Las Vegas, NV (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster concerns the Tule Springs Archaeological Site (79001461/26CK4) in Clark County, Nevada, and new analyses of the obsidian flake discovered there in 1933. The importance of the flake rests in its then-postulated association with the fossil remains of extinct Pleistocene megafauna and the long-term research endeavors that have happened since....
Ancient Genomics of Hunter-Gatherers at Lake Baikal: Shamanka II Case Study (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Northeast Asian Prehistoric Hunter-Gather Lifeways: Multidisciplinary, Individual Life History Approach" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This talk will discuss the utility of ancient genomic data to gain insight into prehistoric hunter-gatherer lifeways and social organization at Lake Baikal. Specifically, we will focus on familial relationships in a putative massacre instance from the Early Bronze Age at the cemetery...
Approaches to Lithic Technology: How Archaeological Practice Influences Interpretation of Past Lifeways through the Lens of Kharaneh IV (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Debitage Analysis: Case Studies, Successes, and Cautionary Tales" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cultural affiliation and change in the Epipaleolithic (EP) period of Southwest Asia has historically been marked through microlithic stone tool technologies, where stone tool manufacturing is focused on the production of a large number of small bladelets then retouched into various microlith types. While researchers...
Archaeological Science or Scientific Archaeology: Where Does "Science" Lie in Stone Artefact Research? (2018)
Archaeological science is defined as the use of scientific techniques, typically derived from the natural sciences, in archaeology. In lithic research, archaeological science studies have investigated topics ranging from identifying raw material sources, assessing artefact function and technology, to modelling socio-cultural and evolutionary changes. However, this method-centred definition of archaeological science has also led to a focus on the "sciency" appeal of techniques over basic...
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...
The Archaeology of Nataeł Na’ and Its Implications for Landscape and Resource Use by Pleistocene Peoples in the Yukon-Alaska Borderlands (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of the Southern Yukon-Alaska Borderlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The multicomponent hunter-gatherer site Nataeł Na’ represents the first evidence of Pleistocene-aged human occupation in the Copper River basin. One occupation dates to the Allerød interstadial and another to the late Younger Dryas climate reversal. To date, the Allerød occupation has been identified only by a small assemblage of...
Archaic Copper Economy and Exchange in the Western Great Lakes: A Comparative Study from Two Wisconsin Localities (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research presents the results of an analysis of a large privately curated collection of Archaic period (Old Copper Complex) copper from the Western Great Lakes. Results from metric, LA-ICP-MS chemical characterization, and radiometric dating analyses will be presented. The data set is drawn from a collection of over 2000 formal copper tools recovered by a...
Assessing a Minimally Invasive Method for Ancient DNA Sampling of Paleolithic Bone and Antler Tools by Micro-CT Scan and Density Measurements (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Animal Resources in Experimental Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Osseous objects are among the most frequent archaeological remains recovered from Upper Paleolithic (UP) sites. Their analysis is thus essential to obtain insights into crucial aspects of the Pleistocene hunter-gatherer’s lifestyle, including human subsistence, social behavior, prehistoric humans’ practical/symbolic choices, and the...
Assessing Cortex at the Beaucoup Site (24PH188/189) in Northern Montana (2018)
Although archaeological analyses of lithic assemblages generate large quantities of data, it can be difficult to equate the observations with past behaviors. One variable state regularly recorded is that of cortex. The presence/absence of cortex is often linked to reduction intensity with variable cortical frequencies linked to early or late stage reduction and potentially reflective of residential mobility. However, we lack reliable markers or values to support our interpretations. Recently,...
Assessing Interobserver Variation in Lithic Analyses of Resharpening (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Interobserver variation is a known phenomenon within macroscopic and microscopic lithic analyses. Thus far, many researchers have conducted extensive studies of variation between experts and novices in lithic analyses, and these studies have shown the importance of careful supervision and repetition of measurements. Here, we present findings from a study...
Assessing the La Playa Projectile Point Assemblage (2024)
This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. More than 300 projectile points have been collected from the La Playa site. The vast majority were found on the surface without archaeological contexts. The site begins to be used continuously from the middle Holocene (ca. 7,000 years) by Archaic hunter-gatherer/forager groups as a locality included in their...
Assessing Variability in Toolkit Functionality: Differential Wear Patterns on Projectile Technologies from Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Interior Alaska (2018)
Much of the early theoretical framework for our understanding of the colonization and occupation of interior Alaska has been established on technological variability in lithic assemblages of the region. This initial research has been limited in scope, focusing on the presence or absence of microblades. Recent research has sought to push beyond the significance of debatably diagnostic tool forms, microblades, in defining cultural complexes and has attempted to more fully address models of...
Becoming Neolithic or Being a Hunter-Gatherer? Reframing the Origins of Agriculture through a Longue Durée Perspective (2018)
Searching for the origin points of major cultural revolutions and transitions has long been a driver of archaeological research, yet led to research focused on perceived boundaries, rather than continuity. Research into the origins of so-called modern human behavior, the origins of social complexity, the earliest domesticates, among others, all focus on defining moments of change that may be undetectable in the archaeological record. Perhaps some of the most enduring archaeological questions...
Between the Nile and the Desert: the Middle Stone Age of Kerma Region, Northern Sudan (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Nile valley, its associated drainage system, and the adjacent Sahara are thought to have been part of the Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) dispersal routes out of Africa during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. Building on the pioneering prehistoric work of Marks and colleagues in the early 1960s in northern Sudan, we present the results of the 2019 and...
Beyond Good Grey Culture: Rethinking Early Woodland Origins in the Lower Mississippi Valley (2018)
The origins of Early Woodland cultures have long been poorly understood, but recent data from sites in the Yazoo and Tensas basins, and from sites along the coast are providing new perspectives on the development of the Woodland tradition in the Lower Mississippi Valley. In this paper we summarize Steve Williams’ contributions to understanding Woodland origins and update his work with new data. In contrast to earlier thinking, recent research shows that Woodland peoples in the Lower Mississippi...
Bifacial Technology in Central-South Patagonia: A Preliminary Insight into Hunter-Gatherer Behavior during the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition and Early Holocene in the Deseado Massif and Nearby Spaces (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bifaces can be useful in different kinds of situations. For example, they can be part of a curated strategy for peopling of new environments, as well as during their colonization. The knowledge of their distribution around the landscape, taking into account raw materials involved as well as their manufacturing stages and discard causes, compared with lithics...
Big Pictures, Broad Questions, and Archaeological Knowledge along the Steppe and the Forest in the Southern Argentinean Patagonia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Patagonian Evolutionary Archaeology and Human Paleoecology: Commending the Legacy (Still in the Making) of Luis Alberto Borrero in the Interpretation of Hunter-Gatherer Studies of the Southern Cone" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Luis Alberto Borrero changed the way archaeological knowledge was produced in Southern Patagonia (and beyond). We consider three analytical units that underlie his legacy: the landscape, the...
Biodistance Studies of Riverine Shell-Mound Builders from Ribeira de Iguape Valley (São Paulo and Paraná, Brazil) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "“The South Also Exists”: The Current State of Prehistoric Archaeology in Brazil: Dialogues across Different Theoretical Approaches and Research Agendas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Biodistance studies (craniometrics and aDNA) have been very useful tools to unravel the biological diversity of human populations in the past. In this abstract, we present biodistance analyses based on cranial measurements in order to...
A Biogeographic Approach to Hunter-Gatherer Dispersion Constraints in Northern Patagonia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Patagonian Evolutionary Archaeology and Human Paleoecology: Commending the Legacy (Still in the Making) of Luis Alberto Borrero in the Interpretation of Hunter-Gatherer Studies of the Southern Cone" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Northwest Patagonia late Holocene human occupation was almost a "barrier" against farmer dispersion, at least during the last 1500 years BP. The causes for this remain unclear and are...
Biogeography of Hunter-Gatherer Diet (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Three Sides of a Career: Papers in Honor of Robert L. Kelly" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For long, anthropologists have recognized latitudinal pattern in hunter-gatherer diet, where plant use increases toward tropics. However, causes of the dietary variability remain unclear reflecting the fact that ecology in general lacks robust theory for predicting geographical variation in the balance of plant and animal foods...