Archaeometry & Materials Analysis: Residue Analysis (Other Keyword)
26-50 (53 Records)
Lithic residue analyses have produced exciting results in recent years: microscopic bits of plant and animal tissue adhering to stone tools tens of thousands of years old; the remains of hafting materials such as bitumen and birch-bark pitch; and fiber technology from the Paleolithic, to mention but a few. Yet, for many archaeologists these results seem ‘too good to be true’. How can biological materials be preserved for thousands of years in temperate environments? How can they appear, under...
Making Plant Foods in the Early Neolithic: Microbotanical Evidence from Shangshan Pottery (2018)
The Lower Yangtze Valley of China is renowned for the origin of rice agriculture. Previous research based on archaeobotanical analysis and genetic data indicates that the evolution from wild rice to domestic rice was a continuous process that occurred between 11,000 - 6,000 BP. The Shangshan culture (11,400 BP – 86,00) has revealed the earliest evidence of rice cultivation in the region and abundant pottery vessels. These vessels are diverse in form but their functions still remain unclear. By...
Mass Spectrometry Database of Archaeologically Relevant Plants for Organic Residue Analysis (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Organic residue analysis in archaeology using mass spectrometry (MS) is a robust technique to detect and explore ancient biomolecules for reconstructing past cultural behavior, such as diet composition and even specific recipes. Studies often involve targeted MS analyses of known or suspected substances, while untargeted analyses characterizing broad...
Metabolomic Residue Studies of Foodways in the Motul de San José Polity, Petén, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Research in the Petén Lakes Region, Petén, Guatemala" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The subject of ancient Maya cuisine continues to fascinate researchers, but little is known about the “recipes” that may have been used by different people at different times across the Maya world. This study takes a metabolomic approach to residue analysis to compare flavors and preparation methods during the occupation of...
Metabolomics in the Study of Ground Stone Tools (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological ground stone tools used for food processing have proven to be rich sources of residues, in particular microbotanicals such as pollen, phytoliths, and starch grains. This data adds to the studies of tool function, foodways, and other lines of archaeological inquiry. To date, ground stone has not been the target of chemical residue analysis,...
A Molecular Networking Approach to Identifying Metabolites in GC-MS Spectra from the Gastrointestinal Contents of Mummies of Tarapacá-40 (Northern Chile, Formative Period, 1000 BCE–600 CE) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Eight samples from the gastrointestinal tracts of mummies exhumed at the Formative cemetery site of Tarapacá-40 (Northern Chile, Formative Period, 1000 BCE–600 CE) were solvent extracted, silylated, methylated, and injected into a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) to identify biologically relevant metabolites. The resultant .raw files of these...
The Organic Residue Analysis from the Early Bronze Age Site of Sotira Kaminoudhia in Cyprus (2018)
This paper presents the final results of organic residue analysis from the Early Bronze Age settlement and associated cemeteries of Sotira Kaminoudhia. A total of twelve pottery samples were analyzed using Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (gc/ms) as part of a larger research program that aimed to identify prestigious, organic substances that would have been utilized on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus during the prehistoric Bronze Age. Three categories of prestigious substances...
Phytochemical Characterization of Chicha de Molle Production at Cerro Baúl (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. Converging evidence from archaeological excavations and ethnographic research in the Peruvian Andes has demonstrated that the indigenous alcoholic beverage chicha de molle has a time depth of at least the Middle Horizon (600 CE – 1000 CE). The most impressive example of large-scale, pre-Hispanic production of chicha de molle hails...
Production Matters: Organic Residue and Iconographic Evidence for Late Precolumbian Datura Making in the Central Arkansas River Valley (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Dancing through Iconographic Corpora: A Symposium in Honor of F. Kent Reilly III" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent absorbed residue studies have confirmed that ceramic and shell containers were used for consuming Datura in precolumbian times. Until now, no one has identified what tools precolumbian people used to produce a concentrated hallucinogenic concoction. In this study, we used mass spectrometry to...
Recent Research on the Settlement Sites of the Dian Culture of Yunnan: excavations at Xueshan and Shangxihe Sites (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Research on Early Chinese Borderland Cultures and Archaeological Materials" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Dian culture of Yunnan is known for production and use of bronze artifacts exhibiting remarkable artistic and technical features. However, for most of the 20th century our understanding of Dian culture was based mainly on materials from burials around Lake Dian. Meanwhile, little was known about the...
Reconstructing Recipes: Stable Isotope Analysis of Food Residues from a Year-long Cooking Experiment (2018)
Charred food residues provide a unique window into ancient peoples’ culinary cultures, and chemical analyses of burnt meals can help us identify the ingredients used to create specific recipes. However, limited experimental work leaves us wondering - when we find residue in an ancient pot, are we viewing the remains of the final meal cooked in that pot or is it the product of multiple recipes? Does the chemical signature of the residue accurately reflect the meal(s) cooked in that pot? Seven...
Rediscovering Ancient Maya Blue Pigments / Redescubriendo los antiguos pigmentos maya (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Current Dynamics of Heritage Values in the Americas" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El Azul Maya-Maya Ch´oj. Inicié con mi investigación hace aproximadamente dos años atrás tratando de pigmentar mis esculturas y cerámica con el Azul Maya. Tras cuatro meses de buscar la planta Ch´oj (Indigófera suffruticosa mil) al fin dí con ella. Cuando la encontré estaba en su período de floración y fruto, tuve que esperar a que los...
Residue Analysis by Crossover Immunoelectrophoresis (CIEP) on Siskiyou Utility Ware, a Pilot Study from Southern Oregon (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic vessels have rarely been recovered archaeologically in western Oregon or northern California. This may be the first study of its kind, where Crossover Immunoelectrophoresis (CIEP) was used to identify protein residues on Pacific Coast ceramics. On a sample of 10 Siskiyou Utility Ware sherds, three sherds contained protein residue from subfamily...
Residue Analysis of Clay Tobacco Pipes from an Eighteenth-Century St. Eustatius Plantation (2021)
This is an abstract from the "NSF REU Site: Exploring Globalization through Archaeology 2019–2020 Session, St. Eustatius, Dutch Caribbean" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study examines clay smoking pipes recovered from an eighteenth-century plantation sugar works (SE095) on the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius. The pipes are used to date the assemblage and gain a better understanding of acquisition, smoking, and discard practices of...
Residuos químicos en el patio de una unidad habitacional del Clásico Tardío en Chinikihá, Chiapas (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Las prácticas que tienen lugar en las unidades habitacionales se relacionan profundamente con procesos que ocurren a escala local y regional (Liendo et al., 2015: 12). El Proyecto Regional Palenque, incluyó el estudio de unidades habitacionales, tomando a los residuos químicos como estrategia para acercarse a las prácticas cotidianas que transforman los...
A Review of the Archaeological Evidence for Smoking across the Americas and Africa (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At present, smoking is considered one of the largest threats to public health globally. Nonetheless, the inhalation of psychoactive substances after deliberate combustion has deep historical roots. Moreover, current models hold that smoking was invented independently in the Americas and Africa. This paper reviews the archaeological evidence available for...
The Role of the Toad in the Middle Horizon Andes: A Chemical and Iconographic Analysis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Seeing Wari through the Lens of the Everyday: Results from the Patipampa Sector of Huari" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Here we present preliminary findings of chemical analyses performed on a Middle Horizon pottery sherd (c. 600-1100 AD). The sherd originates from the capital region of the Wari and has the striking iconographic representation of either a frog or a toad with visual indications of preserved residues....
Scraping the Pots: Residue Analysis of Salinar Ceramic Vessels Found in Domestic Contexts at Pampa la Cruz, Huanchaco, North Coast of Peru (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Peering into the Night: Transition, Sociopolitical Organization, and Economic Dynamics after the Dusk of Chavín in the North Central Andes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, we present preliminary results of organic residues analysis taken from ceramic vessels found in domestic contexts at the site of Pampa la Cruz, north coast of Peru. This study emphasizes the importance of plant consumption among early...
Serving Alcoholic Beverages to the Ancestors in Neolithic China (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Drinking Beer in a Blissful Mood: A Global Archaeology of Beer" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. China has a long history of alcoholic production and consumption, and the earliest evidence of fermented beverages has been recovered from pottery vessels about 9,000 years ago. Many drinking vessels have been found in mortuary contexts, suggesting that alcohol was closely related to ancestral worship ritual. In this talk I...
Subsistence Strategy, Pottery Use, and the Role of Animal Hunting on the Neolithic Korean Peninsula (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New Evidence, Methods, Theories, and Challenges to Understanding Prehistoric Economies in Korea" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the main topics of Korean archaeology is understanding of prehistoric subsistence throughout the Neolithic. However, due to the high acidity of sediments that do not favor long-term preservation of organic remains, we still lack critical information related to the subsistence of the...
A Taste for Fish among the Saint Lawrence Iroquoians of the Montreal Region (2018)
Iroquoian groups inhabiting the Saint Lawrence valley in the 15th and early 16th centuries were agriculturalists who complemented their diet with a variety of wild plant and animal foods. The relative importance of different food sources and their methods of preparation, however, likely varied from one community to another. To further document subsistence practices and foodways at the Iroquoian site of Dawson in Montreal, organic residue analysis was carried out on foodcrust and absorbed ceramic...
Tobacco Smoking in Northwestern North America: Synthesizing the Results of Organic Chemical Residue Analyses (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The past several years have seen a number of studies—largely based at Washington State University—incorporating organic chemical residue analytical methods to address questions regarding past smoking practices in Northwest North America. In this poster we summarize the results of these studies, which cover a geographic range from northern California to...
Tripping Through the Underworld: Exploring Maya Ritual through Absorbed Residues in the Belize Valley (2018)
While absorbed residues are widely used to explore subsistence-related questions, more recent work has used them to examine the use of elite and ritual beverages. In this paper, we explore absorbed residues found in ceramic containers and bone tubes recovered from caves, burials, and caches in the Belize Valley. The ceramic vessels presumably held liquids consumed or otherwise used in rituals in these settings, while the bone tubes delivered substances to participants in those rituals as enemas....
Uncommon Scents: The Greco-Roman Fragrance Industry at Thmuis, Tell Timai, Egypt (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient sources reference the quality and importance of perfume manufactured in the Mendesian nome through the periods of Hellenistic and Roman control of Egypt. Archaeological evidence has identified areas of manufacture for Greek-style lekythoi, Roman Unguentaria, and possibly a location to produce incense at the site of Tell Timai that dates to the period...
Uso de resinas en el Centro de Veracruz: El caso de los braseros y sahumadores de los sitios arqueológicos de Nopiloa y El Zapotal (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Plant Exudates and Other Binders, Adhesives, and Coatings in the Americas" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Nopiloa y El Zapotal se localizan en una sub área cultural conocida como la Mixtequilla, en el estado de Veracruz, México. Durante las excavaciones, realizadas en los años 1940s y 1970s, en ambos lugares se recuperaron varios sahumadores y braseros, objetos cerámicos relacionados a prácticas rituales, en lo que...