Archaeometry & Materials Analysis: Residue Analysis (Other Keyword)
26-50 (70 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With the emergence and progress of composite tools in the Upper Paleolithic, the adhesive became one of the most widely used materials by early human societies. However, the precise composition identification of adhesive in archaeological remains is a real analytical challenge, because the adhesive mainly consists of organic materials that are susceptible to...
Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Capacity Building for Characterizing Plant Exudates: On Supporting the Resilience of Future Endeavors in Residue Analysis (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. Interdisciplinary collaboration is essential when it comes to characterizing plant exudates and other archaeological residues. But how do we push the ball forward and become confident that we are producing new insights into material culture from our work, especially at this time when collaboration has become...
An Intimate Bond: New Evidence for Human-Pig Relationships in Chinese Diaspora Communities (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pigs and humans have formed a mutualistic and symbiotic relationship since antiquity. In North America, large quantities of pig bones have been recovered from Chinese diaspora sites, indicating the importance of pigs to Chinese immigrant foodways. By analyzing pig dental calculus...
Investigating Organic Residues on Prehistoric Cooking Technologies in the Aleutian Islands (2018)
Stone bowls and griddle stones were in use in the Aleutian Islands for the past 9.000 years. People invested great time and effort into the manufacture and maintenance of these artefacts which insinuates their importance in prehistoric Aleutian food processing practices. A sudden increase in stone bowl occurrence around 3.500 years ago emphasizes their importance during this particular time. What was it that made these artefacts so important? We believe the answer to this question lies in their...
Investigating Southeastern United States Early Pottery Uses through Lipid Residue Analysis (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent archaeological evidence suggests that shell rings are not only potential origin points for pottery in North America, but also places where people lived and feasted. Techniques borrowed from analytical chemistry now allow archaeologists to test these hypotheses. Lipid analysis was conducted on 60 potsherds and 20 baked clay objects, the latter...
Investigating the Pottery Use of Neolithic Ceramics from Guijiabao in Southwest China Using Organic Residue Analysis (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Guijiabao is an archaeological site in southwest China that dates from the Neolithic to the historical period. Its crucial location at the interaction of the Henduan Mountains and the Sichuan Basin offers a unique opportunity to study the southward spread of new crops and species into this region. Although it is widely accepted that mixed farming of...
An Investigation of Middle Archaic Maize at Site LA 112766 (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 provides evidence of the presence of maize in southeastern New Mexico radiocarbon dated to 1,000 years prior to any in a dataset of 30 known southeastern New Mexico “Old Maize” sites. The oldest maize site is Keystone Dam radiocarbon dated to 3540 cal BP. Site LA 112766 radiocarbon dates to 4825–4575 BP. An investigation of the macrobotanical,...
Landscape with Bees: Apiculture in Yucatán after the Spanish Invasion (2019)
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 this paper we examine how European colonization and the shift to industrial capitalism altered beekeeping in Yucatán from AD1600 to the present. Honey and wax produced from stingless bees were circulated throughout the Mesoamerican world system during the Postclassic period. In the wake of the European...
Lithic Residue Analysis in 2018: Prospects and Challenges (2018)
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...
Local Adaptation and Subsistence Strategy of Yangshao Migrants in Northwestern Sichuan in China During the Middle Neolithic (5300-4700 cal. BP) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Migration is a frequent phenomenon in human history. Previous studies mainly used migration as a general term to explain any cultural changes observed in migrant communities. Recent studies, however, have recognized that migration is embedded in both environmental and social contexts, thus making it necessary to study the consequence of migration on a...
Maize in the Mix: Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry Analysis of a Fremont Ceramic Mug Recovered from the Snow Farm Site in Payson, Utah (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Snow Farm site, located on private farmland within the contemporary town of Payson, Utah, was inhabited by the Fremont people from approximately A.D. 700 to 1100 and is believed to have been a part of a larger village complex known as the Payson Mounds. The site is rich in Fremont artifacts and features, including three burials, some of which have been...
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...
Maya Ritual Beverages: Unveiling the Ingredients for an Ancient Alcoholic Offering (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Adventures in Beekeeping: Recent Studies in Ecology, Archaeology, History, and Ethnography in Yucatán" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Balché is a ritual beverage elaborated with honey and tree bark that, during many centuries, has been fundamental for Maya religious rituals in Yucatán, as documented in precolumbian codices, historical sources, and ethnographic research. Some information at the Madrid Codex indicates...
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,...
Molecular and Isotopic Analysis Indicates Variable Uses for Early Pottery from Northwest Alaska (2024)
This is an abstract from the "American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic technology was adopted approximately 2,800 and 2,500 years ago in Alaska, coinciding with a transition toward an economy increasingly focused on marine resource use. Despite expectations for marine resource use in early northern pottery, an initial pilot study found strong evidence for freshwater aquatic...
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...
Paleoproteomic Perspectives on the Subsistence Decisions of Later Stone Age Herders in Namaqualand, South Africa (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic-bound protein characterization, or paleoproteomics, can provide vital insight into the species-specific dietary decisions preserved in the pottery of past populations. This insight is particularly relevant for understanding the subsistence choices of Later Stone Age (LSA) herders living in the Namaqualand coastal desert of South...
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...
Prehistoric Millet Cuisine: Diversity across Eurasia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Food and Foodways: Emerging Trends and New Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) was first domesticated in northern China and spread both to east and to west during the mid-Holocene. Recent developments in biomolecular analytical techniques have enabled archaeologists to investigate prehistoric millet cuisines by examining the organic residues absorbed by...
Preservation, Degradation, and Contamination: The Chemical Identification of Cochineal in Archaeological Environments (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although cochineal has played an important role in Mesoamerican societies, a lack of suitable methods has hampered its investigation by archaeologists. Luckily, recent developments in organic residue analysis suggest the possibility that cochineal production may be identified in the archaeological record through identification of carminic acid, its primary...
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...