Taphonomy and Site Formation (Other Keyword)
51-75 (171 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Expedient Technological Behavior: Global Perspectives and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of toolstone procurement in Patagonia is biased in favor of high-quality exotic materials—chiefly obsidian—often transported over large distances as heavily curated artifacts. Lesser-quality sources however may be important in the technological behavior at smaller scales (e.g., basin, subregion). The...
Exploring the Relationship between Surface and Subsurface Contexts in the Permian Basin, Southeastern New Mexico (2018)
Analysis of previous cultural resource management investigations conducted in the Permian Basin of southeastern New Mexico indicate that many data are of poor quality, unstandardized, and of limited utility for comparative purposes or regional planning. Part of the problem is the limited understanding of which methods are best suited for site recording and testing and, more specifically, how observations made at the site surface correspond to subsurface content. This poster presents an...
Exploring the Underwater Zooarchaeological Record of Lake Titicaca (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Underwater and Coastal Archaeology in Latin America" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lake Titicaca is one of the centers of early cultural development in the ancient Andes. Because of its sensitivity to climate change, the surface of the lake has fluctuated considerably over time, which in turn has influenced the development of ecological systems and cultural development. This paper focuses on the archaeofaunal remains...
The Fauna of KEH-1 (South Africa) A Middle and Later Stone Age site: A Pilot Study (2018)
Knysna Eastern Heads Cave 1 (KEH-1) demonstrates an intense occupation sequence at a site overlooking the now sub-merged Agulhas Bank during multiple ocean progressions and regressions in the late Middle Stone Age and early Later Stone Age (46,000 to 18,000 Cal BP). The site contains numerous hearth features, densely stacked within the stratigraphic section, and has yielded large amounts of fauna. Here we report for the first time on the preliminary taphonomic analysis of the fauna, based on a...
Faunal Perspectives on Occupation Intensity and Use of Space at Neolithic Kfar HaHoresh (2018)
During the transition to agriculture in southwest Asia, patterns of settlement site use reflect a major shift in the use of space by the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period. Diverse types of sites were utilized by this time, including locales primarily for ritual activities. More studies of ritual site use are needed to clarify how space was organized and used during the Neolithic Transition. This paper presents evidence of animal selection and refuse management to investigate the intensity of site...
Fluorescence Applied to Modern Carnivore Excrements. A Reference Collection for Archaeological Deposits (2018)
Traditionally, coprolite identification in archaeology has been limited to hyenids, the most well-preserved and recognizable fossilized faeces, although non-hyena carnivore coprolites are also present in some Pleistocene deposits displaying a wide range of morphological variation (e.g., elongate, spherical, globular, sub-cylindrical, oval, tubular). Common micromorphological characteristics of these different excrements are the appearance of an amorphous phosphatic, optically isotropic and, a...
Formation Processes of Late Pleistocene Archaeological Sites in the Atacama Desert (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Middens to Museums: Papers in Honor of Julie K. Stein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We investigated site formation and modification of surficial and shallow Paleoindian sites (ca. 13-11 cal. ka) located in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert. Sites occur primarily on inactive Pleistocene to Pliocene alluvial terraces, in and beneath desert pavements, a sparsely studied context for archaeological sites. Our...
The Geoarchaeology of Megamammal Survival in the Argentine Pampas (2018)
While most of the South American archaeological sites with extinct megamammals have produced Late Pleistocene ages (12,000 to 10,000 14C years BP), a few locations in the Pampas region have been dated well into the Early Holocene. Among these, Campo Laborde and La Moderna, two kill/scavenging and processing sites in the border of ancient swamps have provided 11 taxon dates (Megatherium americanum and Doedicurus clavicaudatus) which range between 9730 and 6550 14C years BP. Recent excavations in...
Geoarchaeology of Terraces and Building XVI at Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios, Cyprus: Evidence for Site Formation and Settlement Activity (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geoarchaeological research conducted in 2019-2020 as part of the Kalavasos and Maroni Built Environments (KAMBE) project focused on collecting multiscalar and high-resolution geoarchaeological data from the Late Bronze Age city of Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios in south-central Cyprus. The aim of the geoarchaeological project is to determine the uses of space in...
Geoarchaeology of Three Olcott Sites along the Elwha River, Clallam County, Washington (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New Research into the Old Cordilleran" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Olcott sites are characteristically skewed toward lithic artifacts due to the acidic forested environment of western Washington. Site interpretations rely on several lines of evidence including landform type and age, soil formation, post-depositional processes, and vertical artifact distributions. Recent survey and excavations at three Olcott sites...
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the Analysis of Cut Marks for Archaeological Faunal Collections (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Current Zooarchaeology: New and Ongoing Approaches" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Within zooarchaeological discourse, a central theme concerning taphonomic studies is the observation and analysis of cut marks on faunal specimens. Of particular importance is the maintenance and consistency of methodological approaches in applying archaeological inferences to the diagnostic surface modifications on bones. Despite calls...
Hallazgos paleontológicos dentro de la construcción del nuevo Aeropuerto Internacional Felipe Ángeles (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Aproximaciones arqueológicas y paleontológicas en Santa Lucía, México" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En octubre de 2019, trabajadores de la construcción del nuevo Aeropuerto Internacional Felipe Ángeles (ubicado a 50 km al norte de la Ciudad de México), realizaron el reporte del hallazgo de unos huesos poco comunes. En ese momento, arqueólogos del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, así como personal del...
Historical Palimpsests: Animal-Accumulated Plant Remains in Aboveground Structures (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists periodically encounter concentrations of uncharred plant remains in standing structures. Whether excavated or never actually buried, they are a challenge for interpretation. In addition to identification, the archaeobotanical tasks include determining the agent of deposition and the source and date of the material. This paper considers how...
How Experimental Research in Forensic Archaeology Informs Archaeological Practice: Differentiating Perimortem Fracture From Postmortem Breakage (2018)
Often perceived as a highly specialized and peripheral subfield of archaeology, forensic archaeology contributes to our understanding of not only forensic anthropology and forensic science, but also traditional archaeological practice. Forensic archaeologists’ extensive knowledge of postmortem taphonomic effects on material objects has led to more precise interpretations of postmortem interval, environmental (including scavenger-induced) scattering and alteration of human remains, and site...
<html>Redundant Guanaco (<i>Lama guanicoe</i>) Deaths in Southern Patagonia: Time-Averaging, Scales of Analysis, and Archaeological Implications</html> (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present the results of actualistic taphonomic observations on modern guanaco deaths in the Coyle-Gallegos Interfluve steppe (Santa Cruz province, Argentina) and their implications for interpreting the archaeological record. We recorded massive deaths due to winter stress that occurred in the years 2020 and 2023. In addition, we also documented guanacos...
Human Body Parts from the Monumental Special Buildings at Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) Göbekli Tepe, Southeast Türkiye (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Embodied Essence: Anthropological, Historical, and Archaeological Perspectives on the Use of Body Parts and Bodily Substances in Religious Beliefs and Practices" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent years, the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (ca. 9500–8000 BC) site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey has seen the emergence of some major hypotheses based on results from ongoing fieldwork. Perhaps the most significant new insight...
Human Induced Percussion Technology: A Synthesis of Bone Modification as Archaeological Evidence (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Animal bone modification by humans has long been part of the archaeological record; however, debate continues as to whether this evidence alone is sufficient to interpret human activity. This is especially true if such evidence is used in support of archaeological sites older than 16 ka in the Americas. We synthesize data representing over three decades of...
Identifying Depositional Processes: Statistical Cluster Analysis at Sacred Ridge (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Continued Advances in Method and Theory for Commingled Remains" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Site of Sacred Ridge has the earliest identified Extreme Processing assemblage in the four corners region, with over 14,000 fragments of human bone (representing at least 33 individuals) deposited in two pit structures around AD 810. During excavation, over 9,000 point locations were taken with a total station. During...
Impact Notches on Megafaunal Limb Bones: Hammerstone Versus Carnivore Tooth Notch Shapes on Samples of Experimental, Paleontological, and Archaeological Bones (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Impact notches on megafaunal limb bones can be diagnostic of marrow extraction and tool blank production behavior by hominins. Notch shape statistics have been applied to impact-fractured megafaunal limb bones from Old World Paleolithic sites to demonstrate hominin technology that begins 2.6 mya in Africa. We compare data from experimental cow femora...
The Importance of Sediment: A Selection of Julie Stein’s Contributions to Geoarchaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Middens to Museums: Papers in Honor of Julie K. Stein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Of Julie Stein’s many contributions to geoarchaeology, her publications regarding sedimentology and stratigraphy with respect to site formation have been particularly influential. By employing earth science methods to elucidate the history of archaeological sediments in a diversity of environments and cultural settings, her work...
Improving Zooarchaeological Methods for Classifying Fragmented Faunal Remains Using Differential Geometric Methods and Machine Learning (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Accurately identifying bone fragments and the agents that broke them is essential to site reconstruction and improving our understanding of human evolution and behavior. Here we implement geometric invariants and machine learning on digital 3D models of experimentally derived bone fragments to classify them by breakage agent. We characterize the surface with...
Interpreting a Mid-Eighteenth-Century Vertebrate Assemblage from a Probable Comanche Site on the Southern High Plains of Texas (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Whiskey Flats is a mid-eighteenth-century probable Comanche site on the Southern High Plains in Midland County, Texas. Ongoing excavation in Mustang Draw of the now dry Mustang Pond uncovered evidence of occupation along a terrace and a bone bed within the pond basin. A modern bison periotic from the bone bed dates to the mid-1700s. Artifacts from both areas...
Interpreting Ritual Deposits at a Multiethnic Site in Spanish Colonial New Mexico (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Ritual Closure: A Global Perspective" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Interpreting evidence of ritual practices can be especially challenging in colonial contexts, where people, plants, animals, and materials from various places are forced into direct, sustained contact. In eighteenth-century New Mexico, centuries of Spanish colonialism produced a multiethnic, socially stratified population of agropastoralists who...
Intrusive Taxa Identified in the Re-excavation of Room 28 in Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon (2018)
Archaeological sites are attractive places for burrowing rodents, but determining which specimens are intrusive can be a challenge. The fauna from the 2013 re-excavation of Room 28, due to its complex depositional history and rich rodent assemblage, provides an opportunity to explore different methods of identifying intrusive rodents in archaeological sites. In this paper, we use four lines of evidence to identify intrusive remains from human subsistence activity: 1) frequency of surface...
Investigating the Formation History of Surface Archaeology in the Doring River Valley, South Africa (2021)
This is an abstract from the "From Veld to Coast: Diverse Landscape Use by Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Africa from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Southern Africa’s Late Pleistocene archaeology is pursued through the lens of rockshelter deposits. However, their spatial coverage is small and geographically biased, distorting our understanding of human behavioral evolution. To overcome this, researchers are...