Taphonomy and Site Formation (Other Keyword)
76-100 (146 Records)
This is an abstract from the "A Tribute to the Contributions of Lawrence C. Todd to World Prehistory" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists often accept optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages with less critical review than those derived from the more commonly used radiocarbon dating methods. This is largely because of an incomplete understanding of optical dating techniques and the modeling assumptions used to calculate these ages....
Microanalysis of Taphonomic Alteration on Skeletal Material - A Novel Approach to Identifying Damaging Sulfur Compounds (2018)
The geochemistry of taphonomic alterations affecting buried bone has been little studied, yet has vast implications for scientific interpretation of archaeological and paleontological specimens in a world now embracing chemical methods in geoarchaeology. This investigative study of black surface staining on mammalian sub-fossil bone excavated from the bed of the Santa Fe River in northern Florida exemplifies the need to carefully evaluate post-depositional alteration. Such stains typically are...
Microarchaeological Approaches to the Identification of the Younger Dryas in the Northern Great Basin (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Far West Paleoindian Archaeology: Papers from the Next Generation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Younger Dryas Chronozone (YDC) is a cooling event occurring 12,900–11,600 years ago (cal BP) marked by rapid changes in plant and animal communities, subsequently affecting late Pleistocene human population organization and settlement dynamics across the globe. In North America’s Northern Great Basin, these changes...
Micromorphological Analysis of Deposition, Pedogenesis, and Stratigraphic Integrity at the McDonald Creek Site, Central Alaska (2021)
This is an abstract from the "McDonald Creek and Blair Lakes: Late Pleistocene-Holocene Human Activity in the Tanana Flats of Central Alaska" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite the fact that archaeologists have long turned to the Alaskan archaeological record to answer questions about the first Americans, little is certain about the peopling of Beringia. The poor preservation of faunal remains in many central Alaskan archaeological sites has...
Micromorphology of Earthen Architecture at Palaikastro, Crete (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Geoarchaeology and Environmental Archaeology Perspectives on Earthen-Built Constructions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent geoarchaeological studies of earthen architecture have demonstrated the social and environmental information that may be gained from combined macroscopic, microscopic, and elemental analyses of mudbricks and degraded building materials. Micromorphology can elucidate construction...
Microstratigraphic and Geochemical Contributions to the Study of the Burial Practices and Taphonomy of the Mycenaean Shaft Grave of the ‘Griffin Warrior’, Pylos, Greece (2018)
Results of a microstratigraphic and geochemical approach are presented here in reference to study of the Mycenaean ‘Griffin Warrior’ shaft grave at ancient Pylos. Soil and sediment micromorphology are used to address questions concerning the preparation of the tomb, the mode of corpse deposition, and taphonomy of the burial. Processes and activities such as the preparation and configuration of the floor and other earthen constructions inside the tomb are considered, as well as the rapidity of...
Middeningly Difficult: Methodological Advances in the Identification and Analysis of Submerged Midden Sites (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Middens are one of the most prevalent site types in coastal environments being found across the globe. They are also vital sources of information about past human behaviour, being records of, amongst many thing, human dietary practices and environmental change. In terrestrial contexts the identification of these sites is often a relatively straightforward...
Minimally-Invasive Geoarchaeological Investigation of a Sub-marsh and Intertidal Precontact Site in New Hampshire (2018)
Many precontact archaeological sites in New England exhibit poor preservation of organic materials but they occupy relatively stable upland landforms. Conversely, intertidal and submerged sites often contain exceptional organic preservation but exist in or near high-energy and erosive environments. This paper describes minimally-invasive geoarchaeological investigations of an Archaic to Terminal Archaic site in New Hampshire that is buried by salt marsh peat, exposed at a rapidly-eroding...
The Missing Mammals of Cerro Azul (Guaviare, Colombia): Extreme Fragmentation in Neotropical Zooarchaeological Assemblages (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ongoing research by the LASTJOURNEY project has investigated multiple archaeological sites located near rock art panels in the Serranía La Lindosa, Colombia, to explore human-environmental interactions during the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene transition. Due to severe taphonomic conditions in the Colombian Amazon, only one of these sites, Cerro Azul, has...
Missing Metapodials: New Analysis of the Protohistoric Period Fauna from the Scott County Pueblo site in Western Kansas (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New and Ongoing Research on the North American Plains and Rocky Mountains" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Dismal River Aspect sites, located within Lake Scott State Park in western Kansas, represent long-term settlement of the area during the AD 1500s-1700s by a mixture of Puebloan migrants and local Apache groups. This study uses faunal material from the protohistoric period to begin to understand the nature and...
Mixing and Moving Earth: The Geoarchaeology of a Newly Rediscovered Middle Woodland Earthen Enclosure in Central Kentucky (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Earthwalker Circle is a small Middle Woodland era (ca. 200 BCE–CE 500) ceremonial ditch and embankment enclosure located on privately-owned land at the border of Kentucky’s Bluegrass and Knobs physiographic regions. This enclosure was recently rediscovered as part of a regional assessment of LiDAR-derived visualizations and drought-based aerial...
More Than Just Pretty Things: Taphonomic and Behavioral Observations from the Unworked Ostrich Eggshell Assemblage Recovered from Grassridge Rockshelter, South Africa (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. Grassridge Rockshelter demonstrates one of the largest assemblages of ostrich eggshell beads and preforms in southern Africa that dates to the mid-Holocene. The site, located in the interior of the Eastern Cape of South Africa, therefore reflects an intensive use of ostrich eggshell as a raw material source for the production of...
Morphometric Comparison of Early Hominin Butchery Evidence to Carnivore Modifications within a Bayesian Framework (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Bayesian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The emergence of stone tool use for butchery by early hominins is a contested topic due to the rarity of early tool evidence. In the absence of tools, the primary trace evidence for their use as butchery implements is bone surface modifications (BSM). However, current BSM recognition protocols are subjective. They can lead to conflicting identifications—for example,...
Mortality Profiles From Massive and Attritional Guanaco Deaths in Southern Patagonia, Argentina: Implications for Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mortality profiles are valuable for discussing hunting strategies and the effects of natural deaths on population age structure. Although these studies have been developed over several decades, there is still a lack of actualistic information that allows us to discuss patterns derived from different causes of death. This paper presents modern mortality...
Multi-omic Analyses of Naturally Preserved Brains from a Philadelphia Cemetery: Insights from Molecular Taphonomy and Implications for Paleopathology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Arch Street Project: Multidisciplinary Research of a Philadelphia Cemetery" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As one of the first organs to decompose postmortem, brains are far more numerous than they should be in the archaeological record. >4,400 preserved human brains dating back some 12,000 years have been reported in the last four centuries; yet archaeological nervous tissues remain little-studied, with <1%...
A Multicomponent Archaeological Site at Spring Lake, San Marcos, Texas (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the 1970s, researchers recovered fluted points that appeared diagnostic of Clovis technology in Spring Lake, the spring-fed headwaters of the San Marcos River located along the Balcones Escarpment in Central Texas. Although recovered in mixed stratigraphic contexts, this evidence suggests that Ancestral Peoples may have visited the site for over 13,000...
Neanderthal and carnivore interplay at Escoural Cave: preliminary evidence from the archaeofaunal and spatial analysis of two new test pits (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Escoural Cave (Portugal) represents a key window into Neanderthal-carnivore interactions during the Middle Paleolithic. Excavations in the 60’s and 90’s unearthed abundant archaeological findings, including Neolithic burial grounds, cave art and Upper and Middle Paleolithic remains. The Middle Paleolithic layers are characterized by abundant quartz...
Neotaphonomy of a "Common Amenity" on the Grasslands of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Identifying the variables that influence the deposition, preservation, and spatial distribution of faunal material across landscapes remains a key goal of taphonomic research. Here, we report on the results of pedestrian surveys for faunal material around a seasonal waterhole surrounded by woodland within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). All visible...
New Excavations at Border Cave: Preliminary Reflections on Stratigraphy and Site Formation Processes (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Border Cave rock shelter, formed in Early Jurassic fragmental rocks of the Jozini Formation on the western scarp of the Lebombo Mountains, KwaZulu-Natal, has a long history of archaeological investigation starting with Raymond Dart in 1934. Phases of informal and formal excavations have yielded remarkable archaeological assemblages including five hominin...
A New Semi-quantitative Method for Identifying Carnivore-Specific Chewing Damage Patterns (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Celebrating 20 Years of Support: Current Work by Recipients of the Dienje Kenyon Memorial Fellowship for Zooarchaeologists" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Hypotheses of hominin scavenging from different felid species have been proposed, but the ability to distinguish between the taphonomic patterns inflicted by different felid species in the fossil record is currently underdeveloped. Previous efforts to identify...
Nuevos datos sobre Moche Temprano y Tardío en Huaca Cao Viejo, Complejo Arqueológico El Brujo, valle de Chicama, Perú (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recientes excavaciones en la Huaca Cao Viejo proveen de información valiosa acerca de los orígenes de la ocupación Moche en el valle bajo de Chicama, así como de las fases constructivas más tardías del edificio. Las nuevas investigaciones han muestreado y fechado los bloques de adobe tramado, típica técnica arquitectónica en las construcciones monumentales...
Obsidian Fracture Resulting from Forest Fire Exposure (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fire fractures in obsidian nodules and artifacts have been observed following several large forest fires at quarries, other archaeological sites, and geological deposits in the Jemez Mountains of north-central New Mexico. This presentation describes the characteristics of thermal fractures observed in this brittle material...
On the Edge of the Kalahari: New Excavations of the Middle Stone Age Deposits at Olieboomspoort, 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. Olieboomspoort is one of the few rockshelters in South Africa documenting phases of use going back to the Acheulean and up until the very end of the Later Stone Age. Previous work has focused on the recent phases, consistent with traces left by the last...
Overcoming Variability in Zooarchaeological Data Quality (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Numerous paleoclimate proxies from Aotearoa New Zealand indicate the Little Ice Age (ca. 1450 – 1900 CE) caused marked changes in local conditions that could have affected the productivity of marine fisheries. Considering the critical relationships that have always existed between fisheries and Māori economic, social, and spiritual life, any changes in...
Paleoindian Site Formation in the Tennessee River Valley (2018)
The Paleoindian occupation of the unglaciated eastern woodlands has generally been characterized by distributions of projectile points and few true sites. While this perception has begun to change in recent history, the Late Pleistocene archaeological record beyond projectile points including sites and settlement patterns remain poorly studied and reported. This paper provides an evaluation of the natural and cultural formation processes associated with Paleoindian occupation in the Tennessee...