Frontiers and Borderlands (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Inge Schjellerup.

The capac ñan from Chachapoyas to Moyobamba was used for centuries before another road was built for driving traffic and latest with the Marginal further on to Tarapoto. The capac ñan was used by the Incas in their conquest of Moyobamba and later to be used by the many Spanish campaigns in their search for Eldorado. This important highland/lowland route crossing the cordillera and continuing into the Ceja de Selva gave access to coveted resources from both sides but also facilitated war parties...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Grow Allen.

This is an abstract from the "Mind the Gap: Exploring Uncharted Territories in Medieval European Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The introduction of Ottoman control and the arrival of Islam in Southeast Europe during the late medieval period greatly influenced both historical and modern populations. In spite of this impact, this cultural and religious influence remains a topic understudied in archaeology. With Christianity the dominant...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samuel Connell. Niall Brady. Kathryn Maurer. Daniel Cearley.

This is an abstract from the "Exploring the Gaelic Social Order through Castle Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Castles in Communities program at Ballintober Castle in County Roscommon, Ireland has been studying the construction sequence of the castle and the newly discovered deserted medieval village in the hinterlands. As we work with the community of Ballintober we are faced with a conundrum of how best to present our results as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robin Robertson. Lauren Sullivan. Laura Kosakowsky. Fred Valdez.

This is an abstract from the "“The Center and the Edge”: How the Archaeology of Belize Is Foundational for Understanding the Ancient Maya" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For many years the notion of a core (or center) versus periphery (or edge) dominated models of prehistoric Maya development. However, in 1979 David Freidel argued against the idea that there was a center or edge, asserting that the lowland Maya belonged to an interaction sphere....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francis Allard.

First incorporated into China in 214 BCE, the southern region known as Lingnan (which consists of the present-day provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong), has traditionally been regarded as one of China’s peripheral regions. Not only was Lingnan distant from imperial centers in the north, its native pre-literate ‘Yue’ inhabitants spoke non-sinitic languages and were known for their distinctive ‘uncivilized’ behaviors. Along with its location at the southern margin of modern China’s territory, the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Akin Ogundiran.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Past excavations in the Early Osogbo settlement (central Yoruba region, Nigeria) have yielded an unprecedented diversity of ceramic forms. Located at the crossroads of regional trading and political networks and in the transitional zone between the rainforest and the savanna woodland ecotypes, Early Osogbo served as a buffer zone between the Oyo Empire...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Whitney Goodwin.

Prehispanic populations of northeastern Honduras were positioned at the border of Mesoamerica and Lower Central America. Previous research on ceramic style suggests local affiliation shifted over time from north to south as part of an adept strategy to navigate the complex political and social landscape of the region through the promotion of an inclusive group identity. This study explores the actual implementation of that strategy by investigating communal feasting contexts where symbolically...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Roberto López Bravo.

This is an abstract from the "Inter-regional Relations of the Zoque Province and its Surrounding Areas." session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous research has suggested that the Late Preclassic conquest of Chiapa de Corzo's Zoque capital by Maya forces explains the widespread presence of Chicanel Ceramic Group materials in the royal tombs of Structure 1 and the offerings of Structure 5. However, new data on the settlement patterns in Chiapa de...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claudia Garcia-Des Lauriers.

This is an abstract from the "Inter-regional Relations of the Zoque Province and its Surrounding Areas." session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Evidence from several sites in Chiapas dating to the Early Classic point to complex interactions between local Zoque populations and many Mesoamerican regions. This paper will focus on the multidirectional nature of interactions between Teotihuacan and these communities. Trade and exchange between these two...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Amaroli.

This is an abstract from the "Postclassic Mesoamerica: The View from the Southern Frontier" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beginning with the first formal archaeological studies nearly a century ago, findings in the territory of El Salvador have been recognized as attesting to the establishment of Nahua migrants. This has commonly been interpreted, in conjunction with ethnohistoric accounts, as resulting from a single episode of what has been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Miller. Aline Magnoni. Traci Ardren. Travis Stanton.

Time and again the application of new technologies has allowed archaeologists to rethink their understandings of ancient cultural landscapes. Lidar, in particular, is one technology that has rapidly transformed our analytical capabilities by simultaneously providing wide regional and finely localized views of archaeological sites. In this paper, we present new lidar data that is reshaping our understanding of the Northern Maya Lowland metropolis of Coba. In particular we discuss features on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jupiter Martinez.

This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There is a western geographical gap between the Trincheras and Hohokam archaeological traditions in the State of Sonora, Mexico. This area is the Cocospera Valley where the prehistoric sites have artifacts from Trincheras, Hohokam and Casas Grandes traditions. In the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristin Corl.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Research at Jornada Mogollon Sites in South-Central New Mexico" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ongoing excavations at Cottonwood Spring Pueblo (LA 175) suggest population aggregation within the El Paso Phase (A.D. 1300-1450) Jornada Cultural Region may have consisted of distinct self-identified groups integrated into one multi-ethnic community. Comparing the excavations at Area A, a large plaza orientated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Brooks. Catherine Cameron.

This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The 1847–1848 US annexation of northern Mexico is often referred to as a “bloodless conquest,” in that there was no organized military defense. Yet we see dozens of small-scale guerilla actions by units of mixed-ethnic attribution against Americans. Observers noted that their “Mexican”...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alice Wright. Colin Quinn.

In recent decades, ethnographers, historians, and historical archaeologists have refuted popular myths about southern Appalachia that characterize the region as an isolated geographic periphery and, by extension, a cultural backwater. However, these perceptions continue to color interpretations of Appalachia’s deeper past, despite the region’s long tradition of rigorous archaeological research. Some scholars have suggested that pre-Columbian Appalachia has remained peripheral in archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Buckner.

This is an abstract from the "*A New Look at the Southern Rocky Mountains: Crossroads of Western North America" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mountain passes were central to high elevation land use in the Southern Rocky Mountains. Rollins Pass, known for its extensive complex of alpine game drives, represents an especially notable example of an accumulated record of precontact occupation. Game drives at Rollins Pass are significant because their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kim Hwajung.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last few decades in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the Korean peninsula, there has been a gradual transformation of associated meanings and memories from conflict and trauma to peace and reconciliation. Amid the ongoing conflict and tension between the two Koreas, this change is actively promoted by tours that visit destroyed buildings and war...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Summer Moore.

This is an abstract from the "Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While researchers once considered the residents of hinterlands as the passive recipients of social and cultural influence, scholars have increasingly reframed these regions as dynamic zones of innovation and creative adaptation. Hinterlands have often been mentioned in investigations of indigenous sites in the context of European colonialism. Still,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Halperin. Jose Luis Garrido Lopez. Miriam Salas. Jean Baptiste LeMoine.

This is an abstract from the "Making and Breaking Boundaries in the Maya Lowlands: Alliance and Conflict across the Guatemala–Belize Border" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Maya archaeological site of Ucanal is located in Peten, Guatemala, close to the contemporary border with Belize. In Pre-Columbian times, the site also sat at the borders of some of the largest political centers, such as Caracol (Belize) and Naranjo (Peten, Guatemala)....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Philip Mink.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The vast majority of Formative Period archaeological sites recorded in Grand Canyon National Park can be assigned to one of the three distinct archaeological traditions that occur within the region, Ancestral Puebloan- Kayenta Branch, Ancestral Puebloan – Virgin Branch, or the Cohonina. However, a sizable number of sites, almost 20%, have mixed assemblages...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Frey.

This is an abstract from the "Theorizing Warfare: Global Perspectives on Defense and Fortification" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In distinction to many fortifications in Greece that receive little scholarly attention, the early Byzantine wall known as the Hexamilion has been the subject of two major publications. The first by Timothy E. Gregory systematically studied the extant remains of the barrier wall snaking 8 km over the Isthmus of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matt Edwards. Weston McCool.

Global studies of ancient imperialism are beginning to focus on the importance of communication corridors (roads, canals, waterways, etc.) in the origins, formation, and expansion of empires. As the number of such corridors increase and intertwine, a network is formed on the landscape that many past empires, including—we believe—the Wari, augmented with considerable imperial investment. By constricting the number of reasonable overland routes, mountainous terrain can concentrate such imperial...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Rose.

Archaeological schools of thought vary between countries, with the discipline growing along disparate theoretical trajectories dependent on the historical particulars of a nation’s academic traditions. Often distance between such diverging theoretical trajectories is mitigated by communication and collaboration across borders between scholars. However, the Cold War that divided Western and Soviet nations geographically, politically, and culturally also applied to archaeological research, as the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edy Barrios. Cameron L. McNeil. Mauricio Díaz. Walter Burgos. Antolín Velásquez.

Cities and the communities in their hinterlands are inextricably linked, and yet the objectives of their inhabitants can be starkly different. The archaeological sites of Río Amarillo and Quebrada Piedras Negras shared a fertile plain along the Río Amarillo and Río Blanco Rivers. Several scholars have suggested that the arable fields here may have acted as a bread basket for the urban center to their west. Research at Rio Amarillo has yielded evidence of strong ties to Copan including...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Greenwald.

This is an abstract from the "Adopting the Pueblo Fettle: The Breadth and Depth of the Basketmaker III Cultural Horizon" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Investigations at Creekside Village are focused on exploring the cultural landscape within Tularosa Canyon. Creekside Village is one of the best preserved and most informative sites of the Mesilla phase in the Tularosa Basin. Investigations conducted indicate that it was occupied between AD 600 and...