Frontiers and Borderlands (Other Keyword)
26-50 (148 Records)
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...
The Cocospera Valley in the Prehistoric, Protohistoric and Missión Period: A Corridor of Cultural Exchange? (2019)
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...
Community Identity in the Jornada: Untangling Patterns of Aggregation and Abandonment at Cottonwood Spring Pueblo (LA 175), an El Paso Phase Village (2019)
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...
Comparative Multiethnic Predation in Borderland Context (2023)
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”...
Confronting Myths of Isolation in Pre-Columbian Appalachia (2018)
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...
Contrast and Connection in a Colonial-Era Hawaiian Hinterland: A Study of Nineteenth-Century Households on the Nā Pali Coast, Kaua‘i Island (2019)
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,...
Convergence Zone Politics and Cultural Affiliations at the Archaeological Site of Ucanal, Peten, Guatemala (2019)
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)....
Cooperation, Competition, or Taphonomy: Exploring Variegated Assemblages on Grand Canyon Formative Period Sites (2019)
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...
Corridors of Conquest: The Nasca Headwaters during the Middle Horizon (2018)
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...
Corroded but Enduring: on the Perpetuation of a Scholarly Iron Curtain in Western Archaeological Thought and Practice (2018)
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...
The Country and the City: Explorations of the Relationship between Río Amarillo and Copan, in the Copan Valley, Honduras (2018)
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...
Creekside Village: Early Village Organization and Subsistence Strategies in Tularosa Canyon, South-central New Mexico (2019)
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...
Cultural Corridors in South Central Pennsylvania (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A recent cultural resource management project located in south central Pennsylvania's Path Valley identified a series of five sites oriented around one of the waterways forming the headwaters of the Potomac River Drainage. Background research and local informants indicate that a network of small- to medium-sized pre-contact sites can be found along the...
Diet and Foodways in the Wari Imperial Hinterlands: Stable Isotope Analysis of the La Real Burial Population (600–1000 CE), Arequipa, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis is employed to assess diet in times of Wari influence in the southern hinterlands between the early (600–800 CE) and late (800–1000 CE) Middle Horizon (MH). We analyze bone collagen from 57 individuals interred at La Real, corresponding to two chronologically distinct mortuary contexts at this Majes Valley site...
Don Lathrap, Precocious Civilization, and the Highland-Lowland Link in Andean Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of Archaeologists in the Andes: Second Symposium, the Institutionalization and Internationalization of Andean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The dynamic interaction between culture areas has been and continues to be important. Traditionally, the boundaries or frontiers between culture areas were considered fixed. Many scholars now recognize that these spaces were fluid and their inhabitants...
Drinking Together: The Role of Foodways in the Wari and Huaracane Colonial Encounter in the Moquegua Valley, Peru (2018)
Food is a unique form of material culture, representing a multiplicity of ethnic, gender, racial, political, and economic identities, that is consumed and reaffirmed through daily practice. In this way, food remains provide a nuanced perspective on a variety of archaeological issues. This paper focuses on Wari imperial expansion and how foodways enabled both Wari colonists and local peoples to negotiate the colonial experience during the Middle Horizon (AD 600-1000), Peru. Using...
El Gran Chiriquí desde Veraguas: dinámicas fronterizas y definición subregional (2018)
Se presenta una re-evaluación de la frontera oriental del Gran Chiriquí y su relación con la sub-región de Veraguas del Gran Coclé en Panamá Central. A partir de hallazgos recientes de petrograbados en el sur de Veraguas y una revisión de la literatura, se reconocen las limitantes inherentes a una definición estática de fronteras culturales y se analiza la "chiricanidad" de la cultura material veragüense como ejemplo de las dinámicas históricas en la conformación de entidades regionales. Se...
El Jovero: Investigating Political Frontiers on the Usumacinta River (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Investigations in Chiapas, Mexico" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The borders and frontiers of ancient communities provide a rich opportunity to examine the effects of social and political change. These interstitial spaces are often conceptualized as part of a polity body but may be better understood as spaces of continual change and reorganization, positioning these communities as active rather...
Emergence of Sociopolitical Complexity in Northern Peru: A Diachronic Perspective from the Huancabamba Valley (2018)
This paper focuses on the emergence and diachronic development of sociopolitical complexity in northern Peru during the Initial Period and Early Horizon using new excavation and settlement pattern data from the site of Ingatambo in the Huancabamba Valley. I argue that significant changes in sociopolitical complexity occur alongside shifts and intensification in interregional interaction. During the Pomahuaca phase (BC. 1200-800); ceremonial centers with platform architecture appear suddenly...
Enigmatic Early Horizon Occupations: Las Pampas de Panecillo and the Alto Piura (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Cuando los senderos divergen: Reconsiderando las interacciones entre los Andes Septentrionales y los Andes Centrales durante el 1ro y 2do milenio AEC / When Paths Diverge: Reconsidering Interactions between the Northern and Central Andes, First–Second Millennium BCE" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The department of Piura includes a significant portion of the modern national border between Ecuador and Peru and remains...
Entre Mesoamérica y el Área Intermedia, Patrón de Asentamiento Arqueológico en la Costa Nororiental de Honduras (2018)
La zona nororiental de Honduras en la época prehispánica, y su interacción con Mesoamérica al oeste, ha sido poco abordada. El patrón de asentamiento regional así como interno de cada sitio es igual poco conocido y muchas veces confundido con el área vecina al este. Los reconocimientos de superficie en esta década nos han brindado resultados preliminares sobre el patrón de asentamiento regional y de sitio de la costa nororiental, concretamente en la Cuenca del Río Cangrejal, el Bajo Aguan en el...
An Examination of the Virgin Pueblo within the Grand Canyon Parashant National Monument (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Virgin Anasazi Region of the Southwestern United States of America is a relatively unrepresented region in archaeological literature. In the past, the undeveloped nature of the region combined with the regions remoteness have resulted in a dearth of unconsolidated literature on the archaeology of the region. Recent archaeological investigations by...
Excavation and Ceramic Analysis Results from a Moderately Sized, Eleventh- through Early Fourteenth-Century Pueblo (LA135004) near Taos in North-Central New Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Archaeological Work by Chronicle Heritage" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chronicle Heritage recently excavated part of a moderately sized, multicomponent site, LA135004, in advance of development near Taos in northern New Mexico. The prehispanic component, dating AD 1050–1300, consists of at least one room block with features, extramural cooking pits, and thousands of ceramics, flaked and ground stone, and...
Expanding the Archive: Buen Suceso and the Valdivia Tradition in Early Andean Interaction (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Cuando los senderos divergen: Reconsiderando las interacciones entre los Andes Septentrionales y los Andes Centrales durante el 1ro y 2do milenio AEC / When Paths Diverge: Reconsidering Interactions between the Northern and Central Andes, First–Second Millennium BCE" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Valdivia tradition of coastal Ecuador (ca. 3800–1450 BC) was one of the first sedentary, agricultural, and...
Feasting, Shell Middens, and Monumentality in Northeastern Honduras (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences 2024" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At the site of Selin Farm (AD 300–1000) in northeastern Honduras, recent research revealed repeated episodes of large-scale feasting occurring over a period of nearly a thousand years leading up to major shifts in local social and political organization (Goodwin 2019; Reeder-Myers et al. 2021). Shell midden mounds at the site contain large...