Central America and Northern South America (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Benfer.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Living hundreds of years, ceiba trees (Ceiba pentandra) have long functioned as monuments to ancestral spirits, cosmological order, and chiefly authority among Indigenous populations throughout Central America. While these giant trees are often cosmologically charged and considered sacred or divine, there is substantial variety within Indigenous...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rus Sheptak.

This is an abstract from the "Exercising Freedoms: Historical Archaeology of the African Diaspora in Latin America" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the mid-eighteenth century, Spanish colonial authorities in Central America initiated the construction of a fortress on the Honduran Caribbean Coast, at a place bearing the indigenous name of Omoa. The construction of the fort drew on the labor of a massive population of enslaved people from Africa,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia Mayo Torné.

This is an abstract from the "Hidden Gems: New Research on Lapidary, Lapidarists, and Polished Stone and Shell in the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study aims to identify the origin of mosaic stone tesserae mirrors discovered in El Caño, Gran Coclé (750–1100 CE). It is part of a broader research effort aimed at understanding the exchange system between the central region of the Isthmus and the northern and southern parts of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Wake.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ongoing analysis of rich and diverse samples of vertebrate bone from Sitio Drago (SD), Bocas del Toro, Panama illustrates the importance of fine-grained sampling in understanding past subsistence strategies at the site. The analysis of charred macro- and micro-plant remains recovered from 30 x 30 x 10 cm column samples provide crucial information...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Carlson.

This is an abstract from the "Hidden Gems: New Research on Lapidary, Lapidarists, and Polished Stone and Shell in the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A jadeite figure in the John Bourne Collection of the Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD, has previously been identified and displayed only as a representation of an Olmec ballplayer. However, an examination of its sculptural and iconographic details reveals that, rather than representing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adrien Martinet.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Northeastern Honduras has long been considered an isolated region of Central America, sitting at the peripheral edge of Mesoamerica and the Isthmo-Colombian Area. This preconception was particularly strong against its Late Formative period, since no site had previously been identified between the Cuyamel (ca. 1200 – 400 BCE) and Selin (ca. 300 – 1000 CE)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Monge.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Animal imagery is an essential component ubiquitously present in the ancient cultures of southern Central America. Despite the immense variety of local avian species in the tropics, non-native turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) feature prominently in high-quality polychrome ceramics from the Greater Nicoya area in Costa Rica. In this poster, I present an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Spenard.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Rio Frio Regional Archaeological Project recently recorded an extensive network of granitic rock quarry sites associated with an ancient Maya ground stone tool production industry in the Mountain Pine Ridge (MPR), Belize. At the extraction sites, raw material was workshopped into ground stone implements and then distributed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Lohse.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent and ongoing research at August Pine Ridge, Belize is documenting an astonishing assemblage of complex bifaces representing human occupation and social interactions that took place in Central America from approximately 13,000 to 12,000 years ago. We see technological behaviors that reflect influences from Clovis practices that are well documented in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adela Amaral.

This is an abstract from the "Exercising Freedoms: Historical Archaeology of the African Diaspora in Latin America" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1769, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Negros de Amapa was a newly built ‘free’ Black town, fenced in by multiple forms of unfreedom. However the traces of that attempt to build the conditions for Black colonial life that remain in Amapa today, more often than not, emerge as empty signs, memories...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra Bazarsky.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Obsidian was used by the ancient Maya to create tools, weapons, and symbols of status. Archaeologists have analyzed these objects to better understand ancient trade and production systems, as well as socioeconomic and ideological spheres. While obsidian and obsidian sources have been thoroughly examined in many parts of the Maya...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Reid.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Spring Lake Site (41HY160) is a significant multicomponent archaeological site in Central Texas. Located at one of the State’s largest freshwater springs, the site contains material from Paleoindian to Protohistoric times. A combination of aggregate and typological analyses was used to examine over 18,000 pieces of debitage from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Wingfield.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Bribri of eastern Costa Rica believe shamans, pregnant women, and buriers hold the power to open the portal between the earthly realm and the land of the spirits. The last of these, buriers or "morticians" in contemporary lingo, are often associated with scavenging animals such as the armadillo, known as a digger. Ancient art, most often in clay, from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tawny Tibbits.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient Maya exploited three geochemically distinct granite sources from the Maya Mountains for a variety of ground stone tool and construction purposes. Previously, we sampled these sources and provided signature ranges of important elements that differentiate them. Here, we discuss recent field work that targeted the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lois Martin.

This is an abstract from the "Hidden Gems: New Research on Lapidary, Lapidarists, and Polished Stone and Shell in the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Jade dominates ancient Mesoamerican lapidary. While artists shaped the precious blue-green stone into varied forms, the quintessential jewel was a simple, round bead — bored through the center, polished to a sheen, and marked with red: either dusted with vermilion pigment or strung on a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Takeshi Inomata.

This is an abstract from the "Hidden Gems: New Research on Lapidary, Lapidarists, and Polished Stone and Shell in the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Greenstone axes and ornaments were important objects deposited in caches at various Early and Middle Preclassic centers in southeastern Mesoamerica. Early examples come from the sites of El Manatí in the Gulf Olmec region and Cantón Corralito on the Chiapas Pacific Coast dating to 1400-1000...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Henri Bernard.

This is an abstract from the "Hidden Gems: New Research on Lapidary, Lapidarists, and Polished Stone and Shell in the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mesoamericans attributed mystical and magical powers as well as healing properties to Chalchihuitl, or greenstone, which also symbolized social power, beauty, water, fertility, life, perfection, and sacredness. Historical sources and archaeological contexts confirm that Mesoamerican...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mariana Vazquez-Alonso.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Forest Management and Landscape Transformation: Anthropological Perspectives from the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lake sediments have been a source of information on vegetation and precipitation change in the Maya area. However, for interior areas of the Yucatan Peninsula where perennial surface water is reduced, the use of proxy data about vegetation and rainfall patterns of the past can also be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brigitte Kovacevich.

This is an abstract from the "Hidden Gems: New Research on Lapidary, Lapidarists, and Polished Stone and Shell in the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Identification of greenstones in the field and lab can be challenging. This paper will discuss the possibility to preliminarily distinguish greenstones elementally with the use of Handheld X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (HHRXF). While HHXRF data has some limitations and produces only...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lynn Fisher.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Quarries and mines used to obtain silicites are known from Neolithic cultural landscapes across Europe, representing a common pattern of localized, repeated use of selected sources. Though common, Neolithic quarry sites are challenging to interpret in broader sociocultural context due in part to the chronological and regional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pascale Boucicaut.

This is an abstract from the "Exercising Freedoms: Historical Archaeology of the African Diaspora in Latin America" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the summer 2018 I conducted ethnographic research with activists and community members in Panama’s movimiento afrodescendiente. That year, preparations were being made for the capital city’s quincentennial celebrations, including the fashioning of new landmarks and museums. Responding to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremy Beller.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological research in the southern Cape of South Africa continues to emphasize the region’s crucial role in understanding the emergence of cultural modernity among early modern humans. However, certain aspects of subsistence behavior, particularly the strategies for procuring raw materials and the associated patterns of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Ahlrichs.

This is an abstract from the "Toolstone and Mineral Geography Across Time and Space" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological resources of Path Valley in Pennsylvania contain a limited number of toolstone types. The primary toolstone is chert, native in the valley bedrock and readily accessible from both primary and secondary geologic contexts throughout the valley. Crystal quartz was used less often but is also locally available in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jean-Paul Rojas.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Approximately 70 km from Nicaragua’s southern Caribbean Coast lie the Corn Islands—a 13 km² volcanic archipelago remembered by both the ethnohistoric record and contemporary Afro-Indigenous oral tradition to have been home to the Misumalpan-speaking Kukra tribe at the point of European contact. The Kukra, who have historically inhabited both the mainland...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julie Wesp.

This is an abstract from the "Exercising Freedoms: Historical Archaeology of the African Diaspora in Latin America" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores how historical archaeology can integrate biological data to reconsider established narratives of the pathways of forced migration from specific regions in West and West Central Africa. Previous discussions tend to characterize migration of African diaspora populations solely within...