Urbanism (Other Keyword)
101-125 (251 Records)
This is an abstract from the "2024 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Luis Barba" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the project’s beginnings in 2012, Luis Barba has been a codirector of the Proyecto Arqueológico Tlajinga Teotihuacan (PATT), helping to bring an interdisciplinary research program to studying neighborhood organization and domestic life on the southern periphery of this early Mexican metropolis. After first investigating...
Interpreting the Past: How Transdisciplinary Research Advances the Field of Maya Archaeology (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human-nature relationships are key to understanding past societal developments. The value of conducting transdisciplinary research, involving new methods and other investigators, has become increasingly apparent as the field of Maya Studies has matured. While there has continued to be a significant increase in the...
Intra-urban Density and Spatial Variation at Ancient Teotihuacan (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Teotihuacan: Multidisciplinary Research on Mesoamerica's Classic Metropolis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The architectural map produced by René Millon’s Teotihuacan Mapping Project allows a fine-grained investigation of two features poorly understood for ancient cities. First, we use a kernel density analysis of residential structures to assess the differential population densities of the city. We find that there...
Introducing Urbanism, Technology, and Identity: Celebrating the Comparative Archaeology of Rita P. Wright (2018)
In this talk, we introduce the papers of the session, which reflect the many threads of Rita P. Wright’s contributions to archaeology. Prof. Wright has established a suite of concepts and critiques that generate a comparative framework that is not restricted to a single geographical area. In her early work on ceramic production and craft, Wright synthesized the anthropology of technology with the archaeology of the Indo-Iranian borderlands, laying the foundation for a technological approach that...
An Introduction to the Comparative Urban Traditions Project, with Emphasis on the East and Southeast Asian Case Studies (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Current State of Archaeological Research across Southeast Asia" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Comparative Urban Traditions project aims to rigorously explore pre-industrial cities and urban communities in all their complexity and diversity. Focusing on a set of archaeological case studies that are representative of a range of different time periods and geopolitical contexts, the approach is sensitive to both...
Investigating Public Spaces at the Urban Center of Cerro Jazmín, Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse: Current Research in Oaxaca Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The paper presents recently recovered information from excavations conducted in public spaces and open areas in the Late to Terminal Formative city of Cerro Jazmín in the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca. An area thought to be a plaza located directly south to a three-mound complex (Tres Cerritos) revealed a series of constructions and...
Investigations of Peri-Urban Settlement and Domestic Reservoirs: Research from Yaxnohcah, Campeche, Mexico (2017)
Peri-urban zones of settlement are unique localities among the urban-rural continuum that form due to dispersed urban growth, creating hybrid landscapes of fragmented urban and rural characteristics. Within these zones, domestic-scale reservoirs that the ancient Maya modified and maintained to manage their seasonally-scarce water resources are an important component. This study focuses on processes of multiple nuclei urban development and associated peri-urban formation at the site of Yaxnohcah...
Ireta: An Ethnohistoric and Archaeological Model of P'urépecha Urban Polities (2018)
New archaeological research at the site of Angamuco, Michoacán, Mexico demonstrates unequivocally that the P'urépecha (Tarascans) had cities that before the formation of the Late Postclassic empire. This paper will reexamine the ethnohistoric and ethnographic evidence for the organizational structure of P'urépecha urban polities in light of the new archaeological evidence. The evidence presented here suggests a form of political organization superficially similar to the altepetl model of Nahua...
Is the Study of Ancient Money Really So Difficult? (2018)
The difficulty that many economists and anthropologists have with studying ancient money lies with inadequate understanding of modern monetary systems. I briefly review the establishment of two currencies: the British pound in the 18th century and the US dollar in the 19th and why the establishment both currencies were political (not economic) constructs. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) economists analyze the current fiat currencies as political constructs and David Graber’s Debt: The First 5000...
Kalas and Urbanism in Western Central Asia (2017)
Kalas (qalas), as iconic fortified enclosure sites, were nodes within dispersed and low-density settlement patterns of Central Asian oases. The largest kalas functioned as the equivalent of urban centers for mobile, agro-pastoral societies. A complex and diversified system of agro-pastoral subsistence and production strategies were employed within the oases in response to extreme climatic and environmental conditions. This paper will focus on the transition from the Late Antique to Early...
Karakorum, Mongolia, a complex urban site in a non-urban society (2017)
It is undisputed that Karakorum was founded by the Mongol Emperor/Khan, saying this means we analyze a top-down planned large city in a non-sedentary, non-urban society. Therefore we will address the question of the layout of the city and the spatial organization. How are activities and people ordered, is there common space, what kind of infrastructure is provided by the city founders and how is it maintained during the nearly 200 years of the existence of the city. At which areas were landmark...
Kin, Ancestors, and Commensality: A New Vision for Huari Urbanism in Middle Horizon Peru (600–1000 CE) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Mesoamerican and Andean Cities: Old Debates, New Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Home to as many as 70,000 residents at its height, Huari was the largest city in the precolumbian Andes. The city’s organization, however, has long perplexed scholars. There is abundance evidence for wealth and significant social stratification, alongside displays of violence and power. Yet, researchers have yet to...
K’anwitznal: Six Years of Cartography at the Site of Ucanal, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Building on the pioneer work of the Proyecto Atlas de Guatemala, the Proyecto Arqueológico Ucanal has considerably expanded the survey and excavations of the site leading to a better comprehension of the transition of the Late to Terminal Classic periods. The site has been surveyed with a combination of approaches including a traditional total station,...
The Land and Water Revisited Project (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1961, archaeologist William T. Sanders traveled to México’s Teotihuacan Valley to film a documentary based on his 1957 Harvard dissertation. The film, Land and Water: An Ecological Study of the Teotihuacan Valley of México, provides an invaluable snapshot of agricultural and land-use practices in the area just prior to the urban explosion of México City....
Late Antiquity Revealed: Assessing Urban Change at Roman Nedinum in Northern Dalmatia, Croatia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2015, the Nadin-Gradina Archaeological Project (NGAP) began as a collaborative effort between the University of Zadar and University of Maine to unravel the long-term record of urban change in the Ravni Kotari region of northern Dalmatia, with a primary focus on the Nadin-Gradina archaeological site. Since its inception, the NGAP has confirmed a 2,500-year...
Late-Terminal Classic Community Mobility and Migration at El Perú-Waka’ (2018)
Recent archaeology at the Classic Maya city of El Perú-Waka’ has revealed a number of distinct communities making up the urban occupation. These communities possess their own cycles of settlement, florescence, and abandonment. Taken together, these cycles seem to show two distinct aspects that directly pertain to Classic Maya urbanism. One, it shows the urban landscape to be in a continuously changing state. The urban ruins encountered by researchers are the end product of centuries of such...
Leaving the Blanks Unfilled: a case study in productive ambiguity from Early Bronze Age Lebanon (2017)
An oft-heard sentiment in prehistoric archaeology, particularly for contexts without traditionally visible indicators of gender (i.e., bodies or identifiable representations of bodies), is that "the evidence just isn’t there" to productively introduce intersectional gender research. This is partly due to the trend-sensitivity of archaeology, which often draws from other disciplines to supplement its own scope. Intersectionality is used in the same way, as archaeologists attempt to reframe their...
Lidar and DepthmapX: Spatial Analysis of the Archaeological Site Malpaís de Tacámbaro, La Garita Sector (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Looking to the West: New insights into Postclassic Archaeology in Michoacán" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the municipality of Tacámbaro, Michoacán, is located the archaeological site Malpaís de Tacámbaro, La Garita sector. It is an arm of lava spill where the presence of prehispanic structures that seem to be part of the first urban centers of the Middle Postclassic (AD 1200–1350) stands out. According to the...
Lidar Mapping of a Zapotec City: Cultural Hybridity and Ethnogenesis in Postclassic Guiengola, Oaxaca (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse: Current Research in Oaxaca Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I will discuss how Zapotecs both continued and innovated the construction traditions from the central valleys of Oaxaca in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec by showing the results of the analysis of the lidar scan made during the 2022–2023 field season of the Guiengola Archaeological Project. The archaeological site of...
Lidar Reconnaissance of the Calakmul Urban Landscape (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Session in Memory of William J. Folan: Cities, Settlement, and Climate" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Building on the work of William J. Folan, the Bajo Laberinto Archaeological Project, initiated in 2022, is focused on investigations of urbanism centered on the city of Calakmul in southern Campeche. An initial 100 km2 lidar survey along the northern rim of the Bajo Laberinto has revealed large, elaborate...
Life after Urbanism: Investigating Classic Period Cities and Settlements in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Checking the Pulse II, Current Research in Oaxaca Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Those of us working in the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca have heard the saying that the “Classic period” in the region took place earlier, in the Late Preclassic. While the Classic period (AD 300-800) was a time of urban florescence in the Valley of Oaxaca, Basin of Mexico, Puebla, and the Mixteca Baja regions, investigations into...
Lifeways at the Onset of Urbanization in Central Mexico: Initial Findings from Ceramic Analysis and Residential Excavations at Middle Formative Tlalancaleca, Puebla. (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tlalancaleca is located in the western reaches of the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley in Central Mexico and was one of the region's largest urban centers during its apogee in the Terminal Formative period (100 BC - AD 250). The pathway to this urban apogee is less well understood but a promising area of inquiry lies in the process of population aggregation that...
Livelihoods and Opportunities: Household, Land Use and Landscape Change at Tikal (2018)
Sometimes described as a mosaic, regional land use and landscape in the Maya lowlands offer a unique opportunity to investigate the spatial and temporal dimensions and the socio-ecological dynamics of a variety of cultural systems, settlement patterns, and the environment. Unfortunately, the majority of urban theory applied to the lowlands focuses exclusively on urban authority and power for the provisioning of resources. Such approaches offer useful discussion and debate about the scale and...
Living Landscapes of Night in Tiwanaku, Bolivia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "After Dark: The Nocturnal Urban Landscape & Lightscape of Ancient Cities" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most treatments of Andean urbanism and urban life emphasize the acts and rhythms of daily life. Ethnohistoric documentation of life in Cuzco, nevertheless, details a rich corpus of ritual sequences and domestic activities that ideally took place under cover of night. In Tiwanaku today, night is an ontological...
Long-Term Use of Local Clays in Potting Traditions during Early Urbanization in the Nochixtlán Valley of the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, Mexico, 500–100 BCE (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Step by Step: Tracing World Potting Traditions through Ceramic Petrography" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Mixteca Alta Ceramic Study (MACS) in the Nochixtlán Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, aims to understand how early urbanization in the valley impacted potters’ crafting techniques over time and space. Early urbanization in the valley spanned the Yucuita and Early Ramos ceramic phases (500–100 BCE) of the Middle to...