Landscape Archaeology (Other Keyword)
551-575 (664 Records)
This poster presents the results of five field seasons of intensive survey and total station mapping at the Medicinal Trail Community, a Maya hinterland settlement in northwestern Belize. Mapping during the summer of 2017 has further refined our understanding of the size and distribution of households and numerous landscape features that have been, or continue to be, the focus of excavations. Refinements to the topographical mapping within the area has revealed several complex household groups...
Settlement Pattern and Land Use at Holtun, Guatemala (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Provisioning Ancient Maya Cities: Modeling Food Production and Land Use in Tropical Urban Environments" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In Maya archaeology, agricultural cycles are the cornerstone of multiple research topics that intertwine daily life, ideology, political economy, and settlement systems. In archaeological research, land-use can be indicative of social organization and provisioning strategies. In this...
Settlement Patterns in the Taojiahu-Xiaocheng Region of Jianghan Plain China (2019)
This is an abstract from the "New Thoughts on Current Research in East Asian Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The especially early emergence of Neolithic walled towns in the Jianghan Plain is widely used as an indicator of social complexity. Several models have been suggested to explain the emergence of walled towns: inter-regional conflicts between the Central Plain and the Jianghan Plain, intra-regional conflicts among walled towns in...
'The Shape which all that which is Settled has is that of a Cross': Negotiating Inscription and Experience in the Sacred Landscapes of 17th Century New Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Sacred Southwestern Landscapes: Archaeologies of Religious Ecology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the emergent social geography of empire, Franciscan missions were agents of spatial production as well as colonial establishment. Their foundation, form, and operation instantiated claims to and about society, dominion, and the culmination of history. These claims were forged within an already extant, meaningful, and...
Shedding New Light on Upper Paleolithic Cultural Landscapes of Northern Mongolia (2018)
Ongoing research on the Pleistocene of northern Mongolia has revealed intriguing patterns in the Upper Paleolithic cultural landscapes of the region. The distribution of sites suggest that maintaining social networks was potentially as significant as subsistence and shelter considerations for these early nomadic hunter-gatherers. In 2017, fifteen new Upper Paleolithic sites were documented in the Ikh Tolboriin Gol (Big Tolbor River, n=45) and Naryn Tolboriin Gol (Narrow Tolbor River, n=9)...
Shells and Sherds: Insights into the Historical Landscapes and Mission Period Site Distributions on Sapelo Island, Georgia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Site 9Mc23, located at the north end of Sapelo Island, Georgia, is a multicomponent Late Archaic through Spanish Mission period site marked by numerous shell rings, piles, lenses, and pits. The adjacent marsh provided abundant shell, which the site’s first inhabitants utilized to construct three monumental shell rings. These features continued to influence...
Shifting Tides and the Role of 'Big Data': Modeling Paleoindian Land Use and Site Preservation in the Aucilla Basin, Florida (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The past 18,000 years in northern Florida have been characterized by shifts in climate and sea level, which affected settlement patterns and site preservation. Regional sea level curves have only recently been established with the accuracy and resolution required to model paleohydrology (Joy 2018). Advances in non-linear modeling and the use of multi-sclar...
The Signs of the Dead: Theorizing Ancestrality via Semiotics (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Essential Contributions from African to Global Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this presentation I explore the ways in which African perspectives on ancestrality can inform archaeological approaches to the past. In historic Madagascar, the works and inheritance of the ancestors were fundamental to the building of political sovereignty, just as they are fundamental to the practice of archaeology and...
Sinis Archaeological Project: Preliminary Results of the First Season of Landscape Survey in West-Central Sardinia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Sinis Archaeological Project is a new regional survey in west-central Sardinia that explores the landscapes of the Sinis Peninsula and adjacent territories from multi-scalar, diachronic perspectives. The region is a diverse landscape of agricultural plains, coastal areas, and mountainous territory. In antiquity, it was inhabited by both local Nuragic...
A Site with a View? A 3D Reconstruction of the Structures at Dun Ailinne (2019)
This is an abstract from the "On the Periphery or the Leading Edge? Research in Prehistoric Ireland" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Dún Ailinne (Knockaulin) in County Kildare is one of four major ceremonial sites of the Irish Iron Age. The site sits on a large, isolated hill in an otherwise flat landscape on which a large earthen bank and ditch encloses approximately 13 ha of land at the top. Excavations in the 1960s-1970s, as well as...
Site-seeing: Aeriality, Archaeological Survey and Objectivity in Coastal Peru (2017)
Far from being mana from the future, aerial imagery has been integral to both the practical and conceptual dimensions of archaeological survey almost from its inception. In this presentation, I argue that aerial photography captured via private and state-funded reconnaissance in the 1930’s and 40’s played a transformational role in the emergence of regional approaches in Peru’s desert coast in the mid 20th century. I discuss how the use of aerial imagery has both enabled and constrained the...
Sites and Sight Lines: An Investigation of Intervisibility Among Hilltop Sites in Azerbaijan (2015)
Most archaeology takes as its primary unit of focus the archaeological site. Yet sites did not exist in isolation: interactions between sites, and between people and the surrounding landscape, were also an important component of ancient societies. These interactions were social, political, military, and/or ritual, and investigating the use of landscape provides archaeologists with a means to understand larger-scale processes such as growth and expansion of urban centers. One way of looking at...
Sites, landscapes, and survey intensity in the South Caucasus: the evolution of landscape archaeology approaches in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (2017)
In the last decade, the number of landscape archaeology projects in South Caucasia has dramatically increased. South Caucasia geographically and disciplinarily sits between two early centers of survey archaeology (Near East and Mediterranean), each with its own methodologies and primary questions. The mountainous landscapes of South Caucasia, the high degree of population mobility in many periods, and the extent of Soviet land engineering challenge archaeologists to develop hybrid survey...
Sites, Non-sites, and Landscapes: Changing Land-Use Patterns in Wild Horse Draw and Vicinity, Trans-Pecos Texas (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Big Bend Complex: Landscapes of History" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The University of Texas at El Paso 2014 summer archeological field school was hosted by the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo at Chilicote Ranch near Valentine, Texas. Students conducted a pedestrian sample survey focused on the cuestas and mesas between the Sierra Vieja and Wild Horse Draw. The survey identified 95 sites and a number of non-sites;...
Small Islands and Constructed Landscapes: A Bayesian Cultural Chronology of the Manuʻa Group (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Supporting Practical Inquiry: The Past, Present, and Future Contributions of Thomas Dye" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Radiocarbon and other radiometric dating techniques are pivotal for archaeological inquiries about cultural and environmental change. How we use these techniques and interpret their results to analyze and draw conclusions about archaeological data, however, can vary somewhat from one researcher to...
The Social and Ecological Characteristics of Prehistoric Cambodian Earthworks (2015)
This paper moves discussion of prehistoric earthworks in Cambodia from normative archaeology into an ecological landscape structure, based on archaeological datasets. Discussions provide a synthesis of archaeological and newly borne out ecological explanations for original site construction, occupation, landscape use, sustainability of occupation for the earthwork culture over a c. 2000 year period, and terminal use of the sites. The paper moves discussion of the earthworks in the direction of...
Social and Physical Landscape Changes at Buen Suceso (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Community in the Past and Present through the 2022 PARCC Field School at Buen Suceso, Ecuador" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Four seasons of excavation at the Valdivia site of Buen Suceso allow for a preliminary reconstruction of an occupational history of the site. Areas with likely ritual significance point to social changes at the site that demonstrate the unique nature of the Buen Suceso community. This...
Soil Chemical Analysis of the Floors of Walled Enclosures within the Mirador Basin (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Multidisciplinary Investigations in the Mirador Basin, Guatemala" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geochemical analyses of soils and floors have proven useful in the interpretation of ancient human activities. Lidar images of the Mirador basin have brought to light Preclassic walled enclosures in the Mirador basin. Soil chemical analysis in combination with lidar and excavation data helped determine the ancient...
Soil Fertility and Chronology at the RapaNui Rano Raraku Megalithic Statue Quarry (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Middens to Museums: Papers in Honor of Julie K. Stein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rano Raraku on Easter Island (RapaNui) is famous as the source of the megalithic moai statues. Past research by the Easter Island Statue Project (EISP) documented and mapped the statues. Other studies, based on coring the freshwater lake in Rano Raraku, identified microbotanical evidence of a cultivated landscape inside the...
Soils, Sedimentary Rocks, and Scale: Recent Geoarchaeological Investigations at Colha, Northern Belize (2018)
The Maya site of Colha is located on a karstic doline that is dominated by Tertiary and Pleistocene limestone and marls. This low-lying area, known locally as the Cobweb depression, encompasses a complex wetland system that is affected by Holocene sea level rise, human-induced vegetation changes, and both natural and anthropogenic erosional sequences. The dynamic landscape, coupled with a long history of human occupation, places this site in a complex geographic and cultural position within the...
Sometimes at the Crossroads: Preliminary Results from New Fieldwork on the Southeast Ararat Plain of Armenia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Ararat Plain, part of the upper Araxes River valley system in the South Caucasus mountains, represents the largest expanse of arable land in Armenia today. At the southeastern edge of this plain, the Vedi River valley, a tributary to the Araxes, connects the agricultural zones of the plain with the resource-rich mountains and Lake Sevan to the east. The...
Soundscape and Place: Acoustic Archaeology in the Mountains of the Middle Atlantic (2018)
As permanent landmarks, waterfalls and associated plunge pools are documented among traditional peoples as liminal and sacred spaces. A review of ethnographic and archaeological literature identifies these features as sources of life and transition, requiring proper preparation in advance of approach. The symbolic and experiential character of waterfalls may be in evidence in the Virginia Blue Ridge, where a small number of Middle and Late Woodland sites near named waterfalls are outside the...
Soundscapes and Visionscapes: Investigating Ancient Maya Cities with GIS and 3D Modeling (2018)
Researchers have been applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to examine the roles of visibility and movement in archaeological landscapes around the world. However, few studies have investigated the role sound potentially played in structuring experience in ancient cities. To begin to fill this gap, this paper builds on our initial investigations to develop new geospatial and virtual reality (VR) methods to examine ancient acoustics. For the ancient Maya, sight and sound worked in...
The South Gap Site: A 9,000-Year-Old Submerged Hunting Site in Lake Huron with Far Reaching Connections (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Liquid Landscapes: Recent Developments in Submerged Landscape Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The South Gap site is at a depth of 105 feet beneath Lake Huron on a submerged landscape referred to as the Alpena Amberly Ridge (AAR). Once exposed as dry land between 11,000 and 8000 cal BP, the AAR provided a causeway for migrating animals, such as caribou, to cross the Lake Huron basin. The landform also...
"The South Traders Carry All Before them": Colonialism, Waterways and Relationships in Ontario’s Fur Trade (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The so-called "fur trade era" of northern North America was founded on a willful exchange between Indigenous peoples and European or métis-descended merchants. Waterways provided the main means of travel, permitting traders to spread their posts and influence across the landscape of the interior. Yet in its early years the London-based Hudson’s Bay Company...