Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

DOCUMENT Full-Text Anaïs Dervanian. Lilia Fernández Souza. Mario Zimmermann. Héctor Hernández Álvarez. Carlos Matos Llanes.

Si bien existen registros escritos sobre aspectos económicos y productivos en contextos históricos mexicanos, haciendas específicamente, es importante subrayar que dichos registros hacen mención breve o nula acerca de la vida cotidiana y situación económica en la que los peones acasillados vivían. Ante la presente problemática, nos planteamos evaluar y discutir las actividades cotidianas realizadas en una vivienda de construcción humilde (Solar 30), por un lado, y en la capilla de la hacienda...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Sara Rivers Cofield. Jodi Reeves Eyre.

The Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory (MAC Lab) and the Regional Archaeological Curation Laboratory (RACF) in Ft. Lee, Virginia are archaeological repositories that meet high professional standards for the care of artifacts and paper records. Unfortunately, neither facility has the expert technical staff and specialized infrastructure necessary to qualify as permanent repositories for digital records, despite the exponential rise in site documentation that exists in digital form...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shannon K. Freire. Alexis M. Jordan.

Following the 1991-1992 excavation of the Milwaukee County Institutional Grounds Cemetery (1878-1925), up to 190 individuals were preliminarily identified using historical documentation, material culture, and geospatial analysis. Subsequent bioarchaeological analyses have provided an additional line of evidence for the identification of these individuals. The cemetery population of Western European immigrants and local/nonlocal native born Americans is composed of paupers, the institutionalized,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Naomi Cleghorn. Thalassa Matthews. Christopher Shelton.

The exposure of the wide continental shelf of the Agulhas Bank during the gradual regression of the shoreline from 45,000 years ago, culminating in the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), opened up a vast new area for foragers. Humans with well-established coastal resource exploitation strategies would have naturally shifted their foraging range to the south, following the regressing shoreline. During this period, the South African technological record underwent a critical transition from the prepared...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Derek T. Anderson. Molly K. Zuckerman. Nicholas P. Herrmann. Felicia Peña. D. Shane Miller.

The Aklis site (12VAm1-42) is a multicomponent prehistoric conch shell midden containing cemetery and habitation components. Large portions of the site are currently subject to damage from rising sea levels and modern disturbances, including looting. Salvage excavations of two sets of human remains in 2012 led to the development of an archaeological field school in 2014, offered by Mississippi State University and in conjunction with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Survey and excavation...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Claudine Gravel-Miguel.

Anthropological research has demonstrated the influence of climate and environmental resources on the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers. While most previous work has focused on environmental influences on hunter-gatherer economic and ecological behaviors, this research will evaluate the impact of different geographical and social environments on the social networks formed therein. This project will use an agent-based model to generate test expectations related to the processes that shaped the social...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Francis McManamon. Julian Richards.

Archaeology is awash in digital data. Archaeologists generate large numbers of digital files in their field, laboratory, and records investigations. We use digital mapping, digital photography, digital means of data analysis, and our reports are drafted and produced digitally. Good curation of digital data provides easy means by which it can be discovered and accessed, as well as ensuring that it is preserved for future uses. In many ways the planning for and carrying out good digital involves...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Opitz.

Serious games and detailed 3D virtual models that allow researchers to explore multiple scenarios and reflect on different hypotheses or potential reconstructions are growing in number and increasingly viewed as serious scholarly tools. These reconstructions tend to heavily foreground the spatial and visual aspects of a place, a natural reflection of the character of the digital media in use. Studies of potential past experiences of these places, typically focused on movement through them and...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Maureece Levin. Molly Shelton. William Ayres.

Agroforestry, or the growing of tree crops, is a long-standing and key food production practice throughout much of the world. As with all systems of food production, the way that humans manage agroforests has a profound impact on their composition as well as their sustainability. For over 2,000 years, eastern Micronesians have relied largely on tree crop production, vegeculture, and fishing for subsistence. In this study, we focus on late prehistoric manipulation of floral environments on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Stewart.

Petrified Forest National Park contains an extensive prehistoric ceramic variability, exhibiting ceramics from multiple regions at later prehistoric sites. Like much of the Southwest, most of the research at the park is survey oriented, recording only a sample of ceramics on site. The high diversity of ceramics and small sample sizes has the potential to create a recording bias when using ceramics to relatively date sites. This project investigates the relationship between site diversity and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emilio Santiago. R. J. Sinensky.

Petrified Forest National Park is in the third and final year of its Boundary Expansion Survey, which has nearly doubled the park’s size to 221,552 acres. Over the last three years researchers have identified and recorded over 300 archaeological sites in a variety of ecological zones. Our survey focuses on a 640-acre parcel that encompasses flat grasslands, dune-covered Triassic ridges, washes, and mesa tops. Site types range from large Basketmaker II habitation sites, to Pueblo II and Pueblo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Reitze. Amy Schott. Iva Lee Lehmkuhl.

In 2004 Congress authorized Petrified Forest National Park to more than double in size, in part to protect unique cultural resources. This poster introduces the preliminary results of the third and final season of pedestrian survey in these new lands. So far this research has recorded archaeological sites dating from the Archaic through the Late Pueblo periods. Sites range from lithic landscapes covering hundreds of acres to multi-room masonry or adobe structures. Survey methodology has focused...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Packard.

This project looks at the spatial distribution of lithic and ceramic artifacts on slopes in Petrified Forest National Park to examine erosional impacts on distribution. Archaeologists use the spatial distribution of artifacts to identify features and their functions. Therefore, it is important that the affect of erosion moving artifacts out of their primary contexts is understood. It is hypothesized that patterns exist in the way artifacts erode downslope. Transects are put across site slopes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary M. Hagen.

This project seeks to understand how the basalt and turquoise found at Petrified Forest National Park fits into the trade networks of the Southwest. The procurement and subsequent movement of basalt and turquoise materials have been studied in the Southwest, but not at Petrified Forest National Park. Basalt axe heads, vesicular basalt pipes, and turquoise beads/pendants were recovered from multiple sites but no natural outcrops of either source have been found within the park boundaries. For...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maxwell Forton.

East Tank Mesa is a prominent landform located within the new expansion lands of Petrified Forest National Park: harboring a high concentration of Pueblo II-Pueblo III petroglyph panels and one of the region’s few possible Chacoan outliers. This possible outlier is the Mac Stod site: a seven-room pueblo possessing some of the hallmarks of Chacoan architecture (core veneer masonry, large rooms, long straight walls, and well constructed rectangular doorways). The nature of Mac Stod, and whether it...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra Covert.

Shell jewelry at Petrified Forest National Park has been found from Basketmaker II through Pueblo IV. Since there are no local sources of marine shell, it is important to understand how trade routes from the Gulf of California and the Gulf of Mexico directly affected how shell was traded to this region. Shell recovered from archaeological contexts curated in the Petrified Forest National Park collections were typed according to class, genus, and species and were sourced to the Gulf of California...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cody Dalpra. Brian Harmon. R. J. Sinensky.

Late Archaic, Basketmaker, and Pueblo I time period projectile point types are problematic in the greater Southwest because many exhibit considerable morphological overlap. The sizable collections from Petrified Forest National Park represent an excellent test case where all of these time periods are well represented. To characterize their considerable morphological range we analyze over 80 projectile points from cross dated surface finds and the excavated sites of the Basketmaker-era Flattop...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Terry. Bryce M. Brown. Aline Magnoni. Tanya Carino.

In Post Classic and Colonial times, cacao was an important crop to the Maya. Landa and others reported sacred groves of trees in the Yucatan region, and among these groves they saw cacao growing. When the Spanish arrived in Mexico, cacao seeds were even used as a form of currency near Chichen Itza. Cacao typically grows in hot, humid climates. The Yucatan region is too dry and humidity is too low during the winter months to sustain cacao, but it has been found to grow in the humid microclimates...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leandro Cascon. Rui Murrieta.

In the Brazilian State of Pará, Eastern Amazon, indigenous Asurini populations living in the middle course of the Xingú River currently face the challenge of maintaining traditional lifeways in a situation of great ecological and social change, due to the construction of Belo Monte, one of the world’s largest hydroelectric dams. Amongst their practices, the cultivation of diverse varieties of manihot, sweet-potato, beans, maize and other crops is an important aspect of Asurini culture, and one...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Scott Cummings.

Cooking, food processing, and consumption all contribute anthropic activity markers traceable using archaeobotanic analyses and chemical signatures. Grid square sampling illuminates patterns for comparison with distribution of artifacts and architectural elements, revealing patterned activities that identify food storage in vessels, grinding, and cooking. Multiple lines of evidence, each providing only a portion of the record, contribute to better understanding economic activity and provide...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alessandra Pecci. Fernanda Inserra.

Residue analyses have been applied for more than 40 years to the study of ceramics and floors (Barba, Bello 1978; Condamin et al. 1976). This has allowed to better understand ceramic contents, on the one side, and the traces left by human activities on floors, on the other. Both these disciplines provide important information on human activity markers, focusing on the use of ceramics in the first case and the use of space and the function of structures in the second. However, a deeper...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mónica Alonso Eguíluz. Rosa María Albert. Javier Fernández Eraso.

Fumier deposits are important sources of information to better understand past livestock practices. The Neolithic site of Los Husos II (Álava, Spain), in the upper Ebro Basin, is the oldest Basque Country site where livestock practices were detected dating to 6990-6760 cal B.P. Hence, the site offers a unique opportunity to study the adaptation of early livestock practices and their expansion to the western Pyreness, as the Ebro Basin is the main route by which the new economic system...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa LeCount. Kara Fulton. David W. Mixter. E. Christian Wells. Thomas R. Jamison.

This report describes the results of a geochemical analysis of nearly 1,000 samples from earthen and plaster surfaces at Actuncan, a prehispanic Maya city in western Belize. Studies of the social, political, and economic relationships between elites and commoners demonstrate that the lived experiences of both groups were dramatically different. However, we know little about how social roles and relationships impacted the organization and daily use of domestic and public spaces. Multivariate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Depalmas. Francesco di Gennaro.

The paper focuses on some aspects of food production and preparation of meals in the poorly equipped context of the protohistoric village in Italian territory. Some arrangements that have already been observed or reconstructed on archaeological basis, specifically when connected to particular found tools are discussed. With specific reference to the Italian protohistory, research on these items has been sometimes supported by ethnographic comparisons. In this search some already stated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Lancelotti. Jonas Alcaina Mateos. Javier Ruiz perez. Alessandra Pecci. Marco Madella.

Jandhala is a small village in the rural countryside of North Gujarat (India) where many of the activities related to food processing are still non-mechanized. One compound within the village has been investigated ethnographically to test a novel methodology to unravel activity areas. In this paper we present the results of investigations in the courtyard of the compound. Over 170 samples were collected, in a regular grid of 2x2 meters, and analyzed for multi-element geochemistry. We compare our...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Seidemann. Christine Halling.

Unlike many other aspects of archaeology, forensic archaeology and anthropology is, in part, only as effective as the courts believe it to be. While peer review is the gold standard for assessing the integrity and viability of the scientific aspects of forensic archaeology and anthropology, passing muster in a court of law can be a different—and sometimes counterintuitive—standard. Although some recent research in this area has examined the impact of court attempts to “police” the integrity of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Craig Goralski. Alexis Gray.

Despite being stakeholders with many shared goals, the working relationships between forensic anthropologists, forensic archaeologists, and their colleagues in law enforcement are often strained. The authors argue that cultural differences among the groups have contributed to the underuse and misuse of forensic anthropologists and archaeologists both in the United States and elsewhere, resulting in investigations that are neither as anthropological nor as scientific as juries and the public are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin DuBois. Tony Waldron. Kate Bowers. Carolyn Rando.

In the field of forensic science, the investigation that follows an explosive attack is one of extreme importance. There are, however, few universally accepted methods for the location and recovery of human remains after an explosion, especial in the cases of an IED or suicide bomb attack. This explains the paucity of available research and guidance on the subject. The research presented here aims to improve practice both in terms of recovery of the victims and in determining the characteristics...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann Marie Mires. Claire Gold.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) database lists approximately 100,000 missing persons in the United States. Many of the people who go missing in the United States are victims of homicide. In many cases, the investigation begins only when human remains are found. DNA technology has helped decrease the number of unidentified cases but still, many “unfound” cases remain unsolved. Victims of homicide have no choice as to where their bodies are placed and often suffer violations before and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin McAllister. Brent Kober.

Law enforcement officers working for agencies not directly involved in land management, such as county sheriff’s departments, traditionally have not been trained to recognize evidence of crimes related to resource protection, for example, artifacts and human remains stolen in the commission of archaeological crimes. In a recent class presented by our firm and cohosted by the Lake County, California Sheriff’s Department and two California tribes, sheriff’s deputies and evidence technicians...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sharon Moses.

African magic rituals among the graves of the recently dead in the South and elsewhere may not be as rare as one might think. This paper is an exploration of a case wherein the author was called in as a forensic archaeologist and consultant to law enforcement investigating a case of cemetery desecrations with supernatural overtones. Further, during the course of this investigation, possible connections between the author's historical archaeological research excavation of a slave street on a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Martin. Blair Tormey.

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) results can factor into the decision to excavate in the search for a clandestine grave. Most published research and case studies focus on the successful location and recovery of human remains, while relatively few examples have been published showing negative results. This presentation highlights a cold case where the data interpretation led to excavation, but did not produce the target sought. Information from a confidential informant led investigators to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dana Kollmann.

Archaeological excavations are much like crime scene investigations in that to study them, is to destroy them. Consequently, full-scale documentation, cataloguing, and proper packaging techniques are critical components of archaeological and forensic fieldwork. Archaeologists have the additional benefit to law enforcement of being trained to conduct line and grid searches, interpret soils for evidence of disturbance, and perform exhumations using standardized excavation techniques. Law...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Harold Drollinger. Lauren W. Falvey. Colleen Beck.

The Peace Camp, near the Nevada National Security Site, is the location where protesters have gathered for several decades to voice their opposition to nuclear testing and environmental issues. This National Register eligible property contains an abundance of archaeological features, such as rock cairns, tent pads, sweat lodges, and geoglyphs. Associated with these features are two concrete highway drainage tunnels that served as a passageway and a place of respite from the desert conditions. In...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Cory Breternitz. Holly Young. M. Scott Thompson. Rebecca Hill.

Archaeology can marshal new digital infrastructure not simply to rescue endangered legacy information, but to revive and enhance those data for innovative research approaches. Over the course of two decades, Soil Systems, Inc. (SSI), collected vast amounts of archaeological information and digital data during the company’s work at Pueblo Grande, one of the largest and most centrally-located of the Classic period Hohokam villages in the Salt River Valley. This poster highlights efforts to...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Jodi Reeves Flores. M. Scott Thompson.

Currently, rock art research generates large amounts of digital data, both un-structured and structured. This paper discusses the significant role that digital data management systems and repositories such as the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) can play in the examination, management, and long-term curation of these data. tDAR is a dynamic digital platform that allows archaeologists to conduct research with and manage their data. The paper describes how rock art researchers can use tDAR to...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Leigh Anne Ellison. adam brin.

Archaeological projects generate abundant data that is often underutilized in research and analyses beyond the life of the project. Although some projects curate their data, they often do not make those data widely available, accessible, or easy to aggregate at different granularities for additional research. Discipline specific digital repositories and data publishing platforms (e.g. tDAR, ADS, Open Context) are beginning to address problems related to the access and the utility of legacy...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Samantha Porter. Matthew Douglas. Matthew Magnani.

In recent years, it has become possible to rapidly digitize artifacts into three-dimensional (3D) form. The creation of sharable 3D datasets has the potential to increase collaborative efforts and collection access on a large scale. Despite this, archaeologists have struggled to employ an accurate, quick, and transportable solution to collecting data for model generation in field contexts. Photogrammetric modeling is an ideal low-cost solution to be explored, requiring minimal equipment, and...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Samantha Porter.

3D modeling is becoming an increasingly utilized tool in archaeology. Currently, there are three principal ways of obtaining 3D models of objects: laser scanning, white light scanning, and photogrammetry. Photogrammetry is becoming increasingly popular since it is relatively inexpensive, mobile, and requires less equipment that has the possibility of malfunctioning. This poster presents a photogrammetry rig consisting of materials that can be obtained easily in the US. These include a kitchen...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Thomas Stafford. Daniel Rafuse. Gustavo Politis. Maria Gutierrez.

The Arroyo Seco 2 site (AS2) is a multi-component open air hunter-gatherer site located in the Pampean Region of Argentina. A recently published monograph summarized the current interpretations of the site, which contains bone remains of 11extinct Pleistocene mammals, including Eutatus seguini, Glossotherium robustum, Megatherium americanum, Paleolama cf. wedelli, Toxodon platensis, Equus (Amerhippus) sp., Glyptodon sp., Hemiauchenia sp., Hippidion sp., Macrauchenia sp., and Mylodontinae. While...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Verenice Heredia Espinoza. Thomas Pluckhahn. Veronica Perez Rodriguez.

In this opening paper for the session in honor of Stephen Kowalewski we talk about Steve’s life and background, his experience in Southwestern and Mesoamerican archaeology, and about a life of teaching and mentoring in the classroom and in the field. We discuss Stephen Kowalewski’s work in archaeology and the rich regional datasets that we now enjoy as a result of his teachings and labors. This presentation also reflects on the theoretical and methodological approaches that Steve has employed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Stiver-Walsh. Veronica Perez Rodriguez. Antonio Martínez Tuñón.

Current work at the Mixtec urban site of Cerro Jazmín stems from a regional survey of the Central Mixteca Alta led by Stephen Kowalewski. As we refine Cerro Jazmin’s chronology and know more about its history of occupation, we are building upon and sometimes correcting initial understandings of the site gained from that regional survey. We are able to contextualize the new information in relation to the entire Nochixtlan Valley and nearby areas thanks to the work and perspective offered by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ellen Lofaro. Michael Wylde. Susan deFrance. Paul Goldstein.

This poster presentation examines the place of the dog in the ancient Andean society of Tiwanaku. The mummified remains of a small dog were recovered from a domestic context at the Rio Muerto site, located in the Osmore River drainage of far southern Peru. Although dog burials in Peru are not unusual, they appear mostly in high-status contexts in art and in mortuary practice. Offerings of young camelids and dogs have been found buried beneath floors and entryways of houses at Rio Muerto M43 and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaehoon Hwang. Chuntaek Seong. Jaeyong Lee. Jangsuk Kim. Seonho Choi.

Radiocarbon dating in the modern age is a precise experiment requiring an understanding of nuclear physics using accelerators It require measurements on the order of parts per trillion of carbon 14 nuclei in samples. Although most of the procedures of radiocarbon dating are standardized these days, the final results of the measurements have limitations on precision and accuracy that require careful verification before final acceptance. Recently, our group has carried out radiocarbon dating on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Abramo.

On 6 January 1942, the United States Army announced that it would build a 40,000 acre training camp in rural central Indiana. The residents of the farming community were given less than six months before they were displaced from their ancestral land for the construction of the camp. Once gone, several hundred vacated farmsteads were left behind. These farmsteads were demolished and would in 50 years time become archaeological sites. This poster will highlight some of the historic archaeological...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Peter J. Pilles. Kimberly Spurr.

Genetic and cultural relationships among ancient and historic populations in the American Southwest have long been of interest to archaeologists, and more recently to descendant communities. Documentation of more than 1500 human remains and 4000 associated funerary objects from US Forest Service land in anticipation of repatriation under NAGPRA provides abundant new information to address this topic. This poster discusses research using metric and nonmetric skeletal data and discrete skeletal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Grant McCall. Somayeh Khaksar.

For a long time, most Paleolithic research in Iran was focused on the caves and rock shelters of Zagros Mountains. Only in recent years has this focus shifted to other parts of the country, leading to the discovery and study of many Paleolithic sites. Delazian is one such newly-discovered site with an assemblage of lithic artifacts indicating the presence of Paleolithic societies in central Iran during more hospitable periods of climate. In 2009, a systematic survey was conducted at this...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Erin Carr.

Sod houses represent one form of ephemeral historic structure that became common to portions of the Great Plains as a result of the Homestead Act of 1862. Since their construction in the late 1800s and early 1900s, sod house and out buildings have either been preserved, allowed to "melt," deliberately removed and put under cultivation. This poster examines the documentation of these structures under various post-occupation conditions through the use of surface level, non-destructive, geophysical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joel Brisbin. Kay Barnett. Donna Glowacki.

As one of the best preserved ancestral Pueblo sites in the Southwest, Spruce Tree House presents a unique opportunity to examine aggregation during the 1200s; a time fraught with significant social and religious changes, intensifying intraregional violence, and extreme climatic conditions that ends with widespread Pueblo exodus from the region. This paper presents our fine-grained reconstruction of how Spruce Tree House developed over time based on detailed architectural documentation and a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Guebard.

This paper addresses recent archaeological work at the Castle A site (AZ 0:5:95 [ASM]), located within the Montezuma Castle National Monument boundary in Camp Verde, Arizona.Initially excavated and stabilized in 1934 by National Park Service archaeologists Martin Jackson and Sallie Pierce, the project is a historically significant event in the development of Verde Valley archaeology.Based on Jackson and Pierce’s interpretation of stratigraphic evidence, they believed a catastrophic fire...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelly Pool.

In 1934, the Carnegie Institution "loaned" archaeologist Earl Morris to the National Park Service to supervise the repair of ruins in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, and Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico. The NPS had received funding in 1933 for long-term development projects through New Deal emergency work relief programs, one of which was the Public Works Administration. The PWA provided money for physical improvements in parks and monuments, including funding for restoration and...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Kathleen Allen. Sandra Katz.

Cowan’s (1999, 2003) research on small Iroquoian camp sites in New York State demonstrated that analyses of stone tools and debitage assemblages enable archaeologists to investigate which type of stone tool industry was emphasized at a site (core flaking versus biface reduction) and to draw inferences about site function. This study illustrates the broader applicability of Cowan’s approach for conducting micro-scalar analyses of technological organization. We compared debitage assemblages...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Steve Swanson. Andrew Vorsanger.

In the pre-Hispanic Southwest, it is well known that certain places on the regional landscape were considered sacred or ritually charged, such as summits, springs, and caves. Less understood is the way that sacred and secular spaces were partitioned within prehistoric villages. In this paper we examine the relationship among secular and sacred spaces during the PIII/PIV periods at two villages along the Rio Grande. Each village includes roomblocks, agricultural features, resource processing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Theresa Kintz.

In this paper I offer personal reflections on my experiences as an anarchist archaeologist. I’ll be addressing how my perspective has shaped my interpretation of material culture and landscape; describe my experiences as a CRM field archaeologist organizing to resist exploitation, lobbying for a more egalitarian profession and recognition of our unique form of archaeological knowledge; analyze the eco-anarchist movement’s appropriation of anthropological and archaeological data and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelly J. Knudson. Catharina Santasillia. Jaime Awe. Anna Novotny.

Interaction of the living with the bones of the deceased is a tradition practiced in various forms throughout ancient and modern Mesoamerica. Among the ancient Maya the manipulation of the deceased body is associated with powerful ancestral rituals likely carried out to reinforce and legitimate sociopolitical power. Structures placed on the eastern perimeter of plaza groups often contain multiple inhumations and are interpreted as ancestral locations. Structure B1 at Cahal Pech, located within...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Timothy Horsley. Ashley Schubert.

Geophysical techniques can help to clarify the extent of a site and show spatial relationships between structures, therefore guiding research and excavation strategies. When monuments and larger structural elements are absent, feature density can be a reliable proxy for occupation areas and village boundaries. Utilizing a combination of magnetometry and ground-penetrating radar survey at the Cane River site in North Carolina, we were able to locate borrow pits, storage pits, structures, and...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Chelsea Gardner. Lisa Tweten. Kaitlyn Solberg.

As the field of Digital Archaeology becomes increasingly prevalent, large-scale projects tend to dominate both thinking about and approaches towards the digital landscape. Scholars and students with smaller budgets and resources are often at a disadvantage; we believe renewed energy should be devoted to exploring the value and integrity of small-scale projects. This poster presents From Stone to Screen, a multi-disciplinary, collaborative, and open-access digitization project launched in 2012...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Sarah Herr. A.E. Rogge.

Pithouse period settlement on the southern Colorado Plateau was the subject of vibrant research in the mid-twentieth century as Southwest archaeologists explored the validity of the Mogollon and Anasazi archaeological culture areas. In subsequent years the region became a laboratory for anthropology, as the rich data lent itself to studies of population dynamics in the famously heady days of New Archaeology. Since the mid-1970s, research on these first millennium A.D. sites has been confined to...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Patricia Urban. Edward Schortman. Jacob Griffith-Rosenberger. Reagan Neviska. Chelsea Katzeman.

Candeleros, fired clay artifacts with one to over 20 chambers, are widely distributed across Terminal Classic (AD 800-1000) contexts in the Naco valley of northwestern Honduras. Though reported from other parts of Mesoamerica, little is known about the varied ways this distinctive artifact figured in tasks engaged in by people of diverse ranks and might have been used in negotiating interpersonal transactions. This presentation provides initial responses to these queries based on a functional...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Rebecca Harkness.

In the Mimbres region of the US Southwest there is a substantial increase in the diversity of ceramic wares between the Classic (AD 1000-1130) to the Postclassic (AD 1250-1450) periods. As an increase in ceramic diversity could indicate the presence of a more diverse community, it is possible that Postclassic settlements would experience greater challenges in creating and maintaining social relationships within a settlement. Weissner (1983) suggests that people’s sense of predictability of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Duane Quates. Laurie Rush. Margaret Schulz.

At Fort Drum, our responsiveness to public engagement has been a key element in creating scenarios that have benefited not only the program but the installation and the resource itself. In one example, pressure from Range Control and comments from the public resulted in the conversion of an off limits archaeological district into a training asset and further led to the site’s use in global stewardship training. In a second example, a seemingly ordinary visit from a family member of a Soldier...

DOCUMENT Full-Text James Heidke. Mary Ownby.

Recent excavations at La Villa recovered a large quantity of pottery that spanned a broad range of time from the Vakhi (ca. A.D. 500-700) to Early Sacaton phase (ca. A.D. 950-1020). Binocular and petrographic analysis of this corpus provides insights into changes in pottery production and distribution in the Phoenix Basin, particularly for Hohokam decorated ceramic types. The results from examining early red-on-gray through red-on-gray/buff sherds indicates those vessels were made with crushed...

PROJECT Uploaded by: Benjamin Carter

This activity is designed for students who have little or no experience with archaeology and, in many ways, is a classic; archaeological ceramics activities or labs are offered at many institutions. So, why offer it up? For two reasons: first, as a well-proven option that new instructors can use in their classrooms that is explicitly connected to the Principles for Curricular Reform and, second, as a starter for conversations with experienced instructors. The activity engages students with a...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Judith Habicht-Mauche. Hunter Burgess.

This poster summarizes data on Southwestern utility wares from Tijeras Pueblo (LA 581), a fourteenth century village site in the Central Rio Grande region of New Mexico. Attributes such as paste color, vessel form, and surface modification were analyzed in order to characterize utility ware "communities of practice" at Tijeras Pueblo. Furthermore my research seeks to compare these aspects of utility ware form, style and production methods with those from adjacent areas of the Rio Grande a well...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Jennifer Huebert.

The native forests of the central and eastern Pacific Islands were extensively modified by Polynesian settlers, but our understanding of these processes are generalised. In the first large study of anthropogenic forest change in the Marquesas Islands, the identification of two members of the Sapotaceae family in archaeological charcoal assemblages was notable. Plants from this taxonomic group are poorly represented in Eastern Polynesia today, and the findings of Planchonella and another species...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Jacob Griffith-Rosenberger. Reagan Neviska. Chelsea Katzeman.

Candeleros are simply made ceramic artifacts that consist of one or more cylindrical chambers that are usually circularly arranged and often show signs of burning. These objects are found widely across Mesoamerica though they are rare in most locales. The 100 km2 Naco Valley in northwestern Honduras diverges from this pattern in that: candeleros are frequently found in Terminal Classic (800-1000 CE) assemblages here; they vary in size from items containing a single chamber to others with upwards...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Schott.

Located on the southern edge of the Tusayan Dune Field in northeastern Arizona, the Petrified Forest National Park contains abundant archaeology sites located in dune settings. Past and recent archaeological survey has shown an apparent correlation between archaeological site locations and eroded dune blowouts. It is likely that sites are located in dune settings due to their favorable environmental setting; however, it is not clear if the apparent distribution of visible sites in relation to...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Payson Sheets.

Research at the Ceren village archaeological site in 2013 and 2014 has made a variety of discoveries. The plant casts, made by pouring dental plaster into the voids, reveal much about agriculture in the middle of the rainy season some 1400 years ago. The maize plants were doubled over to dry the mature ears, but the Loma Caldera eruption occurred just before planting squash and beans. So what was that single mature squash plant doing in the milpa? What are the limits of preservation of weeds,...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Steve Swanson.

This paper reviews the archaeological evidence for the presence of games played by the prehistoric inhabitants of the Mimbres region in the US Southwest/Northwest Mexico, emphasizing perishable materials recovered from cave/rock shelter deposits and iconic imagery present on Mimbres ceramic vessels. He compares the archaeological evidence with ethnographic information for gaming and gaming-related activities among Western Puebloan groups. Gaming and gambling among the ethnohistoric Hopi, Zuni...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Teresa Rosales-Tham. Victor Vásquez-Sanchez. Guy Duke.

Due to the arid environment and subsequent excellent preservation on the north coast of Peru, evidence obtained from macrobotanical remains here has been the primary sources of information on plant use. However, despite the richness of the macrobotanical record, the combination of arid conditions and the nature of many plants, such as potatoes and beans – which are consumed in their entirety – macrobotanical remains can only tell us so much. In this paper, we discuss some methodological issues...

PROJECT Uploaded by: Guy Duke

Due to the arid environment and subsequent excellent preservation on the north coast of Peru, evidence obtained from macrobotanical remains here has been the primary sources of information on plant use. However, despite the richness of the macrobotanical record, the combination of arid conditions and the nature of many plants, such as potatoes and beans – which are consumed in their entirety – macrobotanical remains can only tell us so much. In this paper, we discuss some methodological issues...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Jessica Trelogan. Lauren Jackson. Maria Esteva.

Archaeological publishing is moving from the traditional model of the print monograph (as the definitive word), to an open and interactive model in which it is expected that primary data and the processes of their collection and interpretation are exposed for the reader to validate, re-use, and reinterpret. Online representation of archaeological data and research, then, must achieve transparency, exposing the relations between field collection and research methods, data objects, metadata, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only ANDRES DARIO IZETA. Roxana Cattaneo.

The hunter-gatherer archaeology of the Ongamira Valley has been a landmark in the archaeology of Argentina’s Central Region. The cultural sequence built in the 1950s is still used by many archaeologists to interpret regional peopling, subsistence, land use and mobility. However we believe it is time to review the use of rockshelter-generated data under a new approach that embraces landscape archaeology. Stable isotope-based paleo-environmental reconstructions create a baseline and permit...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ivan Batun-Alpuche. Sarah Rowe. Patricia McAnany. Maia Dedrick.

While a great deal of archaeological research in the Maya area has been conducted with the interests of the academic community and tourism industry in mind, there are fewer examples of archaeology conducted with the needs of local "publics" foregrounded. We propose greater dialogue between archaeologists and the people who live near (and within) places where archaeologists conduct research, and consider the dissemination of archaeological information to communities involved in archaeological...

PROJECT Uploaded by: Jessica Trelogan

As archaeological research moves from the traditional model of print publication (as the definitive word), to a larger continuum of interpretation and reinterpretation, access to the supporting data is crucial. To do so, however, adds extra burden on academic units with large legacy collections, publication backlogs, and dwindling budgets. Digital repositories provide a home for static collections, but are not ideal for dynamic collections generated and evolving throughout the research...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Carter.

This activity is designed for students who have little or no experience with archaeology and, in many ways, is a classic; archaeological ceramics activities or labs are offered at many institutions. So, why offer it up? For two reasons: first, as a well-proven option that new instructors can use in their classrooms that is explicitly connected to the Principles for Curricular Reform and, second, as a starter for conversations with experienced instructors. The activity engages students with a...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Naomi Miller.

The "big issue" of my career has been long-term human impact on the environment, an inherently processual concern. Working on ancient west Asian plant remains, ethnographic analogy and modern vegetation analogs helped me explain how the the demand for energy lead to deforestation and increasing dung fuel use, both of which are traceable through archaeobotanical study. Seeds preserved in dung fuel, in turn, allow us to identify agropastoral practices that created new environmental niches for...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Jakob Sedig.

Professional archaeological research has been conducted in southwest New Mexico’s upper Gila valley since at least 1929, when Burt and Hattie Cosgrove completed a survey of archaeological sites. Projects of various scales have been carried out periodically since then, however minimal research has occurred at Woodrow Ruin, one of the region’s largest sites. This paper presents new information from my recent dissertation research at Woodrow Ruin that is helping to redefine the Late...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chester Liwosz.

Pecked petroglyphs of a prehistoric Mojave Desert slot canyon hint at experience crafting processes in rock image production. The unique qualities here not shared by other area petroglyph sites support the need to consider archaeological and geographic context of these sites as a critical variable, rather than an assumed constant. With narrow passages, dry falls, and towering vertical walls, the slot's metamorphosed limestone substrate yields the potential for sound characteristics not found at...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenichi Yano.

This paper surveys our recent studies on fluctuation in prehistoric population of each local area in Jomon or Japanese neolithic period, and infers the reasons for the fluctuations in archaeological contexts. Archaeological demographic reconstruction in Japan has been based on numbers of archaeological sites or structures such as pit dwellings. In Japanese archaeology, pottery chronology has been established in detail. In recent years, many 14C data of various pottery types in Jomon period...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Brian Glusing. Kay Simpson.

After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the ill-fated escape effort of John Wilkes Booth ended in Virginia on the doorstep of Richard Garrett, where Booth was shot by pursuing federal forces and died on April 26, 1865. Garrett’s Farm, frequently the subject of Booth-related intrigue, was purchased in 1940 by the U.S. Army and is part of Fort A.P. Hill, an Army training installation. Although Garrett’s house and other structures are long gone, the former Garrett house site is now...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Mary Ownby. Lori Reed.

Pottery found at four sites located in the eastern half of El Malpais National Monument offers significant clues into the importance of this area for the southern Chaco cultural extension. Further, the movement of pottery within the area is also significant as is information on local or non-local production. In order to begin to understand these issues, chemical and petrographic analysis was carried out on pottery mostly from the great house site of Las Ventanas. The Cibola White Ware, Socorro...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Rani Alexander.

The social transformations produced by rapid industrialization and expansion of henequen production in the late nineteenth century in western Yucatan were not what happened in Maya-speaking communities further to the east. The Gilded Age in eastern Yucatan was attenuated because communities suffered the protracted aftershocks of the Caste War of Yucatan (1847-1901), which may have repressed wealth disparities instead of heightening them. In this paper, I examine the archaeology of haciendas and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marc Levine.

Lost-wax casting in prehispanic Mesoamerica reached its apogee in Late Postclassic Oaxaca, Mexico. Nowhere is this artistry more evident than in the spectacular gold and silver offerings from Tomb 7 at Monte Albán. Researchers have long understood the general process of lost-wax casting, but have incompletely examined variability in techniques utilized through space and time. This poster presents new evidence of ceramic molds from Late Postclassic Tututepec that are believed to have been used to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Ingram. Karen Schollmeyer.

Researchers in the semi-arid US Southwest have long linked abandonment, mobility, and other high-visibility culture changes to climate change, particularly shifts in precipitation patterns. Early researchers used synchronicity to infer causal relationships between cultural changes and climatic shifts. Recent work indicates a more complicated pattern in which some climatic shifts are contemporaneous with periods of population movement and upheaval, while other equally severe shifts are not...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Schollmeyer. Suzanne Eckert. Deborah Huntley.

In this paper we explore the challenges and benefits of conducting archaeological field work in rural communities where many stakeholders have vested interests in our research. Doing work in such situations can often feel like a complicated juggling act as one seeks to build relationships with local landowners, diverse community members, and various government agencies, while at the same time meeting the needs of student participants and achieving research goals. The benefits to all parties,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stacy Ryan. Riley Duke.

During Archaeology Southwest and University of Arizona’s 2013 and 2014 field school seasons, close to a hundred bifaces were recovered from the Dinwiddie site, a Cliff phase (A.D. 1300-1450) Salado site in southwestern New Mexico. These artifacts include Archaic and late Pueblo period projectile point styles and several bifaces interpreted as having been discarded during the manufacturing process. This poster presents the biface and projectile point analyses results, expanding on a study...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emiliano Melgar.

After the defeat of Azcapotzalco in AD 1428, the rulers of Tenochtitlan employed different strategies to recreate and reinforce their identity during the Triple Alliance. One of them was the regional request of master artisans, called tolteca, for working at the Aztec capital. Some of these craftsmen and their workshops were located inside the palaces of the tlatoque. Among them were the jewelers that crafted sacred objects for the gods and prestige goods for the elites. The technological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah McClure. Jonathan Burns. Martin Welker.

Variability in historic faunal assemblages is believed to be related to niche construction effects associated with the establishment and cultivation of Old World domesticated flora and fauna in the New World. Fort Shirley, a French and Indian War period fortification in Central Pennsylvania occupied during the mid 1750's, is an important case study in this picture as it was occupied during the introduction of domestic livestock to Central Pennsylvania. Published zooarchaeological analyses of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin Welker. Jennifer Haney.

The empirical integration of large, composite, datasets drawn from published sources has seen recurring interest among archaeologists seeking to trace trade, cultural influence, and subsistence patterning. Following Landon’s call for increased data comparison in historic archaeology we investigate the potential to integrate zooarchaeological and ethnobotanical metadata from Anglo-American contexts in the 16th to 19th centuries in the Northeastern United States and Canada. This poster presents...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Daniel Baicy. Michael Clem.

On behalf of the Virginia Department of Transportation and Fort A.P. Hill, Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc., conducted a Phase I archaeological survey and Phase II evaluation of Site 44CE0085 in Caroline County, Virginia, for the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) (UPC NO: CSC 1211001, code 5012680, VDHR File No. 2014-0492). The purpose of this project was to survey the mapped location of Site 44CE0085, also known as the Garrett Farm, and determine the potential for intact subsurface...

PROJECT Uploaded by: Kay Simpson

This project includes archaeological reports and analysis by Cultural Resource Analysists, Inc. from archaeological fieldwork conducted at the Garrett Farm Site (44CE0085), in Caroline County, Virginia. The Garrett Farm Site is the location of John Wilkes Booth’s apprehension and death.

DOCUMENT Full-Text Hank Lutton. Jesse Harris.

On behalf of the Fort A.P. Hill Environmental and Natural Resources Division, Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc., conducted an archaeological survey and evaluation within the Garrett Farm Site (44CE0085) in Caroline County, Virginia. The Garrett Farm Site is the location of John Wilkes Booth’s apprehension and death. The focus of this investigation was the predicted location of Richard Garrett’s tobacco barn, which was burned during the capture and fatal shooting of John Wilkes Booth on April 26,...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Linda Scott Cummings. Jennifer Milligan.

Many know the curation challenges associated with space and data preservation when it comes to archaeological collections. As we keep digging for answers an intense need has developed for appropriate storage of not only the physical findings, but the intellectual materials as well. Most curation repositories require original paper copies of field notes, maps, and analytical data; however, with today’s advancing technologies paperwork is being phased out in preference of digital media such as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kye Miller.

This paper provides a brief review of the Ironwood Village site structure, an overview of architectural styles observed at the site, a discussion of variation in architectural practice observed at the site, and a regional comparison of Hohokam pit structure architecture within the greater Tucson Basin. Data recovery at the Ironwood Village site resulted in the discovery of nearly a hundred Pioneer and Colonial period architectural features. The area investigated was centered around a large...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jack Meyer.

San Francisco Bay was created by post-glacial sea-level rise during the span of prehistoric human occupation. The Bay is the single largest Pacific estuary in the Americas (4,160 square kilometers) and is the outlet for California’s largest freshwater drainage system that carries 40% of the state's runoff. The earliest known evidence of widespread human use of the estuary or tidal resources in the Bay Area first appears at shell midden sites located around the Bay in the middle Holocene...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daron Duke.

Recent Haskett projectile point finds from western Utah’s Great Salt Lake Desert provide a compelling case for megafaunal hunting in the Great Basin, a region that stands out in North America for its lack of direct evidence. The Haskett style is likely the oldest representative of the Western Stemmed series of projectile points, and radiocarbon age estimates on black mat organics at the locality suggest a date range between ca. 12,000 and 13,000 cal BP. In this paper, an argument for megafaunal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Trudel. Dennis Lewarch. Evan Lewarch.

We compare 80 site components in Admiralty Inlet and Puget Sound, Washington, using component age, deposit thickness and complexity, feature type and diversity, portable artifact functional classes, and assemblage diversity to study the range of functional site types and diversification of tool kits through time. We previously (2011) analyzed 75 components using Thompson’s (1978) 20-functional class system to code portable artifacts. We noted that most inland riverine and prairie sites did not...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John R. Welch. Erin Hogg.

Many cultural/heritage resource management professionals struggle to boost research excellence in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. The new master’s level professional program in Heritage Resource Management (HRM) under development at Simon Fraser University provides junior C/HRM practitioners with opportunities to enhance their professional tool kit and boost their research credentials. Our survey of traditional and online HRM master’s offerings identified 16 comparable programs....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Kroot.

Beyond their identification and recording during survey, small sites have only occasionally and sporadically been the object of significant research in archaeology. Yet, such sites can be of great significance when trying to understand a wide variety of social systems and practices. While the potential practices associated with small sites in the past are virtually limitless, some patterns are commonly found within specific forms of settlement systems. Within autonomous village-based settlement...