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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jerry Galm. Stan Gough. Fred Nials.

The Sentinel Gap site (Washington) lithic assemblage documents the sequential production of bifaces and projectile points stylistically associated with the Haskett type. Lithic workshop debris analysis identifies patterns in the reduction trajectory of large cores into bifaces and lanceolate projectile point/knives. An average of 10.2 ka B.P. for six radiocarbon dates place short term Sentinel Gap site occupation at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary. Stylistic and technological evidence...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacqueline Eng. Mark Aldenderfer.

High altitude regions in the Himalayas provided a challenging environment for the early human populations who migrated there. In addition to the risks of hypoxia and cold stress, people had to deal with difficult terrain and limited resources. Yet populations persisted and established complex polities, including those in the Mustang region of Nepal. Surface recovery and excavations of shaft tombs located near the village of Samdzong in Upper Mustang have yielded human remains and artifacts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cliff Creger. Beth P. Smith.

Great Basin Antelope Traps are ideal laboratories due to their feature system level focus on one set of subsistence behaviors (antelope hunting). By combining data collected using LiDAR, GPS and GIS, our analysis in the Liza Jane Trap focused on the spatial patterning of lithic artifacts and the location of small-scale landforms. The geoarchaeological analysis indicates relatively stable landforms modified by cultural-transforms. Analysis to locate small-scale landforms was performed to locate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Keri Fox. David Huges.

Hughes’s (1988) dissertation showed a relationship between late prehistoric settlement patterns on the Washita River of Oklahoma and the soils of that region, among other variables. This paper is an effort to extend that research north into the Walnut River Valley of Kansas. The valley of the Walnut in Butler and Cowley Counties is a rich archeological area that has had little synthetic analysis conducted. As a first step in the process of a new regional synthesis, this project will...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michelle Young.

This presentation will put forward the preliminary results of the first season of the Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológica Atalla. The project represents a first step in clarifying the role of the Early Horizon period site of Atalla, located in the district of Yauli, region of Huancavelica, in the south-central highlands of Peru. Atalla is of particular archaeological interest as the earliest recorded monumental ceremonial site in the region of Huancavelica. The site is also distinguished by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Emili Aura Tortosa. Oreto García Puchol. Jesus F. Jorda Pardo. Yolanda Carrion. Margarita Vadillo.

Caves and rock-shelters stratified sites from Mediterranean Spain are the result of the accumulation of time-averaged palimpsests, that probably don’t represent the normal range of human activities on the landscape. We focus the discussion on understanding the nature of human responses to climate changes, and we argue that different erosive and removal events in several mediterranean sites had been decisive in our vision of the end of the Palaeolithic-Epipalaeolithic and the beginning of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy MacKinnon. Eric J. Bartelink. Nicholas V. Passalacqua.

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from 104 individuals from eight sites was used to reconstruct the diets of Medieval and Early Modern (AD 600-1750) individuals from Asturias, Spain. Asturias is a coastal region located in northern Spain that remained one of the last Catholic kingdoms when the Moors ruled Iberia. Asturian society was structured hierarchically and divided into clergy, nobility, and peasant classes. Each socioeconomic group buried their own according to status and wealth....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Frederick.

The Michigan State University Subterranean Storage Research Experiment (MSU SStoRE) employed experimental archaeology to better understand the storage efficiency, capacity, and reliability of hunter-gatherer food storage pits. Drawing on archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistoric information the project accurately recreated below ground storage pits for the late Late Woodland period (A.D. 1000-1600) of northern lower Michigan. Over three consecutive yearly cycles, subterranean storage...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Naomi L. Martisius. Tamara Dogandžic. Michel Lenoir. Shannon P. McPherron. Teresa E. Steele.

Beginning in 2009, the late Middle Paleolithic site of Abri Peyrony (also Haut de Combe-Capelle, as part of the Combe-Capelle sites, Dordogne, France) was reopened. Three seasons of fieldwork yielded rich lithic and faunal assemblages, as well as pieces of manganese dioxide, bone tools, and much needed information about the site’s formation and antiquity. The site yielded only Mousterian levels. Level L-3A is attributed to the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA). The remaining levels,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Waterman. Jonathan Thomas. James Enloe. David Peate.

The Magdalenian (18-11kya) marked a time of dramatic climate instability in western and central Europe, ushering in changes in the predation strategies of late Paleolithic groups who hunted migratory reindeer herds. For Magdalenian populations, a clear understanding of migratory patterns was crucial for survival, particularly when Epipleistocene climate fluctuations were causing previously unseen types of resource distribution. Here we present the results of strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Sunell. Jeanne Arnold.

I analyze more than 400 lithic artifacts associated with the development of intensive Chumash shell-drilling activities from four sites on Santa Cruz Island (SCRI), CA. By the second millennium CE, the Chumash of the northern Channel Islands had developed a specialized bead-making industry and a parallel industry of formal microdrills to perforate those beads (as documented by Arnold [1987]). During the latter part of the Middle Period (AD 900-1150), trapezoidal microdrills dominated; in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Thornton. Arthur Demarest.

Excavations at the Late Classic Maya site of Cancuen (Petén, Guatemala) uncovered small-scale hydraulic systems including stone-lined canals and reservoirs within the site’s architectural core. The abundance of other nearby potable water sources, along with the elaborate form of the system demonstrate that it served an ideological rather than practical function. This interpretation is supported by the artifactual material deposited in the reservoirs, as well as by the fact that the hydraulic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lamya Khalidi. Clément Ménard. Bernard Gratuze. Amélie Diaz. Edward Keall.

The Red Sea is renowned as a locus of maritime activity during the early historic periods. As a result of systematic obsidian analyses of sources and artifacts, maritime interaction can now be traced back to the beginnings of the Neolithic in South Arabia. Its increased intensity is echoed in the cultural sphere that eventually formed on opposing shores of the two continents by at least the third millennium BC. New geochemical, archaeological and technological data from South Arabia, Ethiopia...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kayeleigh Sharp. Melissa Litschi.

The Gallinazo and Mochica of northern coastal Peru lived side-by-side for centuries. However, the nature of their social interrelationships (one or two ethnic or social groups) is a continuing topic of debate as such complexity is one of the hallmarks of pre-Hispanic central Andean civilization. How can meaningful dimensions of social differentiation and complex social interrelationships be elucidated through archaeological investigation? To answer this question, we present our integrated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Toussaint. Debra Martin.

Tell Abraq is an archaeological site from the Arabian Bronze Age, located near the Persian Gulf Coast of the modern-day country of the United Arab Emirates. A sealed, two-chamber mud-brick tomb on site, in use from approximately 2200 – 2000 BC, yielded a 1.4-meter-thick matrix of commingled human remains, soil, and artifacts, representing a MNI of 403 individuals, of which nearly three quarters are adults. Although the remains are fragmentary, they still offer rich insights into the biocultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Niamh Daly.

The introduction of Christianity in the 5th century had far reaching effects in Ireland. The first few centuries of the early medieval period (c.400-1200AD) is considered as a time of dramatic cultural transformation. The documentary record that emerged in the wake of this process was created by male clergy in a rural, hierarchical, patrilineal society where the position of women was complex. This research uses archaeologically-recovered human remains from the immediate post-conversion period...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yitzchak Jaffe.

The period of Western Zhou (1046-771 BCE) is often considered the genesis of Chinese civilization. As the Zhou expanded their borders and influence they developed a Chinese political tradition that would eventually formalize and consolidate the elite culture and practices of this emerging world. While Postcolonialism theory has been successful in highlighting the multi-directionality of regional interactions in the ancient world, Globalization offers a wider approach, geographically and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ester Echenique.

The lack of direct ceramic production evidence, coupled with the lack of technical studies, hinder the understanding of ceramic production practices and its organization across the south central Andes. Yavi-Chicha ceramics associated with a diversity of sites in the Río Grande de San Juan Basin (straddling the border of Bolivia and Argentina) provide a unique entry point to explore socio-political dynamics during the Late Intermediate (AD 1000-1450) and Inka (AD 1450-1540) periods. Framed within...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Purcell. Danny Sorrell. Pete Taylor. Kye Miller. Lynn Neal.

EcoPlan Associates developed a site spatial density model for, and in partnership with, the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests (ASNF). In 2011, the Wallow Fire started in the Bear Wallow Wilderness in the White Mountains of East Central Arizona, eventually burning over 538,000 acres within 840 square miles of Arizona and New Mexico. Four contractors and ASNF inventoried 63,424 acres in various portions of the burned area after the fire, much of it at high elevation. Unexpectedly, the surveys...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Nash.

Baked-clay nodules are reported at many archaeological sites across southern Texas. These nodules are indurated sediment masses (ISMs) and are found in many contexts. William A. Duffen first found ISMs within a hearth at the Morhiss site in Victoria County. His discovery led researchers to conclude that these were heating elements used in place of stone and analogous to Poverty Point Objects. Ricklis came to the same conclusion about ISMs found in a hearth at 41NU2. The heating element...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Colin LeJeune.

Description of locally produced earthenware ceramic assemblages excavated from Swahili town sites on the Kenyan coast suggest that incised and impressed decoration became less common and less formally complex, particularly on cooking vessels, after AD 1200 (Chittick 1984; Horton 1996; Wilding 1989). This development appears to be contemporaneous with shifts in consumption practices, domestic architecture, religion, and the importance and expression of socio-economic identity within coast town...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emlen Myers. Tomas Mendizabal.

A wide array of archaeological resources has been identified by the Panama Canal Expansion, a civil construction effort that began in 2008 and will end late in 2015. Over 40 separate cultural resource studies have been contracted by the Panama Canal Authority since the start of the project. Located at the narrowest point of the Central American isthmus, the project area has been an environmentally rich and strategically important location since Pre-Hispanic times. Pre-construction survey and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caitlin Rankin. John Kelly. T.R. Kidder.

The 110 mounds that characterize Cahokia’s landscape represent the most visible aspect of anthropogenic transformation of landscape. Recent ongoing efforts on the northern edge of the east plaza at Cahokia are uncovering a hidden landscape of earthmoving, illustrating the social complexity of this urban center. Traditionally, mound building has been perceived as a simple process of moving and reshaping earthen material. Because of this simplified model of mound construction, studies of mound...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dayna Giambastiani. Andrea Catacora.

As part of our on-going research on incised stones throughout Nevada, this poster presents the results of a comparative study we recently undertook of the Ruby Cave artifact collection and Trudy Thomas’s (1983) illustrations of the Gatecliff Shelter collection in order to determine whether shared stylistic patterns exist between the two incised stone assemblages. Our analysis techniques are based on a combination of methods used by previous researchers in the Great Basin as well as new methods...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Risa Carlson. James Baichtal.

New Early Holocene sites were discovered during the 2014 field season using a predictive model based on the age and elevation of Saxidomus giganteus shells in relic raised marine deposits in the Alexander Archipelago of Southeast Alaska. Additionally, three new higher elevation sites were found inadvertently during road construction activities which fit the criteria of the predictive model. This paper presents the preliminary findings of latest discoveries and updates on the first Early Holocene...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nadya Prociuk.

How did the people of the Castro Culture of north-western Iberia use symbols to convey meaning and identity during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages? The repeated inscription of symbolic motifs on a variety of material mediums suggests that the role of symbols was more than merely decorative for the Castro people, and the literature is curiously silent regarding the social implications of these motifs. In this paper I will present the results of this research, and argue that the people of the Castro...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Durante.

The Johnston site (36In002), in Blairsville, Pa, is the type site for the Johnston Phase of the Monongahela Tradition. This site was first discovered by Ralph Solecki during the River Basin Surveys carried out in preparation for flooding of the Conemaugh River Lake. Following its discovery the site was partially excavated in the 1950’s by Don Dragoo for the Carnegie Museum. The Johnston site has been revisited by archaeologists from Indiana University of Pennsylvania; however, little...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Marquardt. Laura Kozuch.

We describe the biology of the left-handed lightning whelk (Busycon sinistrum) and some of the practical uses to which its shells were applied among coastal societies along the Gulf of Mexico. Then we explore the symbolic significance of sinistral snails, focusing on the lightning whelk as a metaphor of spiral/circle, fire/sun, and purification/continuity among Native Americans of the eastern North America. This particular whelk has had special spiritual value—and hence economic importance—for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Rogoff.

There is extensive evidence that people are self-serving in the interpretation of data and are very likely to reach their desired conclusions. Archaeologists have grappled with this issue as it pertains to the construction of meaningful analogs, but there has been little effort to follow through with an evaluation of archaeological analogies. I propose a methodology for combating researcher bias in archaeological analysis and apply it at El Coyote, a Classic Period center in western...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Harris. Grace Ziesing.

Sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), this project endeavored to create a statewide Archaeological Predictive Model (APM) based on the known locations of over 18,000 recorded pre-contact archaeological sites within the Commonwealth. The purpose of this project was to create a set of sensitivity maps to aide in transportation planning and assist in the cultural resources management process. The creation of an APM covering 46,000 square miles required the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diego Salazar. carola flores. laura olguin. Cesar Borie. Valentina Figueroa.

The coast of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile is one of the most extreme environments of the Andean area. However, the high productivity of the Pacific Ocean facilitated the peopling of this territory as early as 12.000 years cal BP and also a continual occupation of hunting-gathering-fishing communities throughout the Holocene. In this paper we discuss significant environmental changes during the Middle Holocene, as well as the systematic interaction of local communities with inland...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Brzezinski. Arthur Joyce. Sarah Barber.

Examining the construction and use of public spaces in precolumbian Mesoamerica has been productive in revealing the ways in which people constituted local communities. As settings for activities such as feasting, cemetery burial, and caching ceremonies, public buildings brought together living people, ancestors, divinities and religious objects through practices that reproduced local histories and identities. Recent research on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico has focused on the public,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathy Loftis. Alex Cherkinski. Robert Speakman.

The ability to generate accurate and reliable radiocarbon dates for bone is of great importance in archaeology. Routinely, the age of bones is determined by radiocarbon dating of hydrolyzed bone extract. However, this method does not isolate collagen-derived organic matter, and contaminant organic carbon may be present in the extract. Exogenous organic matter, introduced during burial or post-excavation treatment, can affect the estimated radiocarbon dates. Pre-treatment methods can minimize...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cannon Daughtrey. Jesse Ballenger. Matthew Pailes. Francois Lanoe.

Two field seasons of archaeological excavations along the banks of the St. Mary River in Glacier National Park, Montana have resulted in the recovery of artifacts ranging in age from late Paleoindian to historic times. In partnership with the National Park Service, archaeologists from the University of Arizona and tribal students, preliminarily interpret this site as an area for temporary winter encampments as well as a staging area for residentially mobile groups in the past. Staging areas are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juan Belardi. Flavia Carballo Marina. Patricia Madrid. Gustavo Barrientos. Patricia Campan.

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the distribution patterns of Late Holocene hunting blinds from two distinct environments of southern Patagonia (Argentina): basaltic plateaus and hills. These are mostly semicircular stone structures built for the hunt of guanaco (Lama guanicoe), a medium-size wild camelid that was the main staple for the hunter-gatherer populations throughout the Holocene. Despite of the existence of a number of shared traits (e.g. obsidian from the same source,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Allison Byrnes. Allen Quinn. David Pedler.

The Ripley Site is a Late Woodland through Historic period Iroquoian site overlooking Lake Erie, in the Eastern Lake section of the Central Lowlands physiographic province in western New York. In its continuing investigations of the bluff-top site, Mercyhurst University (Erie, PA) is focusing attention on a presumed refuse midden, where the village’s inhabitants cast refuse downslope toward Young’s Run, which lies to the east of the village, proper. Here, we define the boundaries of the midden,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Genevieve Dewar. Brian Stewart.

In southern Africa Marine Isotope Stage 2 was a period of intense cold, and palaeoenvironment and geoarchaeological data indicate inverse moisture availability in the different rainfall zones. Sea levels fell rapidly, exposing the continental shelf while the number of archaeological sites across the subcontinent decreased, likely a result of populations concentrating along the now-submerged coastline. There were, however, pockets of inland ‘refugia’. People contracted into centres of occupation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Crawford.

Food plant remains and wood charcoal provide insight into how prehistoric Arctic peoples may have adapted to climate change. This study addresses Thule plant and fuel use at Cape Espenberg, Alaska from CE 1500-1700. Plant macrofossil and charcoal remains were sampled from occupation layers of three Thule semi-subterranean houses. Macrofossil and charcoal counts were analyzed using ANOVA, T-test, and Tukey Post-Hoc tests. Results indicate that plant foods contributed vitamins and fiber to Thule’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebekah Kneifel. Rachel Loehman. Connie Constan. Jim Reardon.

Artifact assemblages in the American southwest are currently subjected to periodic wildfires and prescribed burns, and have been exposed to fires in the past. Ceramics are a key constituent of these assemblages, leading to questions regarding effects of post-depositional heat and flame exposure on pottery. Alterations of ceramic pattern, form, and chemistry have been observed following wildfires, and such changes are significant because intact ceramics provide temporal context and other social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Campbell. Michael Meyer.

The history of the city of St Louis, Missouri begins with the arrival of the French and spans over 250 years of development into the large urban center of today. The original settlement was thought to have been destroyed by the expansion of the city; however, recent excavations by the Missouri Department of Transportation at the Madame Haycraft Site (23SL2334) have discovered intact French colonial occupations in the heart of downtown. Work here has uncovered a large poteaux-en-terre French...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alejandra Sejas Portillo.

The main hypothesis that explain the collapse of the Tiwanaku state, which flourished between A.D. 400 and 1250 in the Titicaca Basin, refer to the internal factional competition that destabilized it governance over the years, summed to agricultural production decline caused by draught episodes in the region. It is of great interest to compare the processes of political reconfiguration and the emergence of the post-Tiwanaku Pacajes chiefly polities with the formation of "primary" chiefdoms in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Cohen.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Higgins.

This poster focuses on the investigation of sourced obsidian artifacts found in and around the Cañada del Oro Valley in southeastern Arizona. The goal of this study is to understand the evolution of social interaction and obsidian distribution during the pre-classic Hohokam periods (ca. A.D. 700-1150) and how they compare to patterns in neighboring areas. There are no obsidian sources immediately adjacent to the Cañada del Oro Valley or Tucson Basin regions. Therefore, investigation of obsidian...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Hunter. Dawn Bringelson.

Recent work at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore has increased survey coverage, allowing for consideration of site distribution patterns within the dunes. Specifically, we focus on Native American short-term habitation sites located within the Tolleston dune formation. Although the eastern and western units of the park are separated by only approximately 5 miles of private land with industrial development, site densities differ significantly between the two units. These differences remain even...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Gosner. J. Andrew Dufton. Alex Knodell. Catherine Steidl.

Since 2012, a course on the Archaeology of College Hill at Brown University has undertaken a program of research and education – including pedestrian survey, geophysical survey, and excavation – to investigate the historic Quiet Green in the heart of the university campus. This class serves the dual purposes of promoting the material history of Brown during the university’s 250th anniversary celebration and educating undergraduates in the methods, theories, and practices of historical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susannah Fishman.

In archaeological analyses of empire, certain aspects of material culture, such as specific architecture, metal work, and ceramic styles are often interpreted as diagnostic of imperial presence, the corporeal residue of political change. But these materials must be understood as agents of change working in concert with the people whose lives shift with the political reality. Elite ceramics are an essential component of the Urartian "State Assemblage," the material signature of the first empire...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bonnie A.B. Blackwell. SeiMi Chu. Iffath Chaity. Dušan Mihailovic. Mirjana Roksandic.

Sitting on a major mammalian migration route from Asia into Europe, Pešturina contains at least four archaeological layers, including Aurignacian, Denticulate and Charentian Mousterian. A series of matrix-supported silty conglomerates hold five recognizable archaeologically and geologically distinct layers. All the layers contain éboulis clasts ranging from silt-sized grains to > 1 m3. Skeletal remains, including teeth, from Late Pleistocene herbivores occur associated with Paleolithic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bradley Russell.

The pairing of ritual architecture with sacred underground spaces is common throughout Mesoamerica and makes clear the importance that ancient inhabitants of the culture area placed on caves and cenotes. These spaces were home to powerful forces. The Late Postclassic Maya center of Mayapán (1150-1450AD) is known for its clear spatial associations between temples and cenotes. These temple/cenote complexes have been found both within and outside of the large defensive city wall. Cenote Sac Uayum,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francesca Cadeddu.

In this paper, we provide a remote sensing approach for the analysis of the settlement patterns of the Nuragic civilization, using data from Landsat 7 ETM+ in a sample area of Sardinia (Gallura). By evaluating archaeological and geological data through remote sensing imagery, we outline a territorial characterization to identify patterns in the settlement choices of the Bronze Age communities, through the use of Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Statistical Analysis. The applied method...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Cannon. William Eckerle. Molly CANNON. Jonathan Peart. Paul Santarone.

The North Training Area of Camp Guernsey is located within the Hartville Uplift of eastern Wyoming, an area rich in archaeological resources particularly extensive formations of toolstone quality raw materials. Because of the potential for live training exercises to impact cultural resources, the Wyoming National Guard proposed the development of an experimental testing protocol of selected sites using minimally invasive methodologies that included geophysics and small diameter auger probes. ...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Renee Ford. Tristan Carter. Elizabeth Healey.

Historically Near Eastern obsidian characterisation studies have focused on south-eastern Anatolian and Levantine assemblages of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic as a means of contributing to debates upon Neolithisation. This study contributes to redressing this spatial and chronological bias, by detailing analyses of artefacts from 6th-5th millennium BC contexts in Iraq and Iran. The first assemblage comes from the new excavations at Tell Nader, a Ubaid to Assyrian period settlement near Erbil in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Galen McCloskey.

The historic homestead of Triangle HC has served multiple purposes throughout the years. These purposes have been apparent in a series of new constructions and also reflect the historic uses of the building. Located on private land within the Prescott National Forest, this building is now being utilized as archaeological field school headquarters to understand more of the prehistory of the area. This prehistoric archaeological research has also created an opportunity to conduct historic research...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffiny Tung. Molly Shea. Larisa DeSantis.

Carbon and oxygen isotope analyses of dental apatite from a captive slave population (ca. 1840s) from the Grassmere Plantation (now the Nashville Zoo) in Tennessee is examined to reconstruct childhood diet and determine whether individuals were local to the Middle Tennessee region or forcefully moved from another locale. Among the 19 burials recovered, enamel apatite was obtained from 11 individuals, representing 3 juveniles and 8 adults (3 males, 4 females, and 1 unsexed). At least two teeth...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gustavo Martinez. Gustavo Flensborg.

A salient feature of Northeastern Patagonia during the late Holocene is the abundant record of burials with evidences of a strong handling of human bodies. In the lower basin of the Colorado River, burials are usually found in contexts such as formal disposal areas and domestic sites. In this work the bioarchaeological characteristics and the chronology of the Zoko Andi 1 site are presented. The earliest evidence of human corpse manipulation (ca. 1400 years BP) for Northeastern Patagonia was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jillian Jordan. Keith Prufer.

Uxbenká, an Early Classic to Late Classic period Maya polity, is the most extensively excavated site in southern Belize. Recent ceramic analyses have succeeded in refining our understanding of the extent and duration of occupation at Uxbenká as well as its position in regional interaction spheres. Like other sites in the Maya Lowlands, we know very little about household ceramic production due to the lack of workshops and tools, probable seasonal production resulting in low volumes of finished...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rosicler Silva. Julio Cezar Rubin de Rubin.

The first results of the archaeological research being developed at the interfluve of the Peixe and Araguaia rivers, indicate the possibility to applying geoarchaeological issues to address a number of issues related to the Lago Rico site, on the left bank of the Peixe river. This site features cultural remains in a section of a low slope as well as two other areas. The first in the alluvial terrace by a lagoon and the second in the floodplain, upstream of the first section, evidencing the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Corey Frasca. Michael Carlson. Carlton Gover. Cliff Boyd.

The later Late Woodland period (A.D. 1200-1650) in Southwest Virginia saw the development of circular palisaded villages as the common settlement type. Two of these villages – 44PU8 and 44PU72 – are located 300 meters apart along the floodplain of the New River in Pulaski County, Virginia. Survey and limited test excavations of these sites between 2011 and 2014 defined the site boundaries and resulted in the identification of several features and the recovery of substantial samples of lithic and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ginessa Mahar.

The term "mass capture" is widely used in archaeological and zooarchaeological discourse to connote any form of fish capture besides active, individual procurement of a single fish such as hook and line or spear fishing. Unfortunately, this blanket term obscures the diversity and range of mass capture techniques and other critical factors that have implications for archaeological and anthropological interpretation such as materials, technology, ecology, and labor, among other variables. To begin...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dennis Ogburn.

One of the primary categories of data recorded by the Incas on their knotted string accounting devices (khipu) is detailed census numbers from different administrative units, yet no existing khipu has been identified as containing such population records. In this analysis, Inca concepts of age categories and hierarchical ranking are used to predict a number of different formats for recording census data. Existing data tables of khipu were examined to determine if any matched these expectations,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Watson. Nathan Hamilton. Robin Hadlock Seeley.

Interactions between traditional European culinary practices and North American fauna have been the focus of several archaeological studies during the past few decades, but have not been explicitly examined in northern New England, especially during later colonial occupation (ca. 1800-1900). The Laighton hotel on Smuttynose Island (Isles of Shoals, ME), site of nineteenth- and twentieth-century activity, reveals how domestic practices were changed during the later hotel era (1847-1914)....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nikkita Maybach-Blicharski. Caroline Funk. Debbie Corbett. Brian Hoffman.

Test excavations at KIS-050 during the Rat Islands Research Project Summer 2014 season resulted in abundant faunal assemblages, including a well-preserved fish assemblage. The goals for this research project include the development of a history of human and environment interactions between humans and the land- and seascapes, and the contribution of regional data to broader scale environmental impact studies. Sites occupied over the long term, such as KIS-050, are invaluable to better understand...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsay Randall. Ryan Wheeler. Joel Jacob.

Whole books have been dedicated to the subject of math applied to archaeology, both in the field and in analysis. Archaeology educators have recognized that the excitement of archaeology can be used to share elements of trigonometry, statistics, geometry, and more. Educators at the Robert S. Peabody of Archaeology and Phillips Academy have collaborated to use existing collections of pottery sherds from sites in New Mexico to introduce statistics to high school students. In the "It’s a Sherd...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristin Corl.

The zooarchaeological assemblage from Cottonwood Spring Pueblo (LA 175), an El Paso Phase (A.D. 1275-1450) horticultural village in southern New Mexico is dominated by small game. What explains this pattern? The high relative percentage of rabbit to deer follows a general trend associated with aggregated populations, growing agriculture dependence, and less seasonal mobility. Additional variables possibly contributing to this trend include shifts to small game in response to droughts, over...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lana Williams. Jane Masséglia.

Skeletal remains from Sankuş Mevkiinde Tomb (Late Roman, AD 200–300) at Pessinus, Turkey included 12 adult males with asymmetrical, robust definition of the peroneal trochlea extending outward (>1 cm) from the lateral calcaneus and situated between the peroneus longus and brevis tendons, nine of which are on the right calcaneus. Adult females did not exhibit this variation. Asymmetrical variation suggests repeated biomechanical eversion of the foot and plantar flexion of the ankle on the side...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Radermacher. Stephanie Day. Anne Denton. Jeffrey Clark. Donald Schwert.

Archaeological applications of geographic information systems and remote sensing technologies are becoming increasingly popular, especially in regard to site prospection and the geospatial analysis of cultural features. Utilizing aerial LiDAR and high-resolution satellite imagery of North Dakota, a training data set was used to define the boundaries and characteristics for certain morphological features of anthropogenic origin, which include mounds, earth lodge depressions, and fortification...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katia Chaterji. Alexander Reinhold.

This paper discusses the application of innovative 3D heritage documentation methods to augment science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. A California-based nonprofit dedicated to the digital documentation and preservation of cultural heritage sites worldwide, CyArk is a leader in digital heritage preservation, archival, and technological advancement. CyArk practices a range of techniques, including 3D laser scanning, high definition photography, and photogrammetry,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brooke Creager.

The identification of religion through the examination of burials is faced with many problems, mainly the different avenues of interpretation. This paper will examine the conflicting evidence for religious belief used to identify religious practice in burials. The use of a few key features, or lack of features, to designate a burial of one religion or another does not take into account variation or coincidental practices, which only resemble a particular religion. Mixed burials present...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nora Greiman. Ronald Goble. Matthew Douglass. LuAnn Wandsnider.

The Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA) occurred from approximately AD 900-1300, affecting climate worldwide. In many regions, this climate change initiated behavioral shifts, resulting in new adaptations to the environment. Our goal is to investigate the potential reorganization of group mobility in the Sand Hills of central Nebraska during this period by examining the exploitation of clay sources over time. As little archaeological investigation has been done in this region, new techniques are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claudio Carini. Jerry Moore. Martha Ramos. Michelle Garcia. Brandon Gay.

In this poster, we interpret data collected through nondestructive geophysical methods at the prehistoric sites of Santa Rosa and El Porvenir in the northern region of Tumbes, Peru. In late May and early June 2014, a program of integrated geophysical survey incorporating magnetometer and ground penetrating radar sought to identify subsurface archaeological features at the two sites. Previous excavations at these sites provided material data dating from 4750 BC and revealed architectural shifts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Clare Bedford. David Robinson. Fraser Sturt. Julienne Bernard.

The aim in this examination was to examine the potential for portable XRF technology to contribute to chronologies of in situ rock art. In order to do this pXRF data from Chumash rock art panels in the Wind Wolves Preserve in South Central California were compared with one another, and with readings from ochre found in excavated deposits. These ochre deposits are associated with other artefacts which have known dates. The results showed that multiple pigments were used within each rock art panel...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Walker. William Marquardt. Arianne Boileau. Ann Cordell. Donna Ruhl.

Excavations (2012) on southwest Florida’s subtropical Useppa Island revealed a stratigraphic sequence of alternating eolian-sand and shell-midden layers, mostly dating from 1350 to 1000 B.C., with the highest midden dating to A.D. 900. Predictably, the Late Archaic artifact assemblages (pottery, shell artifacts, etc.) differ greatly from the younger Caloosahatchee IIB one. However, surprisingly the invertebrate faunal assemblages also differ. And there is a general dearth of fish remains in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Purdy. Kathryn Rohlwing. Bruce MacFadden.

In the early 1960s, human remains of several individuals were found in association with late Pleistocene mammals during an excavation at Devil’s Den sinkhole in Levy County, Florida. The rarity of this occurrence in Florida and across the Americas is well-known. Very little has been published about the Devil’s Den site, and the human remains were not available for study until 2003. Neither the human or animals bones can be dated by the radiocarbon method due to a lack of sufficient surviving...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yamile Lira-Lopez.

Entre Teotihuacán y la Costa del Golfo, bajando el Altiplano Central y el valle Puebla-Tlaxcala, existe un pequeño valle enclavado en la Sierra Madre Oriental, habitado desde el 800 aC hasta la actualidad. Su ubicación geográfica permitió formar parte de una ruta de tránsito, comunicación e intercambio, entrelazando la Costa del Golfo de México y el Altiplano Central, permitiendo la interacción entre grupos olmecas, zapotecos, teotihuacanos, mixteco-poblanos, aztecas y habitantes locales,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Greenfelder.

This poster presents preliminary mortuary and human osteological data from the Proyecto Arqueologico Periferia de Motul de San Jose 2013 and 2014 field seasons, examining several aspects of mortuary ritual associated with periods of construction and site expansion at the sites of Kante’t’u’ul and Chachaklu’um, located approximately 2 and 5km from the core of the Motul de San Jose polity, respectively. Occupation at Kante’t’u’ul ranged from the Late Preclassic to the Early Post-Classic, while...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Beaver. Rebecca Dean.

Pre-Contact societies in southern Arizona developed large-scale, agriculturally-based communities with essentially no access to domesticated meat. Their hunting opportunities were limited, as well, by the need to live close to water sources for irrigation. The resulting trade-offs between community needs have important implications for political organization, labor choices, and gender roles. In this poster, we present preliminary results of a GIS analysis of relationships between species...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacob Winter. Michael Frachetti. T.R. Kidder.

Dali, a site located in the Bayan-Zherek Valley in Semirech'ye, Southeastern Kazakhstan, is a multi-phase Bronze Age pastoralist settlement (3rd-2nd millennia B.C.). Recovered artifacts include combustion features, bones, ceramics, lithics, bronze metals, and potentially in situ wall constructions. Radiocarbon dates cannot conclusively suggest that the stratigraphic sequence is in situ due to geological unconformities and high energy colluvial system, so geoarchaeological methods were employed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Stahl. Florencio Delgado. Fernando Astudillo.

The poster introduces an interdisciplinary project recently initiated on San Cristóbal Island, the easternmost island of the Galápagos archipelago. Initially focusing on the 19th century plantation of Manuel J. Cobos, the project explores the nature and temporal depths of human involvement in ecological transformation, as novel or ‘emerging’ ecosystems, defined by their novelty, cultural origin, and subsequent endurance in the absence of humans, were developed within the context of what was to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Stratton. Michael McIntyre.

The National Register (NR) Criteria are supposed to assist in defining the significance of a cultural resource - bringing some order to chaos. But whose interpretation of significance? Were the criteria based on the agreement of culturally diverse individuals? Or the result of those that felt we needed to show some resources are better than others, using an objective checklist approach. Either it can answer "important" research questions or not. Either George Washington slept here or he...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth DeMarrais.

Anthropologists routinely acknowledge the affective significance of things. Display and use of objects (in rituals and performances) can evoke strong emotions. Elaborate objects may be used to forge consensus, to evoke memory, or to foster solidarity and express shared interests. Alternatively, displays may divide opinion, generating a diverse response. Understanding the role of emotions in the past is crucial, both for creating rich and nuanced pictures of past societies, as well as for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Reed.

The ancient Chaocan-affiliated community at Las Ventanas, New Mexico, on the El Malpais National Monument, has been known to the southwestern archaeological community since Adolph Bandelier’s time in the late 19th century. Knowledge has accrued over nearly 140 years with visits by various archaeologists. Archaeology Southwest’s recent Las Ventanas Community Landscape Project has continued this work and produced some astounding findings. Seven extensive trails were documented in the lava west of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francisca Santana Sagredo. Julia Lee-Thorp. Rick Schulting. Mauricio Uribe.

The Pica-Tarapacá and the Atacama cultures appeared in northern Chile during the Late Intermediate Period, after the decline of the Tiwanaku state. Archaeological data suggests that both groups practiced maize agriculture and pastoralism to variable degrees, but their trade and exchange links differed significantly. Interaction with coastal groups, in the form of fish and other marine resources is common in the Pica-Tarapacá sites. The Atacama groups, who occupied the Atacama oases and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Dean. Amelia Perez Trujillo.

In 1536 Manco Inca, the ‘puppet’ ruler installed by Pizarro, threw off the shackles of colonial rule and led a rebellion against the Spanish. After failing to retake the former imperial capital of Cusco, Manco Inca and his followers established a Neo-Inca state in Vilcabamba, the remote region east of Cusco. Vilcabamba functioned as the seat of Inca resistance against the Spanish from A.D. 1536 to 1572. While the historic record from the 1600s and 1700s is rich, few records exist for the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Madeline Ware Van Der Voort.

Little Steamboat Point 1 (LSP-1) is a small stratified rockshelter in Warner Valley, Oregon. It contained an early-to-mid Holocene component consisting of faunal remains, lithic tools, and debitage. My use-wear analysis of 20 Great Basin Stemmed and Cascade projectile points examines how those tools were used via macroscopic and low-power microscopic techniques. Since the shelter seems to represent a short-occupation activity site, this analysis provides insight into the hunting and processing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Izumi Shimada. John Merkel.

The technical sophistication and versatility of 1000-year old Middle Sicán gold and other metalworks on the Peruvian north coast have long been appreciated. How were the artisans, raw materials and diverse manufacturing activities organized and managed? This paper aims to answer this and other technical, behavioral and organizational questions based on the 2014 excavation of a large and well-preserved workshop at the base of the monumental temple mound of Huaca Loro at the Middle Sicán capital...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Cranford. Mary Elizabeth Fitts.

Recent archaeological investigations have documented a series of sites associated with the historic Catawba Nation in South Carolina dating from 1750-1820. During this period Catawba communities underwent dramatic and abrupt changes associated with population loss from epidemic disease, settlement relocation, and the development of new economic strategies. Among the most striking of these changes were in domestic architecture. In this poster, we define various types of Catawba structures present...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Simms.

Root crops represent a major lacuna in the archaeological record of the Maya area and discussions of prehispanic Maya foodways in general. Only a handful of exceptional cases furnish direct evidence for the exploitation of root crops. Most notably at Ceren, the recent discovery of entire fields dedicated to manioc cultivation suggests that maize was not the only agricultural staple in this village community. Researchers working throughout the humid tropics have employed microbotanical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Thompson.

This paper compares two ancient Maya centers in the Toledo District of Belize, Central America. The two Classic Period (AD 250 – 800) Maya polities of Uxbenká and Ix Kuku'il are located ~ 7 km apart in the southern foothills of the Maya Mountains. Ongoing work at Uxbenká suggests that it is both the earliest established, and longest occupied site in the southern Belize region. Thorough radiocarbon dating and ceramic sequencing by the Uxbenká Archaeological Project has resulted in a detailed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leslie Cecil.

In 1996, Fredy Baldizon (a CUDEP student) brought a box of 87 Postclassic tripod plate supports that he collected from a single location on the Tayasal peninsula to the Proyecto Maya Colonial’s laboratory. It was not until 2014 that I discovered that another large set (n=66) of tripod supports was associated with a single structure (2034) at Ixlú. Statistical analyses (based on height, form, and paste characteristics) indicate statistically-significant differences between the supports at the two...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ilaria Patania. Paul Goldberg. Xiaohong Wu. Chi Zhang. Ofer Bar-Yosef.

Xianrendong (Jiangxi Province) is one of only two Upper Palaeolithic sites in South China that have been systematically sampled for radiocarbon dating coupled with micromorphological analysis. The cave produced the earliest known pottery sherds (20,000 cal BP), together with a typical cobble tool industry. We present a micromorphological analysis of the formation processes of the Xianrendong deposits, investigating both the stratigraphic integrity of the pottery-containing contexts and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Beau Murphy.

While it is well established that mineral acquisition motivated Inka imperial expansion into the high-altitude Atacama Desert of northern Chile, finer points of the area’s political economy during the Late Horizon are the subject of ongoing research. The site of Turi in the Antofogasta region offers a unique opportunity to investigate this topic, as the site represents a preexisting local settlement coopted for use as a regional administrative center by imperial authorities. This study...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian Takaoka. Jozie Banas.

We present new data from the ceramic assemblage from the site of Nukubalavu 1 in Natewa Bay on Vanua Levu, Fiji. The site was excavated in the summers of 2013 and 2014; it is one of the only excavated sites on the island of Vanua Levu. Over 29,400 sherds were analyzed, many of which are diagnostic, typical of stylistic phases in the Fijian ceramic sequence. The assemblage includes Late Lapita (ca. 2500 BP), Fijian Plainware (ca. 2500-2100 BP), and Navatu (ca. 2100-900 BP) phases of the Fijian...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Abigail Fisher.

Applying stable carbon isotopic analyses to discern anthropogenic and natural deforestation events is both useful and important to current deforestation and landscape modification research. The goal of this project is to identify a shift in δ13C content of mammalian teeth caused by the thinning of canopied forests using the "canopy effect" hypothesis. This pilot study tests the merits of the canopy effect hypothesis as applied to deforestation signatures using two extant village sites on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Byers. Joan Coltrain.

In this poster, we build on an earlier study by using stable isotope data extracted from bone carbonate to evaluate the hypothesis that two behaviorally distinct groups of people, Paleo- and Neo-Aleut, occupied the eastern Aleutians after 1000 BP. This study focuses on directly dated burial assemblages from Chaluka midden, Ship Rock Island and Kagamil Island. We use the SISUS linear mixing model informed by isotopic data from Aleut faunal assemblages to address temporal and spatial variation in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claudio Cioffi-Revilla. Thomas Dover.

`Politogenesis'' is a fundamental social process for understanding how and why early societies increased or decreased their social and political complexity. Agent-based models (ABM) of archaeologically recorded processes of early polity formation and regional dynamics are beginning to show promising results for advancing theory and research on politogenesis, especially when ABM results can be compared with empirical patterns, such as cycling. This study investigates politogenesis in a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jana Velemínská. Lucie Bigoni. Jan Dupej. Petra Fenclová. Petr Velemínský.

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) is thought to reflect the ability of an organism to cope with genetic and environmental stress during its development. As there is substantial literature discussing this property of FA; we evaluated additional stress indicators (enamel hypoplasia, cribra orbitalia, Harris lines) in non-adult individuals of Middle Ages... The socioeconomic structure of an early medieval society from the Mikulčice settlement (Czech Republic) was studied by applying the FA methodology on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Larkin Hood.

Burke 101 is a museum program developed to provide undergraduate students at the University of Washington an opportunity to share their knowledge in a particular discipline. The program is organized around a course in which students work together to create hands-on, interactive activities for visitors using museum specimens. Observations of students’ interactions with visitors as well as analysis of student oral and written reflections indicate that initially students find their teaching...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elimarie Garcia-Cosme.

Throughout Amazonia, agricultural earthworks are found in diverse geographical settings, including Venezuela, Bolivia, and the Guianas. These earthworks can be seen throughout areas of diverse linguistic and ethnic backgrounds. This suggests that dynamic, multiethnic networks can be found in Amazonia, influencing the methods of landscape modification used by different groups. Being able to observe influences of diverse cultural interactions in the archaeological record could contribute to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victor Fisher.

Requiring students to analyze individual site reports in terms of theoretical schemes presented in lectures has yielded very positive results. Students have come away from this experience with excellent comprehension of both the site reports and difficulties involved in fitting the data contained therein to a theoretical framework. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Groff. Tosha Dupras. John Krigbaum.

Analysis of stable oxygen isotope ratios in adult bone apatite and tooth enamel from the Kellis 2 cemetery (50-450 AD) in the Dakhleh Oasis allows for greater insight into ancient migration between this remote locality and the Nile Valley. Analyses of 45 adult males and 35 adult females are compared against δ18O values from three contemporaneous Roman-Christian sites and one New Kingdom site located along the Nile Valley. The average δ18Ovsmow value for the Nile Valley sample is -31.61‰ +/-...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edward Knell.

Multiple lines of evidence are used to establish terminal Pleistocene-early Holocene (TP-EH) through Late Prehistoric spatio-temporal patterns and settlement strategies around pluvial Lake Mojave (more recently Soda and Silver Lake playas), California. Data from pedestrian survey and in-field analysis of lithic artifacts at four survey areas along the eastern shoreline of Soda and Silver Lake are analyzed using GIS to establish whether settlement strategies changed in accordance with variations...