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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ben Marwick.

Scientific progress depends on the evaluation of findings through replication. While exact replication of results is often infeasible because of limitations of time and resources, a minimal standard of reproducibility is emerging as a norm of practice in contemporary computational and biological sciences. This standard refers to authors making available the data and code used to generate the key figures and tables of their publications. In this paper I review some approaches to reproducible...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Bevan.

For some time, interpreted languages such as Python, Matlab and R have made it easy to document and run computational function calls either line-by-line or in a script. While the spatial functionality provided within these environments has long been seen as inferior to GIS packages, it has now reached considerable maturity. The open source, multi-purpose and often ‘bleeding edge’ nature of these working environments also mean that there are often considerable analytical advantages to using them...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steven Sarich. Timothy James Scarlett.

The Davenport Pottery manufactured earthenware and stoneware in Utah, between 1853 and 1888. This poster uses data from a broad range of analyses, including XRF, INAA, petrography, and mechanical stress testing to develop profiles of the outcomes of technical processes at the pottery shop. These characteristics then provide insight into various key research topics in archaeology, including pottery systematics, life-expectancy and depositional time lag, experimental archaeology, and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shan Zhao. Jaroslaw Drelich. Timothy James Scarlett.

The Fired Clay Ceramic Rehydroxylation Dating (RHX) technique shows potential for establishing date of manufacture for archaeological ceramics, however for certain samples, such as those recovered at Umbro Greek and Sant’ Ancieto sites, the calculated ages were outside of the expected range by many thousand years. The observation of this over-shooting issue suggested that either the non-refractory mass (Mnrc) or some strongly bonded physical water were left during the ordinary drying process at...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Scarlett. Jaroslaw Drelich. Carl Lipo. Elizabeth Niespolo. Shan Zhao.

Michigan Technological University, California State University-Long Beach, and Arizona State University scientists have been collaborating on a critical assessment of the novel RHX Dating technique, pioneered by Wilson et al. (2009). This chronometric technique, if proven reliable, will transform archaeological dating practices. We have conducted multiple trials with a wide range of ceramic types from Neolithic through Early Modern, using varied set ups of instrumentation and thoughtful lab...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Glenna Nielsen-Grimm. Greg Farley. Edgar Ortega. Richard D. Hansen.

The Great Central Plaza of the West Complex at El Mirador lies on an early and important alignment for the entire city. Excavations of two small altar platforms, and test units of structures on the boundaries of the plaza and the Leon Plaza suggest that this was probably among the earliest areas of the city, and continued to have symbolic and ritual importance throughout the Middle and Late Preclassic periods at El Mirador. The Central Acropolis creates the southern boundary, the east and west...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Josué R. García García.

This paper develops Maya urbanism and architecture this complex acropolis type of El Mirador site. In order to perform an analysis of this building, proposing a graphical representation allowing their virtual and theatrical reconstruction of the same. This hypothetical proposal is modeled based on historical information and recent archaeological evidence in this sector. The Grand Central Acropolis is located southwest of the nucleus of the settlement and as its name suggest, It is a great...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Donald Forsyth.

Investigations in the Mirador Basin over the last thirty or so years have demonstrated that the region was one of intense occupation over a long period of time, particularly during the period that has come to be known as Preclassic. This period was marked by evidence of changes in the complexity and increasing uniformity in various cultural characteristics such as architecture, sculpture and iconography. In a similar manner the development of the ceramic industry provides evidence of a process...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Enrique Hernandez. Richard Hansen. Francisco Lopez. Thomas Schreiner. Marvin Prado.

Tintal is an ancient lowland Maya city of the Kan kingdom located 28 km southwest of El Mirador in the north central Peten, Guatemala. Preliminary data from fieldwork conducted by the Mirador Basin Project establish that Tintal was a major urban center contemporaneous with similar large centers within the Mirador Basin such as El Mirador and Nakbe. These and other cities of the Basin were linked by a system of wide elevated causeways during the Middle and Late Preclassic Periods (ca. 600 B.C.–...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Mauricio.

Reconocimientos e investigaciones recientes llevadas a cabo en las últimas dos temporadas de campo en la periferia este del gran centro de El Mirador han dado a conocer lo majestuoso en cuanto al arte de esculpir y tallar el estuco por pobladores clásicos de este sitio. Dando como resultado el descubrimiento de más de 20 piezas de estuco de incalculable valor cultural por ser piezas únicas en el área maya, todas estas piezas consideramos que representaron escenas de la vida diaria de los...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marvin Prado. CARLOS MORALES. RICHARD HANSEN. DOUGLAS MAURICIO.

The ancient city of El Mirador is surrounded by subsidiary centers forming a state level organization indicated by a strong sociopolitical organization with developed during the Preclassic periods. This paper illustrates the results of Total Station mapping, Remote Sensing, Global Positioning Systems, and GIS applications in archaeological investigations at El Mirador conducted by the Mirador Basin Project over a 12 year period and covering approximately 50 km2. This program initiated a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Oscar Lopez. Stanley Guenter.

Codex-style ceramics are a distinctive product of the Late Classic Mirador Basin of north-central Peten, Guatemala. Through the archaeological work of the Mirador Basin Project and the chemical analyses of affiliated scholars we now have a considerable amount of information on the physical production of these vessels. In this presentation we present new evidence on the artists who produced these vessels, as well as the nobles for whom they were painting. These data provide much needed new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only AnaBeatriz Balcarcel.

La Gran Acrópolis Central es el corazón del sitio arqueológico El Mirador, el cual presenta diferentes grupos de edificaciones de variada complejidad. Uno de ellos es el Grupo Balam con arquitectura del Preclásico Tardío. Se investigó los aspectos físicos, espaciales, funcionales, sociales e ideológicos a través de una secuencia arquitectónica minuciosa. El estudio permitió conocer no solamente los materiales y sistemas constructivos, las remodelaciones arquitectónicas, el arte en estuco...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Schreiner. Enrique Hernandez. David Wahl. Richard Hansen.

A vast system of inter-site highways (sacbes or sacbeob) traversed an inhabited countryside between the major urban centers of the Kan kingdom in the Mirador Basin. Development of this system began during the Middle Preclassic period and continued throughout the Late Preclassic period (ca. 600 B.C.– A.D. 150). Over time, these transportation routes branched and transformed within densely populated centers to become a network of elevated causeways, processional boulevards with ritual and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Johnston. Richard Hansen. Beatriz Balcarcel. Carlos Morales-Aguilar.

In a landscape distinguished archaeologically by elite-dominated, often massive architecture, the small and unobtrusive is easily overlooked. Since its inception as a discipline, Maya archaeology’s principal focus has been cities and the buildings that comprise them. These buildings, often of extraordinary scale, are typically represented in the archaeological record by mounds. This phenomenon of architectural "moundedness" has conditioned Mayanists’ perception of settlement as a whole. Indeed,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lysanna Anderson. David Wahl.

Fire was arguably the primary tool used by the Maya to alter the landscape and extract resources. Opening of forest for agriculture, building, and extraction/production of construction material necessitated burning. While we understand the fundamental role of fire in Maya land use, there are very few records of prehispanic biomass burning from the Maya lowlands. Consequently, a limited understanding exists of natural fire regimes and patterns of anthropogenic burning in the tropical seasonally...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jordan Krummel.

On the platform between the triadic group on the Tigre pyramid at the site of El Mirador, Guatemala, the Mirador Basin Project discovered human remains scattered over the upper platform of this pyramid associated with hundreds of projectile points, in both local chert and obsidian from Central Mexico. Additional artifacts included shell, bone, and large quantities of Early Classic ceramics. This presentation will focus on the osteological remains from this deposit. Skeletal analyses of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Hansen. Edgar O. Suyuc.

Major research programs in the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala and southern Campeche, Mexico, have provided new data relevant to the origins, dynamics, and collapse of complex societies in the Maya Lowlands. Data suggests that the origins of sedentary societies began earlier than previously thought, and that the dynamics of complexity included complex agricultural sophistication, elaborate communication and trade systems, logistics development, and vast political, economic, and social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shannon Tushingham.

Northwestern California has long been recognized as a unique area at the margin of both the Pacific Northwest Coast and California. Recent excavations at sites along the Smith River in Tolowa ancestral territory can help us elucidate long-term evolutionary trends among affluent foragers in the region. This paper will examine some of the profound alterations in human organization that occur at Red Elderberry (CA-DNO-26), a site located along a portion of the Smith River known as a highly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Gilmore.

The Hurdy Gurdy Bridge site (CA-DNO-1028), located 19 kilometers in a direct line and 45 kilometers along the Smith and South Fork rivers from the coast, was excavated because it was within the impact area of the proposed replacement of a bridge over Hurdygurdy Creek by the Federal Highways Administration. Data recovery consisted of geophysical investigations, the excavation of backhoe trenches, shovel probes, and 42 square-meter excavation units. These investigations recovered cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Hedlund.

Excavations at the Hurdy Gurdy Bridge site (CA-DNO-1028) recovered a collection of lithic artifacts representing both local and exotic sources of material. Identification of both probable and definitive source locations indicates transportation of lithic material occurred from coastal, Klamath Mountains, south-central Oregon, and north-central California regions. Obsidian subjected to OH and XRF analysis from Hurdy Gurdy Bridge site along with sites located at the confluence of the Middle and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Larmore.

Excavations conducted near the ancestral Tolowa village of Naa-k’vt-‘at on the South Fork of the Smith River produced unexpected results in terms of the apparent absence of tools, such as harpoon tips and fishing weights, related to salmon fishing. Rather, an unusual lithic tool was identified, described as a "backed" knife produced from splitting a biface or uniface longitudinally to facilitate hand-held use. This paper will explore the possible function(s) of this tool in ancestral Tolowa...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Renee Boen. Jessica Bush. Heidi Sieverding.

The purpose of this research was to determine if the tool stone used for two quartzite Angostura projectile points from the Ray Long site (39FA65), Fall River County, South Dakota, could be linked to a specific quarry or geologic formation. The Ray Long site is the type-site for the Paleoindian period Angostura complex which has a regional distribution of Utah, Colorado, southeastern Idaho, Wyoming, southwestern South Dakota, and western Nebraska. The seven quarries selected for the study are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Clark.

In the spring of 2011, the Missouri River Mainstem received unprecedented combination of snow melt and rain causing widespread flooding unseen since the construction of the Missouri River Dams. One of the consequences of the flooding was damage to archaeological sites located on the lands surrounding the reservoirs. As a result, South Dakota State Historical Society (SDSHS) partnered with the University of Arkansas Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST) to assess potential damages...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Donohue.

Evaluative test excavations were conducted at 39BE122 for the Bureau of Reclamation. One test unit and eight backhoe trenches were excavated. Six paleosols were documented in the upper 3 m of alluvium, four of which yielded evidence for cultural components. Four to five components were found from 140 to 290 cm below surface. Radiocarbon dates of 3690+/-30 B.P. from Component 2 and 5140 +/- 30 B.P. from Component 4 demonstrate a Plains Middle Archaic age for the site. The size, artifact...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Debra Green. Damita Engel. Dante Knapp. Kimball Banks.

The Knife River flint primary source area was one of, if not the primary source of lithic material in the Northern Plains. Knife River flint was a major trade item from the Paleoindian through the protohistoric. Over the past several years, archaeologists from Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, Inc. have conducted projects within the Knife River flint primary source area located in north-central North Dakota. Many of these projects either directly or indirectly have been in support of oil...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Deats.

Collections and reports from Middle Missouri salvage archaeology, conducted primarily in the 1950s, hold a wealth of information about Plains Village farming communities, much of which is still being studied. In this paper, I provide a basis for the assessment of occupation lengths in the Middle Missouri utilizing data culled from site reports on several Middle Missouri sites, spanning time and space. This study utilizes evidence of repair of housing structures, overlapping storage pits, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wendi Field Murray.

Critical attention to the concept of "community" in archaeological research over the last decade has recast communities from homogeneous groups of people living at a site to emergent networks of social interaction that both derive from and are reproduced by a sense of common interest and affiliation (Wernke 2007). Coalescent communities are in a constant state of becoming, as residents must continuously negotiate aspects of their identities in ways that mitigate conflict. Historical records...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Picha. Carl Falk.

Three classes of molluscan data generated from Mandan and Hidatsa villages along Heart and Knife river drainages in North Dakota are reviewed: freshwater bivalve, marine, and fossil gastropod shell. An outline of Mandan and Hidatsa ethnomalacology obtained from native collaborators is found in the writings of anthropologists Gilbert L. Wilson and Alfred W. Bowers and corresponds with the aforementioned molluscan classes. Mandan and Hidatsa subsistence economies are diverse during the longue...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Wiewel. Autumn Cool. Christopher Fletcher. Taylor Thornton. James Zimmer-Dauphinee.

As part of a flood assessment effort in collaboration with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the South Dakota State Historical Society, archaeo-geophysicists from the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies at the University of Arkansas performed remote sensing investigations in 2014 at fifteen sites along the Missouri River in North and South Dakota. Among these are Midipadi and Nightwalker, two related late eighteenth to early nineteenth century Hidatsa sites located on opposite sides of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kacy Hollenback. Christopher Roos. Fern Swenson. Andrew Quicksall. Mary Hagen.

Although they are often used by archaeologists to identify activity patterns within domestic spaces, floor assemblages are influenced by a variety of cultural and natural formation processes, especially those related to abandonment. By contrast, soil chemical traces are thought to be less vulnerable to alteration by subsequent activity and, therefore, are treated as primary residue of activities in their original location. Although the formation histories of these two types of evidence differ,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Whitney Goodwin. Kacy L. Hollenback. Fern Swenson. Matthew T. Boulanger. Michael D. Glascock.

This paper explores technological variability in Woodland and Plains Village period ceramics from central and eastern North Dakota. Research objectives include 1) assessing compositional variability within Woodland period assemblages, 2) establishing whether or not ceramics could have been produced from local "clays," 3) exploring continuity in pastes from Woodland period to later Plains Village pottery, and 4) comparing Devils Lake "clays" to materials from the Missouri River drainage. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patty Gerstenblith.

The civil war in Syria, now in its fourth year and with multiple parties, has engendered probably the most widespread and numerous examples of destruction, damage and looting of cultural sites since the Second World War. Several international legal instruments, including the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its First Protocol, were drafted in the wake of World War II to prevent the repetition of such harms inflicted on cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katharyn Hanson.

The current conflict in Syria and Iraq serves as a dramatic case study of intentional damage to cultural heritage during conflict. This paper details examples of damage that can be detected using high-resolution satellite imagery in coordination with local ground documentation and verified media reports. These examples are part of the analysis done by the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) Geospatial Technologies Project "Developing a Research Community and Capacity for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Michael Lione. Jessica Johnson.

Decades of regime rule, war and economic sanctions resulted in reductions in professional staff, isolation from the international community, and ultimately; neglect and deterioration of Iraqi cultural heritage. During a period of relative stability, the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage (established through US funding in 2008) began offering academic programs in architectural conservation, artifact / object conservation, and archaeological site preservation to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Leventhal. Brian Daniels.

What are museums to do during times of war and with the destruction of cultural heritage in conflict zones? This is a question that came into focus during World War II, and more recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other parts of the Middle East. What are the professional and ethical responsibilities of museums in the United States, in western Europe, or in other parts of the world when destruction of cultural heritage is planned or occurring? Do museums in the West have additional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Daniels.

How are we to respond to the current intentional destruction of heritage occurring in Syria and Iraq? The international regime of heritage protection rests upon the consensus of actors within the modern system of nation-states. But in the present crisis, one actor, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, rejects that system. Furthermore, in the case of Syria, UNESCO and other international preservation organizations find themselves locked into a structural situation where they are obliged to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Wolfinbarger. Eric Ashcroft. Jonathan Drake. Katharyn Hanson.

The growing availability of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery provides unprecedented capabilities for monitoring events in conflict zones- areas that are often inaccessible through traditional methods. This capability is particularly needed when conflict creates long-term inaccessibility and multiple actors overlap in space and time, leading to conflicting accounts, and incomplete or inaccurate information. Proactive monitoring of cultural heritage sites, coupled with time-series...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amr Al-Azm.

Currently many of Syria’s famous heritage sites are in territory outside of the control of the Assad regime and are at great risk from looting, damage as a result of conflict, or deliberate attack. This is not only causing irreparable damage to Syria's cultural heritage but also destroying the common history that provides Syrians with a shared sense of identity. In order to help protect this heritage and preserve it for the future, a Syrian Heritage Task Force (SHTF) was recently established....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zaid Alrawi.

Archaeological sites in Iraq have suffered the consequences of unstable political conditions. Due to this volatile situation law enforcement has been inconsistent and allowed antiquities looters to vandalize southern Mesopotamian sites. This resulted in differential rates of damage among the country’s cultural heritage sites. By focusing on the ancient archaeological site of Girsu (modern-day Telloh) and its hinterland, I used Digital Globe imagery, remote sensing techniques and recent...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Corine Wegener.

The environment for cultural heritage disaster management has grown increasingly complex; destruction of heritage during ethnic and sectarian violence is on the rise and global climate change threatens to increase extreme weather events. Few organizations are positions to help our colleagues with disaster response and recovery efforts. The Smithsonian Institution proposes to establish the Cultural Crisis Recovery Center (CCRC), an operational organization to provide emergency response for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Salam Al Kuntar.

Amidst the atrocities of Syria’s civil war, Syrian curators, heritage professionals, and activists courageously risk their lives to protect the country’s cultural heritage. Working in areas outside of the Assad regime’s control, these individuals have managed to safeguard collections salvaged from damaged museums, religious institutions, and looted sites. This paper discusses a workshop, held in Turkey, which brought together museum curators, heritage professionals, and other members of civil...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Pintar. Nora Franco. Jorge G. Martínez.

The peopling of South America is a subject that has been discussed from many angles, including timing, migration routes, genetics, among others, and at various scales of analysis. In this paper we take on a supra-regional scale of analysis and examine stone tool assemblages from a series of Pleistocene/Holocene transition and Early-Middle Holocene sites located in two desert areas on the eastern side of the Andes –Patagonia and the high Puna. Our objective is to assess how these lithic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Doyle. Tristan Carter. Daniel Contreras.

This paper details the methodology used by the Stélida Naxos Archaeological Project (SNAP) to distinguish primary activity areas within a Palaeolithic chert quarry. This work is undertaken in a challenging artifact-rich landscape that has undergone significant post-depositional modification through various environmental factors and anthropogenic disturbance. The two-year non-invasive survey involved walking numerous transect lines to produce a broad-stroke impression of artifact density, which...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Smith.

As our abilities to source stone tools increase, our questions become ever more sophisticated as our methodologies reach deeper into the elemental and isotopic levels and an ever-broadening range of statistical analyses. Yet we also recognize that lithic raw materials were selected by their past users for entirely different reasons. A wide range of approaches have been used to explore the roles of proximity, accessibility, mechanical qualities, and exchange relationships, among others, in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Zipkin. Alison Brooks. John Hanchar. Kathy Schick. Nicholas Toth.

Twin Rivers Kopje, Zambia is a Middle and Later Stone Age site first excavated by J. Desmond Clark that has yielded extensive evidence of mineral pigment collection and use dating to as old as 300,000 years ago. In this study, we sampled pigment sources within 25 km of Twin Rivers for digital colorimetry and trace element fingerprinting using Laser Ablation - Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry. In addition, all pigment excavated from the site by Clark was analyzed for sourcing....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emma Jenkins. Carol Palmer. John Grattan. Samantha Allcock. Sarah Elliott.

The Neolithic in southwest Asia is an important period in human history which saw the advent of sedentism, agriculture, and ultimately the rise of complex societies. It is also, however, one of the most poorly understood. This is partly due to problems associated with site recognition and partly because of the lack of preservation of many forms of evidence, particularly biological. As a result, many Neolithic sites are comprised of a series of structures, the construction and function of which...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa-Marie Shillito.

By combining sediment micromorphology with microbotanical and geochemical analysis, we can gain insights into the archaeological record that are otherwise invisible. By characterising fuel deposits as a package of remains rather than focusing on a single class of material (including charcoal, ash, burnt sediments and associated artefacts) we are better able to reconstruct their formation processes, and thus the activities that produced them. Using examples from the early Neolithic settlements of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fiona Coward.

This paper will illustrate the potential of methods derived from network science and especially social network analysis can be used to investigate the social interactions and relationships within and between the earliest village sites in the Near East across the shift from a mobile hunting-and-gathering way of life to a more sedentary, village-based and ultimately agricultural lifestyles. This approach provides a new perspective on the question of social change at the time as it views social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Maher. Tobias Richter. Danielle Macdonald.

In the 10,000 or so years that make up the Epipalaeolithic period, we witness several dramatic social, economic and technological changes documented in the archaeological record, including the appearance of aggregation sites and sedentary villages, intensified use of particular plants and animals, and the movements of people and objects over long distances. While it is easy to track these changes over this large time span, we rarely catch a glimpse of the daily activities and day-to-day...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bill Finlayson.

The accepted Neolithic narrative involves increasingly sedentary behavior within a context of villages composed of houses. Yet, although the novel way of life represented is given centre stage, there is little discussion of the nature of the communities that were developing, other than passing references to nuclear families, ancestor cults and the emergence of lineages and households. There is still less reference to human agency, with Neolithic people being buffeted around by a number of big...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Mack. R. J. Sinensky. William T. Reitze.

Although preceramic archaeological sites containing evidence of maize farming were first identified at Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO) in the 1980s, archaeologists have conducted little research on preceramic Basketmaker sites at PEFO. Several radiocarbon dates on maize falling in the first millennium BC from preceramic habitation sites have shifted researchers perspectives on the preceramic occupation Petrified Forest. Recent archaeological survey on Petrified Forest National Park...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erina Gruner.

During the late Pleistocene the Rainbow Forest Playa Paleoindian site at Petrified Forest National Park was an area where Clovis people procured lithic materials and took advantage of a local riparian microenvironment. This poster presents recent research on lithic tool assemblages from the Rainbow Forest Playa site, including microwear analysis from archaeological materials and the results of replicative experiments. Results suggest that while the site was clearly used as a lithic quarry, a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only R. J. Sinensky.

Researchers have conducted archaeological investigations within the vicinity of what is now Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO) for over 100 years. Although the majority of archaeological sites identified at Petrified Forest National Park consist of small habitation sites that date to the late Pueblo II (1030-1125 AD) and early Pueblo III (1125-1225 AD) periods, archaeologists have gathered little information regarding the habitation practices of people during this transitional time period....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carlyn Stewart. Gregory Luna Golya.

Archaeological lithic landscapes can encompass a broad range of geographic settings – local to regional – where lithic procurement activities by people have left indelible evidence of lithic resource use. The Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO), Arizona on the Colorado Plateau is best known for its massive exposure of late Triassic period petrified logs in the park. Petrified wood lithic debitage and tools dominate the lithic assemblages of prehistoric sites at the park. However, the park also...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Kulaga.

Both Paleoindian and Archaic sites hold valuable information concerning some of the first people in North America, yet these sites remain to be some of the most difficult to identify. Without diagnostics like architecture and ceramics to turn to, projectile points are what are most commonly depended on when trying to date these locales. However, debitage makes up the bulk of the artifacts found on these sites and sites of later dates, and it is highly plausible that debitage characteristics will...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caitlin Ainsworth.

Petrified Forest National Park boasts an archaeological record spanning 13,000 years of human history with occupations dating from the Paleoindian, Archaic, Basketmaker II and III, Pueblo I –IV, and Historic periods. This remarkable depth and diversity of archaeological sites has long drawn the interest and attention of researchers. Yet the public remains largely uninformed about many of the park’s unique cultural resources. Recent undertakings in public archaeology at the park are beginning to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Turney.

Both historic and prehistoric archaeologists reply on oral history as a powerful tool for understanding archaeological context. Although traditional archaeological research can provide useful information about the past, gathering information from ethnographic or historical sources can shed light on past uses of material culture. Oral history can also provide useful information about traditions, belief systems and origin stories. The focus of this project has been to interview people with ties...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha Linford.

The likelihood of endemic clays both suitable and used for local ceramic production within the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona is disputed. Researchers imply clays within the park are unsuitable for ceramic production. Ethno-archaeological studies, though, document that most traditional potting communities procure clay for ceramic production within a three to five kilometer radius of their residence (Arnold 1985). In this case, past individuals residing within the current park boundaries...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katrina Erickson. William Reitze.

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 first and second seasons of pedestrian survey in these new lands. So far this research has recorded archaeological sites dating from the Early Archaic through the Late Pueblo periods. Sites range from lithic landscapes covering hundreds of acres to multi-room masonry or jacal structures. Mapping in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Kvamme.

Samples of ponderosa pine and juniper have been collected from various historic sites at the Petrified Forest National Park. Historic sites include several structures that were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, old fences and sign posts, as well as Navajo hogans. The CCC structures were constructed with ponderosa pine beams that were imported to the park from sources not too far from the Petrified Forest. From tree-ring analysis, climatic variations in the past can be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Crowther. Eric Poehler.

Born a paperless research project, the Pompeii Quadriporticus Project (PQP) employed multiple digital approaches to archaeology in its first three field seasons (2010-2012), including 3D modeling, ground penetrating radar, and a host of iPad applications. By the PQP's final season (2013), the availability of a number of low-tech, user-accessible digital techniques tempted us to consider if these DIY approaches could produce data sets of commensurate quality to those recorded using expensive...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Poehler.

Archaeology has always been "DIY". It has borrowed nearly all of its physical tools and many of its intellectual instruments as well. In this still new, 21st century realm of digital archaeology our implements look different, but their basic implementation does not. From the shovel to the computer, from the trowel to the database, from the paintbrush to the paint program, archaeology has had to teach itself how to adapt an object - physical or digital - to the needs of the discipline. Using the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Miriam Kolar.

An experiential link to past life, sound is a medium for engaging questions of ancient emplacement and human activity. Spatial sonics can be linked to a dynamic sensory map of one's surroundings; beyond conveying information about structural boundaries and environmental events, architectural and landform acoustics can help or hinder communication. Although acoustics and audio digital signal processing are specialist disciplines, consumer audio technologies can enable the extraction of sonic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristen Mt. Joy. Laura Carbajal. David Rolbiecki. Mark Hinojosa.

Texas Army National Guard is responsible for management of archaeological and historical buildings at several locations across the state. In order to more effectively integrate preservation concerns into the many internal systems of the Guard's organization, the Cultural Resources team has been reaching out to other departments for expertise and access to technology. This poster summarizes the efforts to utilize terrestrial LiDar not only for detailed documentation of historic properties, but...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Kolise. Pamela Miller.

For several decades, the U.S. Army Garrison (USAG) Fort Carson, Colorado, has had an active cultural resources management program, resulting in the documentation of over 8,000 archaeological resources. The known archaeological resources represent every period of human occupation from the Paleoindian period to the present. Site types include cache sites, open/sheltered camps, village sites, game drive sites, rock art panels, quarries, historical ranch complexes, historical trails, historical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Upton. Jodie O'Gorman. Michael Conner. Terrance Martin.

The circa 1300 AD Morton Village site in west-central Illinois lies at the intersection of Mississippian and Oneota worlds. High levels of violence and social stress witnessed in the site’s nearby Norris Farms #36 cemetery suggests that regional social interaction was marred by internecine conflict and raiding. The multi-ethnic nature of cohabitation at the site, on the other hand, suggests that ritual and cultural convention were creatively modified to reflect a new multi-cultural reality. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jodie OGorman. Michael Conner. Nicole Silva.

Multiple lines of evidence from Morton Village presented in the poster symposium are brought together to consider the social context of marked violence evidenced at Norris Farms 36 cemetery. This current work sheds light on the complexity and context of social interactions whereby migrant and resident populations negotiated a level of cooperation and support by creating new mechanisms for social integration in the village. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Horsley. Michael Conner. Jodie O'Gorman.

Geophysical surveys at the Morton Village site are revealing the nature and distribution of occupation across this landscape and helping to guide the excavation program. Magnetometer surveys undertaken between 2010 and 2014 of 7.3 ha have identified numerous structures and pits. Results indicate a densely occupied village covering about 3.5 ha with more dispersed facilities outside this core. No evidence of a stockade has been found. By targeting specific magnetic anomalies, excavation is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Conner. Jodie O'Gorman. Nicole Silva.

Morton Village and Norris Farms #36 cemetery, located in the central Illinois River valley in Fulton County, Illinois, offer a rare opportunity to investigate migration and conflict with multiple data sets. The cemetery was excavated in the 1980s for highway improvements. Archaeologists from the Dickson Mounds Museum branch of the Illinois State Museum recovered 264 apparent Oneota burials dating to ca. A.D. 1300, and the cemetery is well known for the high level of violence evidenced. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Yann. Jeff Painter. Michael Conner.

With mounting evidence demonstrating cohabitation between Mississippian and Oneota groups at the Morton Village site, data regarding domestic facilities are crucial for examining how these two distinct groups interacted and influenced one another in their daily lives. The distribution of house types (wall trench versus single post) provides interesting evidence for some degree of segregation between the two, while data from features suggests a more complex and intermingled relationship. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Frank Raslich. Jodie O'Gorman. Michael Conner.

Structure 16 at the Morton Village site (11F2) provides a unique opportunity to examine social interactions between Oneota and Mississippian populations situated within the Central Illinois River Valley. Prior to our work, the nature of these interactions at this site was poorly understood. Burgeoning data supports our interpretation of a cohabitation at Morton Village between these populations following Oneota in-migration. A method of this integration is demonstrated through ritualistic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Maureen Tubbs. Jodie A. O'Gorman. Jeffrey M. Painter. Terrance J. Martin.

Recent research has deepened our understanding of intergroup interactions in the Mid-continent of North America during the late prehistoric period, and archaeological investigations have revealed evidence not only for conflict, but also for cohabitation and cooperation between the migrant Oneota people and local, maize-reliant Middle Mississippian groups. This poster utilizes the broadly defined framework of foodways and explores dietary changes in this interaction through time along with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Bengtson. Jeffrey Painter. Frank Raslich. Nikki Silva. Andrew Upton.

New evidence for Oneota/Mississippian cohabitation at Morton Village leads us to develop novel questions and models for understanding the nature of social interaction at the site, while also recontextualizing previous analyses and interpretations within a revised framework of migration, cooperation, and ethnogenesis. In addition to carrying out additional excavations to further test hypotheses about the nature of co-habitation and social stress at the site by examining site structure, foodways,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dave Johnstone.

Round foundation braces for perishable walls are seldom the focus of excavation owing to their relatively unimpressive physical characteristics. However, these structures become common throughout the Northern Lowlands at the end of the Terminal Classic period, appearing in 50 percent of the surveyed sites. This paper will examine their possible function, and explain why they became so widespread. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karleen Ronsairo.

Postclassic Chen Muls are known as effigy censers, or incensarios. It is suggested that these effigy censers were placed at the foot of an altar and were used in ceremonial shrines during rituals of renewal (Thompson 1957). The 2014 Cochuah Regional Archaeological Survey recovered a collection of Postclassic Chen Mul fragments from excavations at four sites in the project area: San Felipe, San Francisco, Venadito, and the Fortín de Yo’okop. Excavations at these four sites did not recover whole...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tatiana Young.

A change in architectural style is often a result of changes in power and political organization. During the Terminal Classic Period which the Cochuah region exhibited changes in the settlement pattern, in sites layout, and in architectural components. The organization of space, directions, the location and the architectural design of buildings underwent some changes during this period. All registered sites in the Cochuah region were occupied during this period. In addition to occupation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolyn Freiwald. katherine miller. tim pugh.

The Spanish victory over Itza factions in 1697 initiated a period of significant change in the Petén Lakes region, where the construction of Spanish missions and resettlement of indigenous populations likely altered patterns of population movement. We present trace element and isotopic values for eleven individuals buried in Structure T-31 at San Bernabé, a newly discovered mission near the modern town of San Miguel. Markedly different burial patterns, combined with new material culture, suggest...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine South.

Research projects focused on the Middle Preclassic period (1000-350 BC) in the Maya lowlands continue to enhance our understanding of the social, economic, and political lives of early Maya people. The emergence of status differentiation during this time is recognized through different components of the archaeological record, including the presence of prestige goods. While exotic goods such as jade, marine shell, and pyrite mirrors are typically recognized as indicators of social status, the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yuko Shiratori.

Since the 1970s, a ceremonial group dating to the Late Postclassic period at the archaeological site of Tayasal has been excavated by several archaeological projects. These efforts have greatly contributed to the understanding of the Late Postclassic period and the Itza Maya communities in the Petén lakes region. The ceremonial group includes a Postclassic "basic ceremonial group" on the west and a probable Late Preclassic E-group on the east. Excavations revealed architectural arrangements and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Bracken.

The summer of 2014 saw the return of archaeological investigation after a 30-plus year hiatus to Muralla de Leon, located on the shores of Lake Macanché in the Petén of Guatemala. Ringed by a partially-collapsed wall of varying height, the site appears to have been a locus of contestation at various eras of Maya history. A Postclassic temple assemblage within indicates occupation by the Kowoj, who were subsequently driven from the area by the rival Itzá. However, preliminary evidence dates...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan Meissner. Prudence Rice.

The bow-and-arrow has long been recognized as a key component of weaponry in the Postclassic and Contact period (A.D. 1400–1697) Maya Lowlands. Although fragmentary accounts from Spanish sources exist to complement the archaeological record, no current research has reconstructed use patterns of the bow-and-arrow from artifact data. This paper provides the first immunologically-based study of protein residues on small projectile points in the Maya region. A large sample of 108 small points from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Yacubic.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Zacpetén, an important center for the Kowoj, functioned to meet its economic needs while creating and sustaining a communal identity between the Late Postclassic (A.D. 1200 to 1525) and Early Contact (A.D. 1525 to 1700) periods. At this time, a complex political economy existed across the Central Petén. However, these connections varied across the Central Petén according to the degree of political integration. In this paper, it is argued that the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Pugh. Prudence Rice. Evelyn Chan.

Nixtun-Ch’ich’ is a large archaeological site on the western edge of Lake Petén Itza in Petén, Guatemala. Recent remapping of the site revealed that its architecture was largely organized by an orthogonal grid. While most Maya sites exhibit some degree of urban planning, the organization of sakbes (roads) into an orthogonal grid has not been described elsewhere in the Maya world. The grid seems to have developed at Nixtun-Ch’ich’ in the Late Preclassic period. It is not yet known whether it...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Noack Myers. Stephen J. Yerka. R. Carl DeMuth.

The archaeological remains of forts, outposts, settlements, extraction sites, and other activity areas established during European colonial ventures in North America span several hundred years and thousands of kilometers. The intricacies and interconnectedness of these sites are not easy to quantify or describe within the traditional limits of archaeological data management. The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) can reveal colonial sites and their neighborhoods of effect on a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only R. Carl DeMuth. Kelsey Noack Myers. Stephen J. Yerka.

It is recognized that certain biases exist in the archaeological recording of historic sites and contexts in comparison to those from prehistory. Typically, these studies deal only with one state or a discrete region of interest due to the legacy limitations of archaeological record keeping in research and cultural resource management settings. This study demonstrates a first step toward providing historical archaeologists with greater insights into the larger effects of the many discrete...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Yerka. R. Carl DeMuth. Kelsey Noack Myers.

The Paleoindian Database of the Americas (PIDBA) freely shares primary and detailed attribute data on tens of thousands of ancient lithic tools spanning the Paleoindian and early Archaic time periods. As technology has changed over the last 25 years, research team volunteers work diligently to continue providing access to data through ever-more accessible and stable formats. Additionally, efforts concentrate on delivering data in formats that other researchers can deploy easily in their own...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Anderson. Stephen Yerka. Eric Kansa. Joshua Wells. Thaddeus Bissett.

The DINAA project allows archaeologists to explore archaeological questions at a large scale, facilitating big picture research. Information from >500,000 archaeological sites in 15 states in Eastern North America is used to examine the effects of climate and vegetation change on human existence, in the past as well as in the future. Distribution maps illustrate where people were concentrated on the landscape at various times in the past, as well as areas they avoided, and environmental factors...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rodrigo Solinis-Casparius. Anna S. Cohen. Florencia Pezzutti. Christopher T. Fisher.

Ejido communities became common after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) as a way of dividing land and leadership among an equal number of individuals. The Ejido of Fontezuelas in the eastern Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, controls the rugged landform known as the Classic through Postclassic period (AD 200-1521) site of Angamuco. Since 2009, the Legacies of Resilience Project has negotiated and worked with Fontezuelas community members. Here we discuss some of the obstacles that we encountered...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nora Rodríguez Zariñán.

Pseudo cloisonné is a characteristic ceramic type of West Mexico. It has generally drawn the attention of researchers because of its complex iconography and elaborate manufacture, which have led many to regard it as a prestige/exchange good. The study of this ceramic type, supported by ethnographic analogy with votive gourd bowls produced by the Huichol of northern Jalisco, suggests the possibility that many pseudo cloisonné pieces may not have been considered as prestige/exchange goods. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rosa Flores Ramirez. Marco Zavaleta Lucido.

Una de las principales incógnitas al excavar contextos funerarios en los trabajos de investigación arqueológica, es conocer acerca del sistema de enterramiento y la forma en como los individuos preparaban los restos mortales de las personas fallecidas para su tránsito a su otra vida, si existió un área de enterramiento exclusivo o donde se depositan a los individuos fallecidos, si hay una diferencia por edad y sexo en el área de enterramiento y porque colocan determinados elementos (objetos...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paula Turkon. Sturt Manning. Carol Griggs. Alexandra Jigetts-O'Neill.

This paper reports on the progress of the Dendro-14C wiggle-matching project begun in 2013. Initial work established the feasibility of the methods and availability of the data. This paper will report on the ways in which the data can aid in cultural interpretation in northwestern Mesoamerican regions. A focus will be on dating the construction of high status areas at the sites of La Quemada and Los Pilarillos in the Malpaso Valley, Zacatecas, and their chronological relationship to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Torvinen. Ben Nelson. Stephanie Kulow.

During the Epiclassic period (A.D. 500-900), the northern frontier of Mesoamerica consisted of a regional network of polities focused on large, hilltop centers including the site of La Quemada in the Malpaso Valley of Zacatecas, Mexico. While extensive archaeological research has been conducted at the site, a seriation of the La Quemada-Malpaso Valley Archaeological Project ceramic assemblage remains to be finalized. Establishing the chronology of La Quemada is essential for two reasons: (1) to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rodrigo Esparza Lopez. Francisco Rodríguez Mota. Juan Morales.

During the years of 2012 and 2013 draft surface survey was conducted to record more than 600 petroglyphs of the archaeological site known as Presa de la Luz in southern highlands of Jalisco, Mexico. This site drew attention from the beginning due to the high number of pecked cross or solar markers, we recorded nine of these, could be the site with the largest number in any Western Mexico. Solar markers are very similar to those recorded in first instance in Teotihuacan and Mexico Basin. Also,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juan Ignacio Macias.

Se discuten los avances de las investigaciones realizadas en la vertiente norte del río Verde-San Pedro para destacar sus vínculos con las sociedades del Occidente de México en la época prehispánica. Para ello se mostraran las características que esta región comparte con el occidente y sus implicaciones para entender las dinámicas de interacción y movimientos poblacionales en el Epiclásico, destacándose las propuestas vigentes sobre la cronología. De igual forma se discutirá el posible impacto...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chloé Pomedio. Agapi Filini.

The history of the negative or resist technique decoration on Prehispanic ceramics is very long and complex. It begins at the El Opeño site and appears in many Mesoamerican western regions through time, to the Purepecha culture. Because of the beauty, iconography and complex technology of these ceramics, it is important to understand the diverse decoration processes. This paper presents research results about the rediscovering experimentation of the negative technique at the Hernández Cano...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Urquhart. Christopher Fisher. Stephen Leisz.

At the time of Spanish contact, Michoacan was under the control of a large empire centered at the capital of Tzintzuntzan in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin. Prior to the rise of the Postclassic empire, the P'urepecha were organized into a series of small- to mid-scale polities known as ireta, which could be considered roughly analagous to the Nahua altepetl. These polities consisted of of a series of nested territorial divisions composed first of named barrio-level units called vapatzequa followed by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michelle Elliott.

According to ethnohistoric sources, fire played a central role in the ritual practices of Postclassic Tarascan society. To venerate Curicaueri, the fire god and the most senior-ranking deity in the Tarascan pantheon, sacred hearths were kept perpetually burning outside temples, and the cazonci (king) was personally responsible for obtaining the impressive quantities of wood necessary for this feat. Fuel acquisition for these fires was often embedded in other ceremonial activities, such as hunts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jamie Forde.

In this poster, I present results of an analysis of ceramic materials recovered from domestic contexts at the Postclassic and Colonial site of Achiutla, located in the Mixtec highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. Materials from distinct household middens corresponding to the Postclassic and Colonial periods, respectively, facilitate intra-site comparisons of domestic ceramic assemblages, providing insights regarding cultural change and continuity at the micro-level over the course of the Spanish...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kirby Farah.

The Postclassic site of Xaltocan has been the focus of archaeological investigation for nearly 30 years. Over this period a solid ceramic chronology for the site has been established thanks in large part to the pioneering efforts of Elizabeth Brumfiel and her students. While the vast majority of archaeological research at Xaltocan has focused predominately on commoner contexts, recent archaeological excavations of elite domestic spaces at Xaltocan inform and expand upon the current ceramic...