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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Vincas Steponaitis. Megan Kassabaum. John O'Hear.

Excavations at Feltus (Jefferson County, Mississippi) have yielded considerable evidence on how the summits of platform mounds constructed during the middle Coles Creek period (AD 900-1100) were used. These summits showed multiple veneers of black and yellow sediments, portions of which were heavily burned. Also present were small pits that may have been votive deposits, as well as large, bathtub-shaped cooking pits. The summits were kept clean, but dense middens accumulated on their flanks....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cynthia Fadem.

The Pueblo Farming Project (PFP) seeks to preserve traditional farming knowledge and educate the public concerning traditional farming practices and the place of corn cultivation in Pueblo cultures. Soil profiles inside and adjacent to project gardens reveal the impact of farming on soils over relatively small temporal and spatial scales. The Basketmaker Communities Project (BCP) focuses on better understanding the Basketmaker III Period, as well as the development of Early Pueblo communities....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Knox.

Most research on the Middle Paleolithic in southern Italy has focused on the region of Apulia. This research has been extensive and productive, and so it stands to reason that other less researched regions of southern Italy hold similar potential. This paper uses predictive niche modeling to identify Neandertal niche from site location and environmental variables in Apulia, and applies the modeled niche to under researched regions to predict locations of new Middle Paleolithic sites. The model...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Troy Lovata.

Archaeologists have explored the prehistoric development of skiing, but its study as a modern recreational activity, lifestyle, and commercial practice has generally been left to historians. Yet snow sports entail a unique material culture, are a vibrant link between past and present, and leave a visible environmental impact. Recent consolidation of ownership and demographic shifts has spurred the closure of numerous ski areas in North America. This has lead to both the abandonment of slopes and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gerardo Aldana.

Bayesian Statistics has now demonstrated its strong utility in archaeology, specifically through software that conditions radiocarbon data. Only recently has this technology been applied within Maya archaeology, however, in part because the Mayan calendar provides a much greater resolution in dating archaeological events than is possible with radiocarbon data. The Long Count in particular allows for the assignment of some events relative to each other, accurate to the day. In this paper, a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aaron Gidding.

In the later part of the Early Bronze Age (~2800 BCE - 2500 BCE) the collapse of the first "urban" settlements was beginning. That collapse led to a period predominantly identified with ruralism and pastoralism, the Early Bronze IV (~2500 BCE - 2000 BCE). Within this context, the site of Khirbat Hamra Ifdan (KHI) was founded and sustained as a copper manufactory in the peripheral Faynan district of southern Jordan, unprecedented in scale and close to the source of copper ore. Before the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Siavash Samei. Karim Alizadeh.

A common image of the Kura Araxes Cultural Community (KACC) of Transcaucasia is one of egalitarian and mobile groups of pastoralists. While mobility and pastoralism are important aspects of KACC, this generalization dampens what in reality is a more complicated picture of the Early Bronze Age of Transcaucasia. Recent investigations in Transcaucasia, including the site of Köhne Shahar (KSH) in northwestern Iran, present a much more nuanced image of social and economic interactions in this time...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander Builes.

The Manteño culture is associated with the integration period, which is the latest pre-Columbian phase in coastal Ecuador. Much of what is known about the Manteño is their U shaped seats that were used by the elites in ceremonies; however, there is a paucity of information on the function of Manteño structures. With the support of Florida Atlantic University I conducted a survey of sixteen structures in Rio Blanco, Ecuador, of the sixteen sites I performed shovel tests on three of the sites...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pierre Morenon.

Are eye-witness descriptions in 1524 of extensive farming and intensive habitat modifications around Narragansett Bay by indigenous people just fantasies? Pollen evidence in now urban industrial Rhode Island remains unconvincing. To date, less than a dozen pre-Contact Rhode Island sites containing Zea maize have been found. This paper examines ongoing experiments with charcoal, particularly from RI 1898 – a tiny intact spot with a remarkably preserved stone tool manufacturing assemblage on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anastasia Lugo Mendez. Steven R. Simms. Tammy M. Rittenour. Molly Boeka Cannon. Nancy Kay Pierson.

In 1928, Harvard archaeologist Noel Morss observed ancient irrigation systems in central Utah during fieldwork that first defined the Fremont culture. Instances of Fremont irrigation are known, but perceptions of the Fremont as a small-scale society of indigenous mixed foragers and farmers delayed empirical evaluation of Morss’s report. Fieldwork, beginning in 2010 and continuing, now identifies a complete irrigation system 4.5 miles long bringing water from 8,500’ to a 90-acre field at 7,100’...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Valentina Figueroa Larre. Carola Flores. Diego Salazar.

Two Middle Holocene residential camps (7500 to 45000 years cal B.P.) on the Atacama Desert Coast show differences in their mussel shell fishing tools (MSFT) assemblages. One archaeological site has a high abundance of fishhooks and mussel debris, together with the absence of fishing weights. The other site, 50 kilometers north, has low abundance of fishhooks and mussel debris, and the presence of fishing weights. The differences observed in the MSFT assemblages of these two sites, suggest the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Osiris Quezada. Camila Pascal.

Este trabajo presenta los términos constructivos que se aplicaron en época prehispánica para nombrar elementos arquitectónicos, algunas técnicas constructivas, así como a los individuos que colaboraron en las actividades relacionadas con la edificación, particularmente en edificios del Posclásico en el Altiplano Central. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandon McIntosh.

The archaeofauna of Isla Cilvituk, a Postclassic (A.D. 900-1520) Maya site in the state of Campeche, Mexico, offers a unique opportunity to understand differential subsistence and economic strategies across the Postclassic Yucatan. With significant ecological diversity found throughout the peninsula, the production of empirical data from the zooarchaeological record can provide a contextual framework through which the evolution of prehistoric human behavioral ecology may be interpreted in terms...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Celia Goncalves. Joao Cascalheira. Mussa Raja. Omar Madime. Nuno Bicho.

Under the auspices of the Portuguese colonial government, Lereno Barradas and Santos Junior (within the Anthropological Mission of Mozambique) carried out field surveys that resulted in a data set that includes a total of more than 100 sites, mostly attributed to the Stone Age. This early research added to the previous work of Van Riet Lowe in the Limpopo Valley, in southern Mozambique. Recently, Mozambique has emerged as a crucial geographic area to understand human evolution. Specifically, its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Carlson.

This paper will propose research to address the intersection of identity, racism/racialization, and labor as manifested in the material and documentary remains of workers and administrators in Washington State company towns. From the mid-1800s to the Great Depression, logging and mining towns formed a critical part of state and regional economies. The archaeology of labor-related sites in this state and period has been historically under-researched, and the relationship between labor, racism,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chloe Sinclair.

Osteological material has historically been underexploited in archaeological research.  This is most directly true of commingled assemblages which present an exclusively difficult challenge to bioarchaeologists.  The commingled assemblage here examined is the result of the episodic usage of rock-cut tombs, advanced in post-mortem fracture, and disruption during transport and storage. The aim of this study is to reconstruct skeletal profiles, age, sex, and pathological demographics through the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard George. Claire E. Ebert. Sarah B. McClure. Barbara Voorhies. Douglas J. Kennett.

Long-distance trade of obsidian formed an essential part of inter-regional Archaic and Formative Period Mesoamerican economies (~3,500 BC-AD 250). We analyzed obsidian artifacts (n=522) from Late Archaic through Late Formative Period deposits at the sites of Puerto Marques and La Zanja in the Acapulco Bay region of Guerrero, Mexico using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry to assess the economic importance of different obsidian sources through time. The presence of obsidian artifacts at Puerto...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angus Mol. Lesley-Gail Atkinson. Hayley Mickleburgh.

This paper presents a new study of archaeological sites, collections and historical documents to bring to light a poorly known chapter in the Caribbean colonial encounters: the interactions of Jamaican Amerindians with the Spanish, and later British and Maroons. The island of Jamaica held a special position in the Spanish colonial empire, due to its peripheral position in in the global shipping and trade networks that emerged in the early Spanish main and a lack of the precious metals that were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Szpak. Christyann Darwent. John Darwent.

This study presents stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic compositions for zooarchaeological specimens from three sites in Inglefield Land (northwestern Greenland) representing approximately the last 1,000 years. Isotopic compositions for planktivorous seabirds (little auks, Alle alle) reveal general stability in biogeochemical cycling at the base of the food web since the end of the Medieval Warm Period. On the other hand, marine mammals (ringed seal, bearded seal, walrus) exhibit variable...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Biermann. Alison S. Brooks. David R. Braun.

Studies of stone artifacts increasingly rely upon measurements of 3D models, due to the ability to capture a larger range of volumentric and angular attributes on these models. Despite the enthusiasm for these new techniques, little research has been conducted on the efficacy of digital reconstructions for quantitative lithic analysis. The objective of this project is to quantify the advantages and disadvantages of two methods of 3D data capture (e.g. photogrammetry and laser scanning). We...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michelle I. Turner.

When Native American sacred objects were recently auctioned off as art in Paris, many Americans were shocked by the headlines. American institutions and archaeologists continue to face their own histories of appropriation of Native American culture and objects, but many in the U.S. still seem surprised by the extent to which European institutions resist calls for more sensitive handling of cultural property. Others see a disparity between a widespread acknowledgement of the need to repatriate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Virginia Lucas.

The late prehistory of central Alabama in not yet well understood, particularly when compared to contemporaneous occupations elsewhere in the Southeast. Previous excavations of Durant Bend (1Ds1), a late Mississippian/Proto-historic, single mound site in Dallas County on the Alabama River, resulted in a number of artifacts, including lithics, pottery, faunal remains, and human remains that enhance our understanding of late prehistoric and protohistoric occupations in the Alabama River Valley....

DOCUMENT Citation Only L. Meghan Dennis.

Representations of archaeology in films and television have been historically problematic, frequently emphasizing bad practices, shoddy scholarship and ethically questionable professional behavior. In video games, however, there is an additional dimension of experience as the user in effect commits the acts actively instead of viewing them passively. By looking critically at the modern "adventure" game, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, examples of encouragement of looting, creating a false object...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Rozo.

By using multiple lines of evidence from the archaeological material record, as well as from the environmental pollen record, this paper will explore the history of anthropogenic landscape changes at one particular site in the Galisteo Basin of New Mexico. Located on the margins of the Spanish mission system, the ancestral Pueblo site of Paa-ko and its surrounding field systems present an ideal opportunity to tease out the thread of colonial influences on local communities, particularly with the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Isabelle Martínez-Muñiz.

In this project I applied X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques to characterize the mineralogical composition of 11 clay samples collected from the Tuxtla Mountains, in the vicinity of Matacapan, Veracruz, México. These samples had already been analyzed through X-ray fluorescence (Pool 1990), and the data generated by XRD was compared to the already existing elemental analyses of these clays and of ceramics from the region. In this way, I attempt to distinguish minerals added to these clays in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Schon.

This paper examines the archaeological traces of measurement in light of the roles of mensuration in quotidian rituals. Most archaeologies of performance emphasize public spectacle, coordinated by elites, usually taking place in highly visible ceremonies. While some instances of measurement do fall under this rubric, most occur with less fanfare. Nevertheless, even mundane acts of measuring may be accompanied by some amount of pageantry. Differences in context, furthermore, yield varying...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniela Klokler.

Zooarchaeological analysis of the Cabeçuda shell mound identified a number of Ariidae (Genidens barbus, G. genidens) neurocrania with exceptional preservation. This site is a large mound located in southern Brazil, and the faunal collection was sampled during archaeological interventions done in the 1950s. Generally, Ariidae specimens are a common find in Brazilian shell mounds. However, Cabeçuda is the only site that presents elements with this level of preservation. Catfish neurocrania are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Theron Isensee. Christopher Webster. Roger Werner.

In today's day and age, we have created technology to help benefit our interaction, our communication, streamline our workload and increase our work output. The need to be in person or in house all the time as a business has changed. A company is able to save resources by allowing employees to work on their own schedule, but yet still accomplish all of the tasks, workload, and exceed deadlines by being virtual. This form of business leads to a more relaxed and happier lifestyle for those...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Lynch.

Social media is a hot topic of discussion and innovation among archaeologists. Although we've improved our ability to digitally reach wider audiences, "social media" is not a single entity. Each platform is different: purposes, user bases, and means of connection vary widely. As archaeologists, we must be proactive about fully understanding these differences, in order to find the most effective ways use each platform and reach a greater public. This paper provides an example of one way to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Kopperl. Amanda Taylor. Kenneth Ames. Christian Miss.

The Bear Creek site (45KI839) in Redmond, Washington has yielded important information about Native American settlement, subsistence, and technology in the Puget Lowlands during the Late Pleistocene-Holocene transition. This poster presents new data on radiocarbon and optically-stimulated luminescence dating, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and lithic analysis conducted as part of the 2013 data recovery investigation. New dates contribute to an age model that places the initial archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Howard Cyr. Scott Meeks. Rocco de Gregory. Hunter Johnson.

Site 22HO626 is a multicomponent site located along an abandoned meander loop of the Yazoo River, Holmes County, Mississippi. Due to the presence of surface collected exotic lithic materials and a close proximity to the Poverty Point center of Jaketown, 22HO626 was expected to represent a Late Archaic settlement within the lower Mississippi Valley. However, work by the University of Tennessee’s Archaeological Research Laboratory and Tennessee Valley Archaeological Research indicates a more...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander Makovics. Mark Gonzales. Dr. Matthew Adams.

The Greater-Abydos Mapping Project began with the goal of creating a highly accurate, integrated GIS system for the entire 35km² site. This included incorporating all topographic and modern features, the translation and importation of previously utilized site coordinate systems, and all known archaeological data, including legacy data from historic excavations which started in the 1920s. Constraints in past cartographic and surveying methods, compounded by the scale of the Abydos site, over time...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Chapman.

This poster entails research conducted with experimental restoration processes on ceramic materials. The focus of this research is in determining a potentially ideal adhesive for use on ceramic cultural remains within the restoration process. The restoration process can be very invasive and destructive, thus to perform experiments with various chemicals on faux artifacts will ultimately help the archaeologist further understand the proper techniques that need to be carried out in order to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsey Proctor. Chapurukha Kusimba. Janet Monge. Muhammad Mchula. Sloan Williams.

Two ancient Kenyan Swahili sites were excavated over the course of five field seasons, from 2008-2012. Mtwapa (ca. 1000-1750 CE), located on the southern coast of Kenya, and Manda (ca. 800-1600 CE), located on the Northern coast, were once wealthy cosmopolitan polities involved in the Indian Ocean trade network. Both towns had populations of 5,000-10,000 at their height of occupation, and contained large central mosques. Mtwapa excavations occurred between 2008 and 2011 and produced a minimum...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Maniery.

The results of geoarchaeological investigations at Pharo Village, a Fremont hamlet situated on an alluvial fan in central Utah, are reported in order to reveal how changes in alluvial dynamics contributed to the rise of Fremont farming there as well as the site’s eventual abandonment. Cutbanks along Pharo Creek, the meandering stream adjacent to Pharo Village, were mapped and sampled during fieldwork. Field and subsequent laboratory analysis allowed reconstruction of the alluvial geochronology...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Colleen Bell.

While psychologists have been using many different methods to map brain activity during various tasks, archaeologists have yet to fully utilize the potential of these techniques to examine early human cognition. Paleolithic stone tools provide a promising line of evidence in human behavioral and cognitive evolution. Recently, brain imaging modalities such as Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) have been used to more directly link cognition and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandon Zinsious. Jonathan Haws.

Any technological advance that can save archaeologists time, money and manpower should be explored thoroughly. This poster presents the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or Drones, as a supplemental tool to traditional archaeological survey. Examples from Portugal and Mozambique are included to give visual representations of the possible uses of drone technologies. We used a commercially-available Phantom 2 quadcopter with a GoPro camera for coastal survey in Praia Ray Cortico, Portugal....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Steele.

Ethnographic reports of ancestral Puebloan peoples from the twentieth century suggested a food taboo for turkeys, except in rare cases. In contrast, some archaeological interpretations involving sites that predate A.D. 1300 have concluded that turkeys were an integral part of the Puebloan diet. From a modern, secular perspective, archaeologists often assume that there is a distinct separation between the use of animals for ritual and dietary purposes. This paper argues that it is impossible to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Doyel.

Excavations along Pinal Creek north of the Town of Miami in the Globe Highlands of central Arizona have identified a lengthy settlement history extending several thousand years from the Archaic period to the historical Apache occupation. The focus of this paper is on the earliest known periods of occupation identified by excavation. A preceramic component consisted of a structure fragment and a pit from which maize was recovered that produced a date of 790-415 B.C. E. (calibrated two-sigma),...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Warner.

The Late Formative Period site of Jatanca is located in the southern sector of the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru. The five architecturally intricate monumental compounds that make up the core of this site housed sociopolitical, economic, and ritual activities that operated at a variety of interdependent scales. Recent excavations in 2014 within Compound I have further refined our knowledge of the relationships between the complex multiscalar activities that took place within these important spaces....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Clete Rooney. David Morgan. Kevin MacDonald.

Recent plans to develop a tract of land on Cane River prompted examination of a locality pivotal to understanding the colonial creole experience in northwest Louisiana. Survey work in 2011 and 2012 identified a large river front site, part of which was home to the plantations of Narcisse Prud’homme, John Plauché, and Pierre Metoyer—the latter an economically prominent colonial known for his relationship with the celebrated Marie-Thérèse Coincoin. Subsequent archival research, geophysical survey,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Simon. Hugo F.V. Cardoso.

Facial approximation has been increasingly used in archaeological human remains but its accuracy in children is often uncertain due to the lack of research in this area. There are currently several methods in use to predict the nose pronasale position, but they have all been developed for use in adults. Considering that the face, including the nose, undergoes significant size and shape changes during growth, the validity of these methods in children is largely unknown. Preliminary testing of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Ports. C.L. Kieffer. Marisol Cortes-Rincon. Rissa Trachman.

This paper explores the ways in which the Maya conceptualized subterranean features as sacred landscapes within the Three Rivers Region in northwest Belize. Contemporary archaeological investigations have suggested that large cave systems served as important locations for rituals. The ubiquity of these features to the Maya indicate that these concepts of sacred space may have extended to regions, and sites without naturally forming caves. This research focuses on the utilization of small...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Clinnick. James Walker.

One hundred and fifty years ago, a letter of correspondence was read aloud at a meeting of scientists in Newcastle, UK, boldly claiming for the first time that humans had not always been alone in their genus. William King, the Anglo-Irish geologist, was the first person to recognize Neanderthals as a separate species of Homo, and one of the first people to substantiate claims regarding the antiquity of man. He did not live long enough to see his proposition or name (Homo neanderthalensis)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Karberg.

As part of the work undertaken as part of the rehabilitation of the historic Federal Office Building at 50 United Nations Plaza in San Francisco, the US General Services Administration uncovered some of the remaining foundations for San Francisco’s old City Hall, which was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906. These foundations represent the easternmost extent of the city hall, which had not been previously documented. Previous work on the rehabilitation project had turned up artifacts that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joelle Nivens.

Abri Castanet is one of the most important Early Aurignacian sites in the Dordogne (France). First excavated in the mid-20th century by early pioneers of modern excavation techniques, the site yielded invaluable insights into Paleolithic art and personal ornamentation. More recent excavations continued this trend, using total stations to precisely provenience artifacts and sieved sediment. Such rigorous methods and others have elucidated production and use patterns of stone tools, personal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacqueline Fox.

Using the Gini index and associated Lorenz curve, ancient cities dispersed throughout several cultural areas and representing varied temporal periods will be compared by a representative measurement of wealth. Using residential house size in several sites where the complete extent of the residences are mapped, calculated area and volume will be used as the standard for comparison. The volume of each structure is a more representative measurement of wealth because it encompasses the cost of labor...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ludo Snijders. Tim Zaman.

In this session the most recent advances are presented of an ongoing interdisciplinary project aimed at better understanding the materials of which, and with which, the Mesoamerican Precolonial codices were made. These materials are as varied as ranging from turquoise from the southern United States to cochineal from Oaxaca, jaguar skins from the tropical areas and Maya Blue from the Yucatan peninsula. As such, this understanding allows for a reconstruction of the whole complex practice of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Suzanne Villeneuve. Brian Hayden.

The emergence of socio-economically complex hunter/gatherer communities has been identified as one of the most critical theoretical issues in the study of early cultural evolution. In North America, one key geographical area for studying the emergence of complex hunter/gatherer societies has been the Northwest Coast and Plateau. The village site of Keatley Creek, one of the largest sites of complex hunter/gatherers in Western Canada, has featured prominently in understanding the emergence and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edgar Leal Hernandez. Luis J. Venegas de la Torre. Mario Zimmermann.

Since 2010 the "Proyecto de Restauración e Investigación Arqueológica en el Grupo Este de Kabah, Yucatán", under the direction of archaeologist Lourdes Toscano, performed explorations in the area that covers structures 1C-2, 1C-3, 1C-4 y 1C-5. The goal of these interventions is bearing out the hypothesis that the group served as a special food-processing area. Excavations resulted in the recovery of faunal remains, ceramics, as well as several types of lithic tools like prismatic blades,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Taliaferro. Bernard Schriever. Jeff Speakman. Elizabeth Toney.

For some time, archaeologists have sought to characterize the manner in which ceramic technology was organized in the Mimbres area of southwestern New Mexico. Recent syntheses of INAA compositional data allow for a more thorough characterization of the organization parameters associated with ceramic technology in the Mimbres region. Here, we present a more contemporary analysis of the manner in which ceramic technology was organized in the Mimbres area using Costin’s (1991) organization of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Garfin. Sachiko Sakai. Hector Neff.

Recent surveys in the mangrove zone of far-southern Pacific coastal Chiapas, Mexico, identified a coarse pottery, called "sewer-pipe ware," that was initially thought to have been used in sal cocida salt production during historic times. Distributional and excavation data along with functional considerations, however, point to a potentially more interesting hypothesis, namely that "sewer-pipe ware" vessels may be portable kilns or saggars used in the production of Plumbate pottery, a famous and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cinzia Perlingieri. Habtamu Mekonnen. Michael Harrower.

This paper provides an overview of the methods and results of the ceramic analysis conducted in two study seasons at the archaeological site of Baita Semati, in northern Ethiopia. The work was articulated into three main steps: 1) analytical description of the morphological attributes, 2) typological classification, 3) chronological and cultural interpretation and comparisons. Our goal was to create rich records for all pottery objects that would include standardized descriptions, typological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren Kohut.

During the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000-1450), the Colca Valley in the southern Peruvian highlands was heavily fortified. Survey of hilltop fortifications (pukaras) identified a class of large non-habitational pukaras located along the rim of the valley that were perhaps designed to monitor the vast expanses of puna surrounding the valley. Additionally, a prehispanic road which leads into the valley from the south passes through a primary defensive wall at one of the sites—further...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Milena Carvalho. Jonathan Haws.

This poster presents the results of a taphonomic study of Gruta Nova da Columbeira, a cave site containing at least six separate Middle Paleolithic occupation levels in Vale do Roto, Portugal. The valley contains at least five other caves that have been occupied at different times. Gruta da Nova Columbeira, excavated in 1963, has well-preserved faunal remains rendering it a good site for studying Neanderthal subsistence behaviors. The excavation yielded larger fauna such as red deer, ibex,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Coutu.

Our current knowledge of the pre-colonial ivory trade in southern Africa consists of evidence from a number of archaeological sites dating from the 7-11th centuries AD, such as Schroda, K2, Ndondonwane, and KwaGandaGanda. These sites have yielded large caches of ivory debris, suggesting that these places were centres for ivory carving/production. However, it is unknown whether raw ivory was obtained locally or brought from further afield, whether there was a standardised mode of production, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Micah Stimson. Nathan Goodale. David G. Bailey. Alissa Nauman.

Chipped stone tools made from fine-grained quartzite with thin mica-rich (phyllitic) lamellae are commonly recovered from archaeological contexts along the Upper Columbia River in the interior Pacific Northwest. In this study we present the results of a comprehensive analysis of a collection of quartzite discs and knives recovered from the Slocan Narrows Pithouse Village. Our analysis includes examination of microscopic use-wear traces to attempt tool function interpretation, as well as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elissa Bullion. Jason King.

A considerable number of biodistance studies have been conducted on archaeological populations from the Lower Illinois Valley. Many of these have included groups of remains dating to the Middle Woodland Period (50BCE to 400CE), a period which has in the past gained attention for the elaboration of burial mound complexes, intensification of horticulture, as well as proliferation of "exotic" and intricately crafted artifacts. In the Lower Illinois Valley, this period is also characterized by the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Gingerich. William Childress. Daniel Wagner. Michael Johnson.

Identification of stratified Paleoindian components in eastern North America is rare. Because few stratified sites exist, cultural chronologies and depictions of Paleoindian lifeways have been drawn from large geographic areas and warrant revision. Recent work along the upper Roanoke River in Virginia has identified several sites that show an almost complete cultural sequence from 8,000 to 13,000 calendar years ago. These sites also show the use of a unique suite of lithic raw materials during...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith Reifschneider.

During the period between 1803 and 1848, a series of medical hospitals were constructed on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands in order to provide medical services to enslaved individuals in an effort to reduce mortality and morbidity. My research seeks to interrogate how medical initiatives and treatments were implemented, contested, or received by various actors, including Danish colonial doctors and nurses, plantation health care providers, and enslaved individuals. This research will be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leslie Reeder-Myers.

Accurate estimates of past shoreline locations are important for archaeologist interested in the complex relationships between sea level rise and human ecology. However, shoreline reconstructions require careful consideration of highly variable eustatic, isostatic, tectonic, and sedimentary processes. In the Chesapeake Bay, records from marsh cores have produced high resolution models of relative sea level rise since the Bay first emerged between 8000-7000 BP, influenced by both global sea level...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tom Froese. Carlos Gershenson. Linda Manzanilla.

Teotihuacan was the first extensive urban civilization of Mesoamerica and one of the largest of the ancient world. Following a tradition in archaeology to equate social complexity with centralized hierarchy, it is still widely believed that its origin and growth was controlled by a dynastic lineage of powerful individuals. However, much data is indicative of a government of co-rulers, and artistic traditions expressed an egalitarian ideology while deemphasizing individuals. Yet this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leszek Pawlowicz.

Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) creates a relightable virtual image of an artifact, allowing interactive manipulation of the light direction and light curve characteristics to bring out details difficult to impossible to see with the naked eye or in a photograph. One potential use of RTI is in the visual documentation of lithic artifacts, traditionally done using line drawings because of the difficulty in recording their features using still photographs. Techniques for enhancing lithic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Casey Riggs. Suzanne Eckert.

The way in which groups interact with their surrounding environment can provide insight into the importance of natural resources for a social group, despite having a large reliance upon cultivation for subsistence. For this study the landscape around Goat Springs Pueblo (LA 285) was analyzed to identify accessible botanical resources for the pueblo’s inhabitants. Current research has indicated that abiotic natural resources were not frequently accessed, therefore site use may have been related...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle Felling.

Excavations at Last Supper Cave (LSC), Nevada by Tom Layton and Jonathan Davis in the early 1970s revealed an extensive record of occupation including a Paleoindian component recently re-dated to ~10,300 14C B.P. Despite the potential for the site to reveal information about Paleoindian lifeways in the Great Basin during the Terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene (TP/EH), analysis of these early artifacts, including numerous Great Basin stemmed projectile points, tools, and debitage, was never...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sheila Nightingale. Marina Bravo Foster. Jessica Thompson. Jeong-Heon Choi. David Wright.

Alluvial fan deposition characterizes the geological setting of many Stone Age sites in the East African Rift System. In these settings, researchers must consider multiple origins of technological variability, such as chronology, spatial trends, and depositional history. Because of logistical constraints, deeply buried artifacts in alluvial fans can only be examined through small excavation windows or where deposits have been heavily eroded. Under both scenarios, variability in in situ artifact...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Hammerstedt. Patrick Livingood. Amanda Regnier.

Geophysical survey at Spiro provided evidence for dozens of contemporaneous structures near the well-known Craig mound. Over the last year, four of those structures were excavated by University of Oklahoma field crews. This paper will discuss the results of those excavations and discuss whether the evidence supports James A. Brown's recent interpretation of an early 15th century 'Event' at Spiro. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bryan Dull. Mark Schurr. Terrance Martin. Tamatha Patterson.

From about 16,000 BCE to the early 20th century, the Kankakee Marsh was a vast wetland covering about a million acres in northern Indiana and Illinois. Today the marsh covers about one percent of its original area. After Removal Period, the marsh was famous among hunters for its abundant populations of fur bearing mammals and waterfowl. A regional analysis of the Kankakee Marsh is conducted to analyze the intersite variability of the faunal remains recovered. These sites date from the Archaic to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Newcomb.

In the Cibola region of the American southwest, the Pueblo III to Pueblo IV transition saw a major increase in the local production of red ware and polychrome vessels. In addition, the period is characterized by a dramatic increase in ceramic decorative style diversity in the Cibola region. In this poster, I present evidence for shifts in settlement patterns and community organization, including collective actions and social transformations in the Zuni region during the Pueblo III and Pueblo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alison Livesay.

At Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), one constantly encounters cultural remains of the past, whether they are of research buildings utilized during the Manhattan Era, or the remnants of dwellings of Pre-Columbian farmers on the Pajarito Plateau. Rock art sites are often encountered places where images of various meanings have been physically pecked and scratched out by people inscribing their identities and worldviews onto the surrounding landscape. Because a landscape can persist in form...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffany Lindley.

In this paper I will summarize the results of the 2013 and 2014 field seasons at the Floodplain North settlement cluster, located within the Rancho San Lorenzo Survey Area in the Mopan River Valley, Belize. Investigations sought to identify continuous occupation from the Late Classic to Postclassic periods. Maya occupation at Rancho San Lorenzo peaked in the Late Classic, followed by a drastic decrease in population levels. However, pedestrian survey undertaken in 2013 revealed Postclassic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristina Golubiewski-Davis.

As 3D scanning is integrated into the archaeological tool kit, more objects are being captured using a variety of scanning methods and specific scanners. This poster explores how laser scanning, white light scanning, and photogrammetry compare across the Next Engine, Breukmann (300mm and 90mm lenses), David SLS-2 (30mm and 60mm pattern sizes), and photogrammetry (compiled with Agisoft Photoscan) using a Gauge Repeatability and Reliabity test. Five objects were scanned five times using each of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ravid Ekshtain. Erella Hovers. Shimon Ilani. Irina Segal.

Amud Cave (eastern Upper Galilee, Israel) is known for its Middle Paleolithic deposits, containing thousands of animal bones and lithic artifacts from 3 anthropogenic stratigraphic units, dated to 68-55 ka. Excavations revealed hominin remains, including Neanderthal burials. Technological characteristics of the lithic assemblage show that the knapping sequence started off-site. However, related mobility patterns remained poorly understood. In order to understand the organizational decisions made...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Agamemnon Pantel. Mark Noah. Kristen Baker. Chester Walker. Jay Silverstein.

Archaeological research on 538 MIA’s from WWII has been ongoing on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa over the past two years under the auspices of History Flight, an NGO. Tarawa, one of the bloodiest WWII battles in the Pacific, still has hundreds of MIA’s unaccounted for in one of the most densely populated locations on earth. History Flight, with the collaboration of professionals, para-professionals, military volunteers, DOD and the local community have been successful in locating and recovering...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carol Schultze, PhD.

Despite a wealth of data and continued opportunities for data collection, the prehistory of the Interior Columbia Plateau of the Northwestern United States continues to be organized and discussed on the basis of a handful of local regional chronologies. Many of those popularly in use were created decades ago and (in spite of a few notable exceptions) there remains a need for the archaeological community to generate a more synthetic chronology. This paper tests the premise that cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nichole Bettencourt. Rafael Segura-Llanos.

This paper examines construction materials from Cajamarquilla, one of the largest prehistoric urban sites on the Central Coast of Peru. Little work has been published about the architecture at Cajamarquilla, other than to comment on the enormity of the site and its constructions. Rammed earth (tapia, in Spanish) is the main construction style at Cajamarquilla, but with marked observable differences between the Lima Phase (AD500 – 800) and Ychsma Phase (AD1100 – 1450) occupations. Lima walls were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Dowdall. Otis Parrish. Margaret Purser. John Wingard.

In order to more effectively co-steward Kashaya Pomo cultural resources, the California Department of Transportation and the Kashaya Pomo Tribe conducted a multi-year community-based cultural landscape study. This study documents that for some as yet immeasurable time back into antiquity, the lives of Kashaya ancestors were structured by a landscape that included burn-managed ecosystem components, clearings for villages and other Kashaya places, trails, and boundaries. Their accumulated bank of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Bernemann.

The Christenson site (13PK407) is a Moingona phase Oneota site along the Des Moines River, dating to around AD 1250. Excavations took place in both 1983 and 2001 in order to salvage the site from erosion by the Des Moines River. Analysis of the 1983 deer remains indicated a mid- to late-winter season of death, suggesting that the Christenson site represented a winter occupation, This season of occupations differs from other Moingona phase Oneota sites, and this reanalysis of the 2001 faunal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Petya Hristova.

Putting together gold and graphite to decorate a pot for example, has not become a widespread practice in the Balkan later prehistory but a mark of an intriguing entanglement of innovation and tradition, materials and images. This paper considers evidence of specialist production according to Costin's model as it can be surmised on the basis of data from Chalcolithic and Late Neolithic contexts in Bulgaria and north Greece. It reflects on how mixing materials and techniques in search for a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bryan Miller. James A. Johnson.

Despite exciting turns in archaeological approaches to ‘urbanism’ emphasizing smaller-scale or lower-density occupations, the study of urban centers among mobile pastoral groups continues to escape notice. The development of urban centers associated with intensive production, exchange, and habitation are often deemed incompatible with societies that have mobile components, or are engaged in greater mobility related to pastoral production. Nevertheless, numerous Eurasian steppe societies have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Scott. Finola O'Carroll.

The Dominican friary in Trim, County Meath, Ireland, was founded in AD 1263 by Geoffrey de Geneville, Lord of Trim. An important religious center, the Black Friary was used for burial during the late Middle Ages both by the Dominican friars and by lay individuals living around the town. In 1540, as part of the dissolution of the monasteries, the commissioners of King Henry VIII suppressed the friary and sold its lands, buildings, and goods. However, although the site no longer possessed formal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tawny Tibbits. Ellie Harrison-Buck. Terry Powis.

Portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF) is a rapidly spreading yet controversial technology in archaeology. Current research on pXRF technology has produced marked improvements in calibration standards and accuracy of results. Previous studies using pXRF have focused primarily on obsidian and basalt; however with current advances in technology it is possible and necessary to test the applicability of pXRF to accurately characterize heterogeneous materials. This research proposes a methodology for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hayden Bassett.

On the large-scale sugar plantations of the Caribbean, enslaved Africans were forced into dense communities on the scale of small urban townships. In many cases, the "slave village" site was allotted by the plantation owner, though the internal composition was largely left to the choices and dynamics of the enslaved community. This poster summarizes the findings from a recent archaeological survey of the slave village of Good Hope estate, an 18th/early-19th-century sugar plantation in northern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Hernandez. Julie Field. John Dudgeon. Christopher Roos.

Food production and manipulation, as well as associated technologies during Fijian prehistory are understudied archaeologically. Human colonization of Fiji occurred circa 2640 BP. Colonists subsisted on a diet composed of marine resources (fish, shellfish), and terrestrial fauna (bats, birds, tortoises). In contrast, 1,000 years later, most Fijians had transitioned to a fully agricultural diet. The contemporary Fijian diet centers on cultivated starches, imported originally by Fiji's colonists,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Judith Melton. Jesse W. Tune.

During the Late Archaic period in the Midsouth United States people appear to have practiced seasonal landuse patterns. Warm weather aggregation sites were located along major rivers in the region, while upland site locations reflect occupations of dispersed populations during colder periods. To understand how people organized biface technology within such a seasonal mobility pattern, we analyzed the relative curation rate of hafted bifaces from multiple sites. Magnolia Valley (40RD314)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Estelle Herrscher. Adrian Balasescu. Modwene Poulmarc'h. Valentin Radu. Roman Hovsepyan.

The Caucasus, at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, is a key region to investigate the modalities of the distribution of plants. Our study aims at documenting the presence of C4 plants, wild and domestic as millet crop and detecting their management and consumption through this area using stable isotope analysis of human and animal remains. Two Armenian archaeological sites, Aknashen (Late Neolithic) and Godedzor (Late Chalcolithic), allowed a detailed sampling of 95...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Beverley Smith.

Small Late Woodland period occupation sites around Hubbard Lake, MI provide a rare opportunity to examine the empirical evidence of seasonality and subsistence from faunal assemblages in the Upper Great Lakes region in light of long-standing models. While much work has been done regarding the Inland Shore fishery of the Upper Great Lakes, there have been few opportunities to consider Inland Lake localities and their importance in Juntunen phase strategies of settlement and subsistence. SAA...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin West. Maria Bruno.

This poster presents the results of a macrobotanical analysis from the site of Sonaji, Bolivia located on the Taraco Peninsula in the Lake Titicaca Basin of the Andes. Sonaji is a low mound built from generations of occupations through the Formative (1500BC-AD 500) and Tiwanaku (AD 500-1100) periods. We consider eleven macrobotanical samples from diverse contexts (middens, floors, pits). These data, when interpreted with ethnographic data and past paleoethnobotanical research from the region,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Nohe. Michael Thomin.

Through outreach and education, The Florida Public Archaeology Network, promotes the public appreciation and value of Florida's archaeological heritage. Food has regularly been used as a fun learning device in classroom settings: from teaching excavation techniques using a chocolate chip cookie to finding core samples in a PB&J. Public events held in cafés or over a pizza seem to break down social barriers and garner greater community cohesion. Recently, we have taken this one step further by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angel Pena. William Walker. Sunnie Sartin.

In this poster we examine the Chupadero Black on White ceramic tradition of the Jornada Magollon cultural area located in the American Southwest. In search of microstlylistic variations within the Chupadero Black on White, we argue that this ceramic tradition can be classified into smaller phases or styles for more exact dating methods. Examples of this type of practice has been demonstrated in the Mimbres Black on White ceramic tradition, which had been the only white wear of the cultural area...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jordan Myers.

In order to understand human adaptation to climatic regimes, I compare lithic assemblages and oxygen isotope values from kangaroo rat remains found at the hunter-gatherer shellfish-collecting site of Scorpion Shelter in coastal northwestern Baja California. Scorpion Shelter is important because it contains a continuous faunal record for a coastal community that spans from the terminal Pleistocene through the Holocene (~11,600 BP – present). Using Human Behavioral Ecology, we would expect to see...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Qiaomei Fu.

We have sequenced to high coverage the genome of a femur recently discovered near Ust-Ishim in western Siberia. The bone was directly carbon-dated to 45,000 years before present. Analyses of the relationship of the Ust-Ishim individual to present-day humans show that he is closely related to the ancestral population shared between present-day Europeans and present-day Asians. The over-all amount of genomic admixture from Neandertals is similar to that in present-day non-Africans and there is no...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Weston McCool. Joan Brenner Coltrain.

The consumption of alcohol in prehistory is a much-studied subject, largely because alcoholic beverages were often central to social engagement, and the organization of many political, economic and religious institutions. While the role of alcohol is known to have been an important component of many societies, the ability to recognize alcohol in prehistoric contexts has proven difficult. As a result of this, many authors investigating alcohol in prehistory have used indirect indicators such as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Felicia Pena. Molly Zuckerman. Nicholas Herrmann. Evan Peacock.

Various lines of evidence indicate that levels of anthropogenic pollutants, such as lead and mercury, have increased in terrestrial and atmospheric environments since the early 19th century and the advent of industrialization. While exposure to these two heavy metals is a global concern, this study focused primarily on marine environments located in the Caribbean. Using ICP-MS, this study aimed to detect and quantify anthropogenic pollutants, specifically lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg), using...

DOCUMENT Citation Only MaryAnn Kontonicolas. C. Myles Chykerda.

Methone (located in Pieria, Greece) was a key trading hub in the prehistoric and historic North Aegean, visible in the discovery of an array of workshops, production tools, and imported artifacts, and by some of the earliest evidence for the Greek alphabet in the Mediterranean. The 2014-2016 Ancient Methone Archaeological Project aims to enrich our understanding of the settlement and situate it within the wider Mediterranean world. The principal components of the project–intensive surface...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Witt. Nadia Johnson.

Tlaxcala occupies a unique position in the history of New Spain, due both to its alliance with Cortés against the Aztec and to its mid-16th century flourishing as a model republica de Indios. Spanish and indigenous chroniclers throughout the colonial period spoke of the tlaxcaltequidad—the strong regional identity and patriotism that characterized the state. We believe that this is not merely the product of Spanish favoritism and elite opportunism post-Conquest, but rather, the development of a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Tudor.

Archaeological sites have traditionally been considered only as potentially eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion D (data potential) of the NRHP, but professionals in the field of Cultural Resources Management have begun to push for archaeological sites to be considered under Criteria A (significant events), B (significant people), and C (artistic value or method of construction) as well. Furthermore, archaeological sites are increasingly considered...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Klehm. Eileen Ernenwein. Katie Simon. Jeremy Menzer. Mica Jones.

This multi-component project addresses how societies in Iron-Age Botswana (550-1650 CE) experienced the change from small, rural-centered life to centralized power based on increasing involvement in trade across the Indian Ocean. How this change occurred remains a central focus, with increasing pressures on the environment in this desert-margin landscape a likely contributing factor. It features the Bosutswe region, situated on the eastern edge of the Kalahari Desert, where the site of Bosutswe...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Casey Hanson.

This poster presents the results of an investigation of the contraband market and frontier trade networks that existed in Spanish Colonial and Mexican Texas. The archaeological record dating to the late 18th and early 19th centuries in San Antonio is defined by the appearance of English-made goods, predominately refined English earthenwares, illegally imported from New Orleans. This investigation compared artifact collections and documents from the Bexar Archives spanning the Colonial Period...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Everett. Timothy S. de Smet. Robert Warden. Tanya Komas. Jason Hagin.

Between 2012 and 2013 we conducted a cultural resources assessment and historic preservation project with the National Park Service on Alcatraz Island using terrestrial laser scanning and ground-penetrating radar. Alcatraz is most (in)famous for its brief period as a Federal Penitentiary (1934-1963); however, for the vast majority of its history it was a military fortification – Fortress Alcatraz - under the U.S. Army. As the need for harbor defense diminished, the island was converted into a...