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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Lancelotti. Xavier Rubio-Campillo. Matthieu Salpeteur. Marco Madella.

The aim of this study is to model resource management and decision making among hunter-gatherer and agro-pastoral groups in semi-arid zones in order to explore evolutionary trajectories in relation to (a) the appearance of other specialized groups during the mid-Holocene and (b) environmental variability. The study of coexistence and interaction between groups with different subsistence strategies and land-use behaviours represents an interesting research challenge to understand socio-ecological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Balbo. Jasmin Link. Jürgen Scheffran. et al..

Following the introduction of agriculture, domestication and permanent settlement in the early Holocene, patrilinear and patrilocal models have become more common than matrilineal and matrilocal ones. While patrilocality is observed at the worldwide level, matrilocality has been associated to specific areas, e.g. sub-Saharan Africa. Matrilocal and patrilocal residence patterns indicate whether as a rule, a newly formed couple settles with or near the female’s or male’s parents respectively. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Guillem Frances. Xavier Rubio. Carla Lancelotti. Alexis Torrano. Alex Albore.

Agent-Based Models (ABMs) have been increasingly used to study social phenomena, from the emergence of social norms to population dynamics or cultural transmission processes. Key to this method of computational simulation is the tension for explaining how macroscopic phenomena emerge from the interaction of agents behaving in a plausible manner. However, the behavior is too often encoded as a simple set of condition-action rules. We consider this kind of rule-based behaviour too simplistic,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andreas Angourakis. Matthieu Salpeteur. Xavier Rubio-Campillo. Bernardo Rondelli. Sebastian Stride.

The relation between the main variants of pre-industrial economic production in arid Eurasia, from nomadic pastoralism to irrigated agriculture, is known to have been unstable, with abundant examples of conflict and shifting patterns of land use right up to contemporary times. We present a brief review of our experience using Agent-Based models to identify mechanisms and system dynamics that could help explain the different land use configurations, which have been recorded archaeologically for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Xavier Rubio-Campillo. Enrico Crema.

Several human activities require an optimal number of individuals to maximise their utility, often leading to the coexistence of positive and negative frequency dependence. This generates unstable equilibria, as group close to the optimal size will be invaded by joiners who will increase their fitness by becoming new members, leading either beneficial or detrimental effects to the incumbent members. If a group is optimally sized, incumbent member will experience a decline in fitness, while...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joaquim Fort.

We review a method to estimate the percentages of demic and cultural diffusion in Neolithic transitions (Fort, PNAS 2012). We extend that method and identify mainly demic and mainly cultural regions in Europe. 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 archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Quilter.

Revised chronologies affect our interpretations of cultural phenomena more than vice versa. This paper explores these issues in relation to the Moche. New dates suggest that the Moche phenomenon occurred later and ended later than previously thought and this is linked to a number of key issues in Andean culture history. The collapse of the Larco ceramic sequence is linked to the undermining of the concept of the Moche state and affects our concept of "Moche," in general. Particular attention...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Mullins.

During the Late Intermediate Period (LIP, 1000-1476 CE), the florescence of the Chimú Empire in the Moche Valley on the coast corresponded with an explosion of fortified and defensive settlement up-valley and into the nearby highlands. Previous scholarship has associated these forts with tentative stages of Chimú expansion into the middle and upper reaches of the Moche Valley, placing the imperial frontier as located in the transitional zone between the river valley and the highlands above....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Boswell.

In this paper I review the history of thinking about the Late Andean Period in the Moche Valley and present recent research from the site of Cerro Huancha, a large center located in a tributary of the Moche River in the chaupiyunga ecological niche. Encompassing the duration of the Inca and Chimu Empires, AD 1000 – 1532, the Late Andean Period was a time of change in political power and Cerro Huancha provides insight to how these two empires administered and interacted with populations in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ari Caramanica.

The extension of irrigation systems from valley centers into the desert margins has been used by archaeologists in the Virú, Moche and Chicama valleys both as a form of relative dating and as a measure of societal complexity. Chronological periods in these valleys have become tied into uniform evolutionary sequences: the expansion of irrigation systems is correlated with population growth, technological advancement, and social hierarchy in the form of increased levels of bureaucracy and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriel Prieto.

La Poza has been excavated since 1965. Today is one of the most intensive sites that have been studied in the Moche valley but at the same time is perhaps the most damaged by modern urban growth. The recent excavations carried out at the site, using the test pitting technique have uncovered principally a Salinar and Gallinazo occupations. Human burials and domestic contexts with complete ceramic vessels are the most common findings in this site. The dense deposits provided a great collection of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jordan Downey. Jean-François Millaire.

For decades north coast specialists worked within a paradigm that viewed the Moche as an expansionist state. Moche fine ware was regarded as a reliable indicator for dating this polity's imperialism over its neighbours, an idea that traces its roots to the Virú Valley Project of the 1940s. Extensive recent field research has led many to question this colonial model, however, and to propose other, more fragmented, geopolitical scenarios. This shift has both undermined the universal usefulness of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Celeste Gagnon.

During the last two decades of work at the Huacas de Moche site a large number of human interments have been excavated. Although the remains of human sacrificial victims have been well studied, those buried as part of the daily course of events at the site have received less attention. Yet, if we are to understand how the Southern Moche Polity developed, thrived, and ultimately declined, then we must investigate the everyday lives of the women, men and children who were the polity. In this paper...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Ringberg.

Understanding the spatial distribution of pottery styles in combination with pottery composition and raw materials availability can help illuminate networks of interaction among groups at a regional scale. My research focuses on distinct pottery styles of the middle and upper Moche valley that had wide distribution during the Gallinazo and Early Moche phases. The pottery assemblage from three large, high status households at Cerro León (AD 60 to 350, 2 sigma cal.) in the middle Moche valley...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michele Koons.

Recently I performed a reevaluation of published radiocarbon dates for the Moche culture (200-900 AD). I only considered 14C samples obtained from short-lived plant materials found in association with "datable" ceramics (Moche I-V, and Early, Middle, and Late Moche). The purpose was to test the validity of the relative ceramic chronologies in each valley against absolute dates. For this paper, using Bayesian analysis I compare the well contextualized Moche dates from the Chicama Valley to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shawn Collins. Sarah Payne. Erica Olsen.

The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, a not-for-profit organization located in southwestern Colorado, has used archaeological research to teach multiple audiences about the human experience for more than 30 years. Changing educational standards and transportation needs have affected Crow Canyon’s student program attendance, and an aging demographic increasingly limits our adult program attendance, with ramifications felt in our membership and donor support. We face the challenge of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Holly Andrew.

The public has a genuine interest in archaeology of which avocational and amateur archaeological groups are among the most vocal. The greatest area of interest among avocationalists is in participating in archaeological research, which has led eight states to develop and implement archaeology certification programs. These program are designed to train avocationals on how to contribute to the professional field and laboratory projects. However, while these state certification programs seek to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Moore. Christopher Rodning. Robin Beck, Jr..

The Exploring Joara Foundation, Inc. is a not-for profit, 501(c)3, organization whose mission is to support public archaeology in the western Piedmont region of North Carolina. Formed in 2008, the foundation has grown around the long-term research project at the Berry site, near Morganton, NC; now known to be the location of the Native town of Joara and the Spanish Fort San Juan built by Juan Pardo in 1567. Archaeological investigations at the Berry site since 2001 have involved the public in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Espenshade.

Avocational detectorists are one segment of the public that offers great opportunities and challenges for public outreach. It has become increasingly clear that not all laypersons with a metal detector are the same, and that past and ongoing vilification of "relic hunters" is not always appropriate. The class, Archaeological Partnership Program, is introduced. This class teaches avocational detectorists how they can contribute to professional archaeological research, and hopes to help bridge...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith Langlitz. Ben Thomas.

As an organization for both professional archaeologists and laypersons the Archaeological Institute of America’s role in archaeological outreach and education has evolved and expanded over the course of its 136 year history. The Institute has launched a number of initiatives in response to perceived needs and strategic plans to promote the understanding of archaeology. Since 2004, the AIA has expanded its efforts locally and globally through Local Societies, International Archaeology Day, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann Early.

Most people have unformed ideas about what archeologists really do; collector of stuff, oddball academic, dinosaur hunter, rock expert, 'save the planet' enthusiast, expert about dead people and dead societies. Poor understanding breeds scatter shot ideas about the 'values' of archeological sites for science, history, or heritage. In Arkansas, hands-on collaboration showing how archeologists learn things, and how ancient people made a living, tried out with replicas of archeological specimens,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paola Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco.

This paper presents DIGIFACT, a project aiming at improving our understanding of how people perceive artifacts through different media. This project will clarify the role of 3D technologies in the perception of archaeological artifacts, which are critical to our world heritage, and help us understanding how people experience artifacts in a museum and how 3D replicas can improve visitor experience of authenticity and understanding. For this research, I will collect data on how visitors experience...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Burtenshaw.

The perception of archaeological resources as an economic asset is a large factor in the interaction of archaeologists with the public. This perception can pre-exist in the location and stakeholders that archaeologists work with, or alternatively archaeologists may seek to create this perception, seeking new value for cultural heritage in people who might otherwise be disengaged. There are certainly challenges to such perceptions, including the matching of hoped-for economic benefits with the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claire Novotny.

The recent expansion of community-based approaches to archaeological research signifies a renegotiation of how, and for whom, historical knowledge is produced. This paper reviews the implementation of a community-based archaeological heritage program in the Toledo district of southern Belize. Research conducted by the Aguacate Community Archaeology Project seeks to understand the degree of social, political, and economic integration of ancient Maya households with regional political centers...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Hines.

The Florida Public Archaeology Network is tasked with educating Florida's public about the state's rich archaeological heritage. One method that has been used to do so is what we call "Public Archaeology Days". These days mainly consist of identifying artifacts that the public has legally collected on private land, usually their own backyards or farms. There has been much debate surrounding this method of public outreach and much discussion on how to properly host these events. Often we partner...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mechell Frazier. Leslie E. Drane. Ricardo Higelin Ponce de Leon.

As we live in a world in which the social sciences continually undergo negative publicity in the public sphere, spreading our knowledge is more important than ever. Since archaeology depends on the support of non-academic communities, we must combat negative portrayals of social science through outreach events and public portrayals of our work. We explore the impact of doing archaeology through women’s life experiences. Through this lens, we discuss the passive and active manners in which...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danny Zborover.

The state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico has long been famous for its archaeological tourism, aimed mostly towards urban-based national and international publics. But while this is also the state with the largest indigenous population in Mexico, the contemporary descendents of those archaeological and historical cultures present an important yet mostly unrecognized public whose perceptions of their own past remain poorly studied. Concomitantly, the complex relationships between cultural heritage...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Pokotylo.

Although archaeologists acknowledge a legal and ethical responsibility to engage the public, the level of public appreciation and knowledge of archaeology and attitudes toward heritage preservation still remain poorly understood. A handful of past social surveys in North America and Europe give an initial perspective of public opinion on archaeological heritage preservation and its role in contemporary society. Given recent digital advances in public access to information and forums for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Cox.

To conduct an archaeological data recovery project using another’s testing results as your guide can be problematic, especially when those results are over a decade old. In 2014 Northland Research, Inc. undertook a large data recovery project at two sites located at the Wide Ruins Community on the Navajo Nation. Both of these sites had been previously tested by a company other than Northland. One of these sites AZ P-37-42(NN) was an obvious habitation with the remnants of a room block and an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Donelle Huffer.

Zooarchaeological analyses of faunal bone assemblages often focus on the role of animals in human diet and subsistence and as sources of raw materials. Yet animals also fill social and symbolic roles in human societies, and ceremonially and ritually associated archaeofaunal remains have significant interpretive potential. Recognizing the special emphasis accorded to certain animals and their remains and the social factors that shape faunal bone assemblages permits explanation within broader...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Johna Hutira.

A re-occurring theme in current Cultural Resource Management activities involve the term "Public Benefit". A majority of the discussions using that term refer to archaeological contributions to our understanding of a shared cultural patrimony. A lesser known aspect of Public Benefit is the direct monetary gain a community sees as a result of CRM work. On a general level, archaeological projects contribute via payroll and sales taxes. On a local level, area businesses benefit from spending by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kerry Thompson.

Many archaeologists support the inclusion of Native American oral histories in archaeological practice; however, the use of oral histories in archaeology is not systematic or singular. In order to develop a clearer picture of the application of oral history in American archaeology, I quantified and analyzed the use of oral histories in peer-reviewed articles. This poster presents the results of an analysis of journals in American archaeology from 1980 to the present that demonstrate the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Alonso.

During the 2014 geothermal trenching for the Transbay Transit Center Project, a single burial was uncovered at approximately 1.8 meters below existing sea level, encased in estuarian clay. This anaerobic clay preserved the bone and associated artifacts almost perfectly. Radiocarbon dating placed this burial at ~7590 years BP, making it one of the oldest burials within the region. The young adult male was wrapped in a woven fibrous mat with numerous wood artifacts surrounding the legs and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only R. Varney. Linda Scott Cummings. Peter Kovácik. Barbara Winsborough.

Microscopic and macroscopic evaluation of samples associated with a 7570 CAL BP burial recovered on the west side of San Francisco Bay provides multiple proxy records representing the environment at the time this person was interred and possibly foods consumed by this individual. The pollen and macrofloral records indicate evidence of coastal or littoral plants, one of which, soaproot, also contributed abundantly to the macrofloral record. A wide variety of trees grew in the bay area, as did...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcos Martinez. Jelmer Eerkens. Alexandra Greenwald. Susan Talcott.

By analyzing tissues that develop at different points in the life cycle, such as early-forming first molars and later-forming third molars, archaeologists can trace the dietary life histories of individuals from the past. Because environments differ in the food and water resources, these dietary patterns can also be linked to mobility patterns. This paper reconstructs a dietary and mobility life history of the 7600-year-old "Transbay Man" discovered in 2014 in downtown San Francisco, CA, a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Beth Shapiro. Richard Edward Green. Peter Heintzman. Sam Vohr.

We present genetic evidence isolated from the remains of the Transbay Man. We compare extracted genomic data to other available gneomic data, placing the Transbay Man in an evolutionary context with other human populations, including previously sequenced Amerindian remains. We discuss the challenges of working with preserved genetic material from warm and wet locations such as the San Francisco Bay Area. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jane Sliva.

The projectile point assemblage from Las Capas (AZ AA:12:111 [ASM]) provides a case study for using a social dynamics model to explain shifts in point design during the San Pedro phase (1200-800 B.C.) in the Tucson Basin. Available evidence indicates that the population of Las Capas and the residents of a possibly related settlement directly across the Santa Cruz River maintained a separate projectile point design orientation from other settlements in the northern Tucson Basin during the early...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jenny Waters. Janet Griffitts.

Researchers have recovered large faunal assemblages containing several hundred bone artifacts at Las Capas, a San Pedro phase site in Tucson, Arizona. Artifacts include utilitarian and non-utilitarian objects with a variety of technical and symbolic uses. Excavations at Los Pozos, a large Cienega phase site in the Tucson Basin, yielded a very large collection of animal bone with a rich bone artifact assemblage. Bone technologies were often used to make items from plant fibers, wood, animal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fred Nials.

Las Capas is an Early Agricultural period site in the Tucson Basin, Arizona. Canal irrigation began at the site as early as 1200 BC and the canal system encompasses more than 50 hectares. Agricultural features are unusually well-preserved, and more than 250 canals of various sizes and over 1000 bordered fields were exposed in multiple stratigraphic levels during excavation. The unusual degree of preservation provides an exceptional opportunity to examine the mode of construction, hydrology,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Manuel Palacios-Fest. James Vint. Fred Nials. David Dettman. Dirk Baron.

The Santa Cruz Drainage Basin contains a rich record of prehistoric irrigation for at least 3200 years. Archaeologists and paleoecologists have identified the evolution of this agricultural technology from opportunistic to systematic canal operation. The present study documents the first detailed analysis of a networked canal system during the Early Agricultural Period (1200 BC – AD 50) using ostracodes, micro-mollusks, calcareous algae and the geochemical signatures of ostracode (Ilyocypris...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Vint.

A sample of 140 radiocarbon dates from 14 Early Agricultural sites was used to model the chronology of settlements in the Tucson Basin using OxCal v.4.2.3; one site in northern Sonora was also included in this analysis. The sites range in age from about 2100 BC to 700 BC, spanning two phases of the Late Archaic/Early Agricultural period: the "Silverbell Interval" (ca. 2100-1200 BC) and the San Pedro Phase (ca. 1200-800 BC). Most dates are AMS assays of maize kernels, cupules, or cobs, other...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Lange.

Recent excavations at the site of Las Capas, located along the Santa Cruz River in the Tucson Basin in southern Arizona, have given us an opportunity to examine an Early Agricultural period site in this area. Along with other pieces of material culture such as flaked stone and ground stone tools, ornaments manufactured from marine shell were also part of the lifeway of the local inhabitants. Deriving from locales in California and northern Mexico, where established marine shell ornament...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chad Yost.

Phytolith analysis of field sediments at the Early Agricultural site of Las Capas document a rich microfossil record of the plant communities that grew in farmed irragric soils and the local environment. Although irrigation water tapped from the Santa Cruz River carried a significant load of naturally derived phytoliths, the signature of cultivated and encouraged plants was clearly recognizable among the diverse identified genera and species. Maize is well-represented, but there is a strong...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Heidke.

Two temporally-sensitive fired clay figurine styles were identified among the 282 fragments recovered from the Early Agricultural period archaeological site known as Las Capas, located in Tucson, Arizona. The earlier style was only recovered from the 1220-1000 B.C. stratum, while the later style was just recovered from the 930-730 B.C. strata. Virtually all fragments were found in domestic trash deposits. Previous interpretations of similar figurines relied on the assumption that they represent...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Diehl.

The charred macroplant assemblage from Las Capas yielded one domesticate (Zea mays), and forty-six wild plant taxa endemic to the greater Tucson Basin of southern Arizona. These 47 taxa, their ubiquities, and their natural ranges of occurrence, indicate that the San Pedro phase and Early Cienega phase occupants of Las Capas were primarily dependent upon wild foods. Agriculture was used to mitigate the risks of food shortfalls associated with the alternative strategy of foraging for wild food...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Watson. Rachael Byrd.

Investment in cultigens and early irrigation in the Sonoran Desert (circa 3600 BP) signal a major shift in subsistence strategy identified as the Early Agricultural Period (EAP). The EAP is also recognized as a period of significant social transformation, and Las Capas (LCA) has played a critical part in our redefinition of this period. We examine how biocultural signatures from the LCA mortuary sample compare over the site’s occupation and within broader patterns of the EAP. Our results...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jenny Adams.

Experiments conducted in concert with the analysis of ground stone artifacts recovered from Las Capas, AZ AA:12:111, (ASM) explored important early agricultural activities including planting and harvesting maize, processing maize, and making stone and fired-clay pipes. Results from the experiments combined with models developed from ethnographic references created workable correlates for evaluating features and tools associated with these activities. Las Capas style fields were planted with two...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Homburg. Fred Nials. James Vint.

A soil quality study was conducted at the Las Capas site to document and evaluate the soil productivity and hydraulic soil properties of this ancient agricultural irrigation complex. This site presents an unprecedented opportunity to study the complete configuration and evolution of the oldest irrigation system documented in the Southwest to date. Mechanical stripping permitted earthen berms around small field grids to be identified so that soil samples could be collected in relation to nearby...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Boulanger. Michael Glascock.

What happens to artifact-sourcing data after a laboratory closes? We provide an update on the ongoing effort to preserve archaeometric data produced between 1968 and 1990 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Over the past decade, we have located and digitized chemical and contextual data for over 10,000 archaeological specimens analyzed by the laboratory. Our efforts are now turning toward analysis and application of these data, many of which have never been published let alone...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shawn Fehrenbach.

In the Summer of 2014, PaleoWest Archaeology stripped seven acres within Ironwood Village site in Marana, AZ for archaeological data recovery ahead of a land development project. Digital methods allowed PaleoWest to conduct high-quality cutting-edge archaeology, manage a complex field effort, and complete work on time within an aggressive development schedule. This poster outlines a fully digital workflow using tablets and smartphones connected over cellular networks in the field. Data entry...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Veronica Judd. Hannah Zanotto. David Abbott. Douglas Craig.

Archaeological research in Arizona’s Phoenix Basin has been ongoing for nearly four decades, reaching its heyday during the 1990s. This resulted from large CRM projects associated with development in Phoenix, especially ADOT. The potential uses of data collected as a part of these excavations has only begun to be realized, and efforts to digitally preserve and make available these data accessible for new analysis are underway. At Pueblo Grande and elsewhere in the lower Salt River Valley, there...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Kansa. Eric Kansa. Andrew White. Stephen Yerka. David Anderson.

Data management is fundamental to the practice of archaeology in the 21st century. As such, archaeological data management requires wide engagement and capacity building across our discipline. Archaeological data management increasingly involves the choreography of diverse data, software, Web-based services, and communications channels deployed and curated by a host of actors, ranging from individual researchers, to open source projects, libraries and archives, publishers, and commercial...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Nagaoka.

Archaeological research using human behavioral ecology (HBE) models has significantly increased over the past decade both in number and scope. Originally most HBE research was relatively narrow, focusing on prey choice, diet breadth, and resource depression. Since then, it has expanded into areas beyond examining efficiency of foraging strategies. Driven mainly by anthropological and ethnoarchaeological research, these studies have investigated the influence of factors such as age, gender,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only LuAnn Wandsnider.

Homesteaders colonizing central Nebraska (Central Plains, USA) in the late 1800s constructed communities that varied in terms of ethnic heterogeneity as well as across other dimensions. Costly signaling tenets explored to date suggest that for multi-lingual and multi-ethnic communities, we expect material culture, in this case, homestead size and ornateness, to index family capacities; in linguistically and ethnically homogenous communities, such a material signal may have had less saliency....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Rosenberg.

Implicit in most approaches to the evolution of culture is both the view that cultural evolution is always incremental and that cultures are structurally simple entities, making individual cultures seem entirely as capable of evolving in one direction as another, based solely on phenotypic plasticity and/or selective forces. However, as noted 140+ years ago by Tylor, culture is a complex whole. Structurally, it can best be viewed as multiple reflexive social, behavioral and informational...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Holly Staggs.

In the province of Rough Cilicia, monumental public architecture was built in the initial phase of the social and political incorporation of southern Asia Minor into the Roman Empire during the early Imperial Period. This analysis focuses on two monumental baths at the site of Antiochia ad Cragum, located in modern day southern Turkey, and also implicates the monumental bath phenomena throughout southern Asia Minor. Multi-level signaling theory is utilized in this study to understand the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fraser Neiman.

For sixty years archaeologists studying the early-modern Atlantic world have relied on the decline in the stem-hole diameters of clay-tobacco pipes to date their sites. But they have been incurious about the causal dynamics responsible for the ocean-spanning secular trend and variation around it. In this paper I draw on costly signaling theory to a build a simple model of change in marketing strategies of producers and the signaling strategies of consumers that might account for the trend. I...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Boone.

Everyone agrees that conspicuous consumption is some kind of social display, but what kind of display is it? I argue that conspicuous consumption is (or is like) a territorial display in social space, wherein social space is defined as a kind of virtual territory in which resources produced by collective action with a social group are allocated and defended. There is general agreement that conspicuous consumption involves the expenditure of surplus production, but there is continuing debate over...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Church.

The elites of Florence, Italy built a huge number of palaces during the city state’s period of republican government between 1282 and 1532. Intuitively, these palaces seem like a perfect fit with the predictions of costly signaling theory: they were expensive, highly visible, and vast, and the families that commissioned their construction viewed them as ways of reflecting and producing status. But were these structures costly signals, or did elites spend money on lavish houses simply because...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsay Scott. Anna Marie Prentiss. Matthew J. Walsh.

Macroevolutionary archaeology seeks to examine cultural evolutionary processes at multiple hierarchical scales spanning artifact technology to economic, social, and political strategies. This approach offers the opportunity for scholars to test general hypotheses about tempo and mode of evolutionary change and it also lends itself to the development of formal tests of general hypotheses about human history in the longue durée. In this paper we present a review of current research in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jorge Ramos.

Inscribed monuments, iconography and archaeological correlates point out the pivotal role the founder of Copan's dynasty, K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo' played in the religious and political ideology of the local community. Moreover, several lines of evidence in the archaeology of Copan show the importance of the long-lived Ruler 12, K'ahk' Uti' Witz' K'awiil (ruling from 628 to 695 CE) in the Maya kingdom of Copan during the Late Classic period (600-820 CE). Recent research in the Copan Valley at the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cameron McNeil. Edy Barrios. Walter Burgos.

Excavations at the site of Río Amarillo, an ancient Maya town, reveal a community with complex affiliations influenced by the waxing and waning of Copan’s power. While seemingly autonomous during the Early Classic period, the Late Classic inhabitants of Rio Amarillo’s ritual core from the time of Ruler 12 through the reign of Ruler 16 embraced important aspects of the ideology and identity of the Maya city of Copan. These affiliations extended to an elite residential sector where a censer with a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Miller.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Copan is uniquely situated to address the question of migration and culture contact in ancient Mesoamerica. The city is nestled at the southeastern frontier of the Maya region and the western edge of culturally diverse Honduras. Copan was a dynamic urban city populated by peoples of various places of origin, affiliations, and identities. Research focused on the Copan human skeletal collection, the largest yet recovered in Mesoamerica, to explore the lives of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karina Garcia. Barbara Fash.

Desde 2007, las autoras han participado en una serie de proyectos de investigación de la comunidad recopilando información a base de entrevistas con personas locales antiguas, archivos, y colecciones fotográficas históricas relacionadas con la historia de la ciudad de Copán Ruinas y el yacimiento arqueológico de Copan, un Sitio de Patrimonio Mundial. Tomando en cuenta el contexto social de las primeras excavaciones, examinaremos cómo las exposiciones, "Memorias frágiles: Imágenes de arqueología...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Isuara Nereyda Alonso. Antonia Martínez. César Antonio Martínez.

Varios proyectos en marcha de capacitación e intervención están contribuyendo a la creación de un programa de conservación de campo sostenible para la arqueología de Copan. La construcción de un nuevo laboratorio para la conservación de la escultura y oportunidades para participar en talleres para personal local están ayudando a reforzar la misión del Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia y las ONG en el resguardo y conservación de este Sitio de Patrimonio Mundial. En este esta...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adelso Canan. Alexandre Tokovinine. Barbara Fash.

La documentación de los monumentos prehispánicos, ha sido uno de los objetivos principales de los investigadores de la cultura maya por la información que sus imágenes e inscripciones proveen sobre la historia, organización social y cosmovisión de los habitantes de las antiguas ciudades de Guatemala, México, Belice y Honduras. La documentación topométrica digital de alta resolución también conocida como escaneo en tres dimensiones (3D) representa una nueva fase en la investigación y...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Fash. Barbara Fash.

Archaeological sites in the Copan Valley have benefited from a number of large-scale Honduran government-sponsored and international research projects over the past 80 years. Those efforts have contributed strongly to the broad dissemination of knowledge about the ancient city, and the conservation of many Copan monuments and residential sites. However, even before the global recession and the traumatic events of the coup in 2009, it was clear that the State was challenged in trying to address...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nawa Sugiyama. William L. Fash.

In fifth century Copan, Honduras, beneath the city’s first dynastic monument a complete puma was offered beside a female human burial. Over three centuries later, under the watchful eye of sixteenth and final ruler of the dynasty Yax Pasaj, a series of sixteen felids (many of them jaguars) were placed in the dedicatory cache of Altar Q, the "stone of the founder." Here we investigate the remains of some of the largest carnivores on the landscape, the jaguar and puma, to analyze human-felid...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Brunson. Alexis Hartford. Barbara Fash. Hans Bernard. Kym Faull.

Developing new ways to study collections of archaeological materials housed in storage facilities and museums is a key challenge for the future of archaeological research. Following the contextual re-identification of ceramic objects housed in Copan’s Centro Regional de Investigaciones Arqueológicas in 2013-2014, our team performed residue analysis on several objects that were excavated from sub-stela and altar caches at Copan during the 1930s. With their contexts re-established, these vessels...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristin Landau.

Generations of Copán archaeologists have revealed the secrets of royal tombs and hieroglyphic inscriptions, as well as explored humble households of the rural periphery. A new project brings together these two initiatives to study the diversity of settlement within one particular neighborhood of the ancient city. Growth and change in the San Lucas neighborhood are articulated with major political events at Copán’s center to assess the degree of state integration, and more importantly, when, how,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexis Hartford. Katherine Brunson. Barbara Fash.

Beginning in 2013, the authors have engaged in an archaeological collection stewardship project at the ceramic artifact repository in the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Arqueológicas at Copan, Honduras. Responding to a request from the Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia to address a serious concern that the contextual information had become separated from hundreds of objects, we initiated a re-identification process to ensure the long-term care, access, and use of the ceramic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Markus Reindel. Jennifer von Schwerin.

The documentation and analysis of complex archaeological sites constitutes a challenge for modern research. Large amounts of data have to be stored and accessed, normally by different research teams, based on places all over the world. Funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), and in cooperation with partners from Germany, Italy, USA and Honduras, the MayaArch3D project is using data from the Maya site Copan, Honduras, to develop a state-of-the-art, open source, online...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Franziska Fecher.

Honduran Archaeology has long focused on the investigation of Copan and the ancient Maya culture in the western part of the country. The non-Maya region has only been investigated intensively in the past 50 years, despite the fact that as a bridge between the cultures of Meso- and Southamerica Honduras offers an exciting area of investigation. Access to information about the non-Maya archaeology of Honduras is difficult, given that there are hardly any introductory summaries. In order to make...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lukas Loos. Michael Auer. Nicolas Billen. Alexander Zipf.

A central goal of the MayaArch3D project is to provide archaeologists with a research platform for the spatio-temporal visualization and analysis of 2D and 3D data over the World Wide Web. To do this we are developing a web-based Geographic Information System (GIS). The client side of our application builds on top of the open-source geomajas 2D web GIS framework and consists of three central components. First, an interface for working with 2D data from different sources and formats. Second, a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Stelson.

The term "altar" is a western concept which has been used in the study of the ancient Maya to describe a plethora of carved stone artifacts, ranging from small pedestals, to carved boulders, to three-dimensional, multi-component, carved sculptures. In many cases, it seems unlikely that the only purpose of these altars was to serve as a place to deposit sacrifices. After spending two field seasons cataloguing the carved stone altars at Copán, Honduras, the chronological trends in shape and style...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicolas Billen. Lukas Loos. Michael Auer. Alexander Zipf.

The MayaArch3D project is developing and investigating a bundle of different services and tools for the integration, analysis and presentation of archaeological datasets.The architecture of this system is designed in a scaleable, flexible and standarized way. Whenever possible, the system uses well known specifications, like OGC-WMS, OGC-WFS and W3DS. For not yet existing standarized service interfaces, the project investigates new suitable approaches. Such interfaces include for instance a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fabio Remondino. Belen Jiménez Fenández-Palacios.

The 3D modelling technology is getting more used for the research, preservation, reconstruction, documentation, communication of cultural assets. Heritage 3D models, accessible on the web, are the most powerful solution to disseminate culture and, at the same time, a great source for tourism, research and education. While the use of 3D technologies in CH have been around for many years there are still some blocking factors that slow down a wider approach. On the technological side we still miss...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Lyons. Jennifer von Schwerin.

The development of a clear approach to creating highly "transparent" (effectively displaying the argument behind a reconstruction) 3D models for visualization and research in archaeology is an ongoing process. The goal of this presentation is to address this problem with a use-case example of a 3D model of Structure 10L-18 (Temple 18, ca. AD 800) on the acropolis at Copán in Honduras. How can data be structured and applied to this 3D model in order to provide a user with a clear understanding of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Von Schwerin. MIke Lyons.

Archaeological projects are increasingly acquiring 3D data sets of individual finds, as well as whole cities. The archaeologist receives the model as a 3D PDF, video, point cloud or object file. Views of the model are published in a journal, shown in an exhibition and the pipeline usually ends here. Typically, archaeologists do not use the 3D model for much more than visualization purposes. The MayaArch3D project is building a 3DWebGIS to enable archaeologists to do more with these models –to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Richards-Rissetto. Michael Auer. Jennifer von Schwerin. Nicolas Billen.

From the early 5th to early 9th centuries, a dynasty of sixteen kings ruled at the ancient Maya site of Copan, Honduras. In the mid-7thth century, Chan Imix K'awiil or Ruler 12, is believed to be the first of Copan’s rulers to erect stelae outside the city’s main civic-ceremonial group. Why did he do this? Did these stelae exist as solar markers? Did they serve as territorial markers? Or, were they part of a communication system? Scholars have set forth these and other hypotheses, to explain the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Staller.

Natural features, hills, subterranean springs, etc., designated as, ‘Catequilla,’ in northern Ecuador were huacas associated with Catequil, a religious cult to lightning (Illapa), worshiped from Quito to Cuzco, in the context of Inca expansion. San Catequilla de Pichincha is located in the Pomasqui Valley of northern highland Ecuador and the only huaca under the equator at 0°0’02" South Latitude. Ethnohistoric accounts indicate it was one of the most highly venerated Andean huacas, in part...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria-Auxiliadora Cordero. Esteban Acosta. Paulina Rosero.

The project "Cultural and Technological Principles Associated with Occupation Modalities during the Integration Period: Value and Use in Present Day Ecuador", carried out by the INPC (National Institute of Cultural Heritage of Ecuador) and funded by SENESCYT (Ecuador’s Department of Science and Technology) has researched five areas of the country, including in the Otavalo Canton. This paper presents the preliminary results of a survey, conducted with the collaboration of community members, from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Dyrdahl. Carlos Montalvo.

Scholars long have realized the importance of interregional interaction in Ecuadorian prehistory. While many non-local goods have been recovered that signal interregional interaction, archaeologists rarely have had the opportunity to study the contexts where the production of these artifacts occurred. The recent discovery of intact stratigraphy dating to the Late Formative in the rural barrio of Las Orquideas that includes large quantities of craft production waste will help change our...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Estanislao Pazmiño.

A mediados del 2009 en la parroquia de San Antonio de Ibarra, provincia de Imbabura, el descubrimiento casual de una tumba rica en ofrendas dentro una pirámide prehispánica atrajo la atención pública y permitió el inicio de una intervención arqueológica. Las plataformas piramidales constituyen un elemento recurrente en varios de los asentamientos prehispánicos tardios del denominado País Caranqui. Las investigaciones arqueológicas realizadas en la pirámide de Huataviro, arrojan nuevas luces...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Zeidler.

Northern Manabí Province of coastal Ecuador has long been a center of archaeological looting and illicit trade in antiquities derived from successive cultural occupations of the Formative Period Valdivia and Chorrera cultures and the long Jama-Coaque cultural tradition, a sequence spanning some 3,500 years. The ceramic artifacts from this trade are some of the most complex and elaborate found anywhere in Ecuador. They grace the shelves of national and regional museums, and numerous private...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Rowe.

The Late Valdivia period of the coast of Ecuador is often portrayed as one of movement, as sites in the former "heartland" adjacent to the Santa Elena Peninsula were abandoned and new, larger sites were founded at the former peripheries to the north and south. These new sites are implicated in the development of incipient social hierarchy within Valdivia society. However, recent research at the site of Buen Suceso in the Manglaralto Valley suggests that this process of developing social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jose Echeverria.

Para un pueblo, conocer, valorar y usufructuar debidamente su patrimonio natural y cultural es parte esencial de su existencia. Para esto es necesario un trabajo colectivo permanente, una práctica social diaria enmarcada en una legislación adecuada y en una dinamia integradora conducida por líderes que cumplan y hagan cumplir las leyes. A los 185 años de vida republicana, el gobierno reconoce la función del Patrimonio como sustento del desarrollo social y económico del país. En consecuencia,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stefan Bohorquez Gerardy.

El gobierno ecuatoriano ha apoyado desde el 2009 al proyecto arqueológico "Cerro Hojas-Jaboncillo" y al estudio de la sociedad Manteña, en la provincia de Manabí (Ecuador). Actualmente la investigación está dirigida a los procesos constructivos de las estructuras y las modificaciones del paisaje, innovaciones en tecnología, estilos e iconografía cerámica, y en la dispersión y conectividad de los asentamientos manteños. El paisaje cultural manteño no solamente pudo ser apreciado en las áreas en...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ronald Lippi. Alejandra Gudino. Estanislao Pazmino.

In 2010 the Palmitopamba Archaeology Project in northwestern Pichincha province, Ecuador, was expanded to include excavations in a rectangular platform mound (Tola Rivadeneira, NL-30) 2 km north of the monumental Yumbo and Inca site of Palmitopamba. Earthen mounds (tolas) widely distributed throughout the region, constituted a significant element in the construction of the Yumbo landscape. While recent agricultural work removed the latest occupation of the mound, excavations reveal a history of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Ordoñez.

This paper will address the role of the human remains collections in Ecuadorian archaeological museums through the comparison between the case of the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden Holland and three Ecuadorian museums: the National Museum, the Sumpa Lovers museum and the Jacinto Jijón y Caamaño museums. This comparison will be done on the basis of archaeological ethical practice in regards to human remains and the experience and points of view of the museum personnel that work with these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amber Lopez-Johnson. Jaime Awe.

Recent archaeological investigations at Cahal Pech, Belize have focused considerable attention on understanding the form and function of monumental architecture in the site’s largest public courtyard. Designated as Plaza B, the courtyard contains an eastern triadic shrine or "E-Group", and three large range-type or palace-like buildings that are located on the north, west and south flanks of the plaza. Our investigations of these buildings, particularly on Structure 7, have revealed important...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Asia Alsgaard.

During the 2014 field season at Xultun, Peten, Guatemala, two sets of human offerings and a tomb were identified in the center of "Los Arboles" (XUL12F19); however, the relationship between the different sets of remains and the structure remains unclear. While the Maya are known for placing offerings around tombs and in entryways as closing ceremonies, human offerings are a less-common subset. To date, their role in Maya society is not entirely understood although their presence has been claimed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chip Foarde.

This paper explores the nature and possible implications of graffiti identified inside presumably abandoned Maya architecture. There exists a wealth of ancient iconographic graffiti scattered throughout the Maya world. It has been argued that such graffiti was, in many cases, created after the spaces in which it is found had ceased to be used for their original purposes. Therefore, graffiti in this context is a possible example of the repurposing of Maya architecture by members of a society with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marieka Arksey. Holley Moyes.

From as early as 1000 B.C., the Maya considered caves to be sacred features of the landscape and used them as ritual spaces. Performances associated with caves served not only the ruling elite in reaffirming their right to rule, but the entire community’s confidence in their rulers. These performances became increasingly important in times of crisis, such as during the Late Classic Maya ‘collapse’ when a series of droughts aggravated the overcrowded, over-farmed, and deforested localities which...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Orozco.

California State University, Los Angeles Archaeological Field Program in Central America conducted an investigation of a sinkhole containing a small grotto at the ancient Maya site of La Milpa, Belize in 2014. Excavation discovered that a rubble-cored platform had been built around the feature, formalizing the space and suggesting that it had functioned as a sacred landmark. During the excavations, a fairly dense concentration of sherds was encountered along with three dozen fragments of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carlos Rincon Mautner.

This presentation explores the diachronic significance and variety of ritual uses assigned to caves and cavates by the peoples who lived in what is now Southern Puebla and Northern Oaxaca, Mexico from the Archaic through the Early Colonial Periods. The existence of distinct ritual complexes for different time periods suggests changing functions and meanings, which are inferred from archaeological artifacts, parietal pictograms and petroglyphs for different caves, and documentary sources. These...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Ricardo Del Cid Castillo.

The pyramid 12H3 is located on the east of the B group and is the largest pyramid at the site of Xultun, measuring 50.0m x 20.0 m, and approximately 26.0m tall, with a north south axis orientation. he pyramid has at least 5 construction phases. he early work on the structure and documentation consisted of cleaning reach looting tunnels with the intention of knowing the phases of construction, obtaining relevant data on the early occupation of Xultun. Research conducted within Sub-1, showed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Ruane.

In order to better understand the use history of the central reservoir at Xultun an investigation was performed during the 2012 and 2014 field seasons. ArcGIS 10.1 was used to model the site’s hydrology and excavations were performed both within the reservoir and on architecture within the catchment area to the north. The reservoir was built from a modified quarry and in use since the late Preclassic. The larger architecture associated with collection and management of this resource was not...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren Santini.

This paper presents preliminary results of analysis of charcoal remains recovered from well stratified household middens at the Maya archaeological site of San Bartolo located in the Department of the Peten, Guatemala. It presents reconstructed use patterns of local trees for typical San Bartolo residential households, as well as a discussion of how these patterns changed over time, and what factors, cultural and environmental, may have influenced these changes using secondary evidence. SAA...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Wildt.

Are all open spaces public spaces? What factors influence how ‘public’ a space is? How did the population increase during the Late Classic period impact the use and design of open spaces in the Maya lowlands? To understand how the Maya adapted their built environment in response to high populations, I examine the architectural features of plazas and patios in a ritual-residential group at Xultun. In the Late Classic period, residents erected additional buildings within patios, reducing the...