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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Greene. Steve Baumann.

El Malpais National Monument, located at the edge of the Colorado Plateau near the southern boundary of the San Juan Basin, was established to protect the rich diversity of volcanic geologic features that produced one of the longest sequences of volcanic activity in the United States – from about 700,000 to 3,000 years ago. Known collectively as the Grants Lava Flow, there are over nine lava flows each creating a new land surface with lava-influenced environmental conditions. The interaction...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Hoopes.

The ceramics of Central America are replete with examples of stylistic influence that represent attempts by local potters to reproduce foreign styles from distant lands. Examples include attempts to reproduce elements of Late Classic Maya styles in ceramics of the "southern periphery" of Mesoamerica. This paper presents evidence for attempted but imperfect and even inept reproduction of elements from the opposite direction—territories far to the south and east—by identifying elements of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Beatrix Hoffmann-Ihde.

The majority of ethnographic museum-collections were generally created to show a distinct indigenous culture based on examples from the material culture. These collections were created to give the impression that the features of a certain material culture, recognizable in form, design and material, are essential and genuine to a particular indigenous group. My research in the field of Museum-Ethnology, investigating transcultural processes reflected in objects of material culture, refers to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Veronica Acevedo.

Los materiales cerámicos arqueológicos polícromos denominados "vírgulas o comas " tienen una amplia pero desigual distribución espacial y son hallados en cantidades limitadas en sitios arqueológicos de las regiones de Puna central y Quebrada de Humahuaca, Jujuy, Noroeste de la República Argentina. Estas regiones mantienen límites ambientales y geográficos fronterizos. En el pasado los habitantes de ambas zonas sostenían una fluida comunicación, mantenido formas identitarias diferentes entre el...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luis Armando Muro. Nino Del Solar. Luis Jaime Castillo. Remy Chapoulie.

This paper explores from an archaeological, anthropological, and archaeometric standpoint the relationships between two early states in Andean prehistory: the Moche of the North Coast (AD 400 - 850) and the Wari of the Southern Highlands of Peru (AD 600 – 1,000.) In spite of many theoretical models that have been proposed to explain the nature of this relationship, little attention has been paid to analyzing the material expressions of such interaction. This paper focuses on one such expression...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Netherly.

Interaction and cultural exchange between the coastal societies of northern Peru and the cultures of Manabí and Guayas are evident from the late Preceramic in Peru and early Valdivia in western Ecuador. While spondylus is the best-known material manifestation of this exchange, there is evidence of early cultural influences which predate the heavy movement of spondylus to the south and Lambayeque metalwork to the north. Other influences which can be called ideological are seen in the iconography...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Day. Vassilis Kilikoglou.

The dawn of the Early Bronze Age in the Aegean is of undoubted importance. Whether we emphasise the crafting and consumption of copper or the appearance of whole assemblages of pottery outside of their stylistic "homeland" in the Central Cyclades, Early Bronze I (c. 3100-2600 BCE) has always been characterised as a time of change, featuring the movement of people, goods and ideas. In our haste to categorise, label and seek identities, we have perhaps lost some of the complexity and creativity...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Hardy.

In recent years, archaeologists studying ancient colonialism have shifted from a top-down view, emphasizing "colonizers" and "colonized," to a more careful consideration of how local social practices are situated in global colonial structures and dynamics. Material cultures and technologies play a crucial role in this colonial encounter, as material objects manifest and actively transmit signs of ideology, power and resistance. Minaspata, a local site located in the Cuzco Valley of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Smith.

Located in the southern Lake Titicaca basin of Bolivia, the Late Formative period (200 BC – AD 500) center of Khonkho Wankane was a dynamic place where groups of mobile agropastoralists and caravan drovers engaged with resident ritual specialists. In a social context characterized by diversity, population fluctuation, and mobility, what form did political practice take? I review evidence from Khonkho Wankane for interaction with areas throughout the south central Andes and I explore some of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Tykot.

In the Mediterranean Neolithic, obsidian often traveled over 100 kilometers from the geological island sources. The capabilities of interregional maritime transport of many foreign materials by the late 7th millennium BC is demonstrated by the settlement of these islands and with the neolithic package of animals brought from the mainland. The quantity, quality, accessibility, and physical and visual features of obsidian from each source has been well studied, and chemical analysis distinguishes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thilo Rehren. Maninder Gill. Ian Freestone.

The use of glazed tiles for architectural embellishment in the Islamic world was widely patronised by the Timurids in Central Asia in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, influencing in times to come the decorative traditions of neighbouring lands. In northern India, glazed tiles began to be used in substantial numbers by the Mughals on their buildings in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, in the province of Punjab near the north-west border, and further inland at Delhi. Samples...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amber Anderson. Samuel Connell. Chad Gifford. Siobhan Boyd.

This paper focuses on the importance of interregional contact along border zones as we seek to understand the nature and impacts of interactions between cultural worlds. We are particularly concerned with how archaeologists construct and methodologically recover evidence of these interactions. Ultimately, and not surprisingly, people within these zones show innovative ways of expanding, exploiting or resisting transfers of knowledge, styles, technologies, raw materials and material culture. ...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alan Greene.

The Late Bronze Age (LBA) South Caucasus (ca. 1500-1150 BC) has long been understood as an important moment in both the economic and political development of the region’s inhabitants. As local political authorities worked to produce formal governmental institutions and maintain social inequalities, they relied on trade networks of disparate lengths and intensities. The consumption of Mitannian cylinder seals from Mesopotamia and bronze weaponry from the North Caucasus can be contrasted with that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Veronica Williams.

Results obtained from fabric analysis using thin-section microscopy (TSM) and various other analytical strategies (e.g. Raman micro spectroscopy, FTIR, XRD –microX ray diffraction- XRF, SEM-EDAX, and INAA) provide insights into production technology and the provenance of selected pottery sample from Prehispanic archaeological sites in Northwestern (NW) Argentina, North of Chile, and Bolivia (AD 900-1530). Iconographic and morphological analyses sustain the idea of interregional contacts that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lidio Valdez.

Human societies are not isolated islands; instead, they are part of a complex web that links them with distant communities who are not only culturally different, but also inhabit different environmental settings. In the distant past, cultural interaction was a window that enabled the exposure to previously unknown cultural customs and the flow of ideas, in addition to access to foreign exotic goods and the establishment of new kinship ties. Contact with more complex societies and important...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Siegler.

Between 1428 and 1534 the Inka conquered the world’s largest territory controlled by a single state including 1300 km of coastline from the 1460 conquest of their main rivals, the Chimú. Studies on Inka provincial administrative policies are increasingly important in understanding the pre-conquest Andes, however, there has been no study of the effects of Inka subjugation on the art of their most powerful former enemy. Ceramics from the Chimú-Inka period offer a striking example of how...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victoria Lyall.

While the connections between ancient mural paintings and twentieth-century urban mural programs may seem tenuous, certain technical, structural, and physical considerations of the medium itself link exemplars from past and present. The inextricable relationship between murals and their architectural supports as well as its scale can compel a different type of viewing and visceral engagement than other types of two-dimensional media; it forces a relatedness that must be unpacked. In this paper,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Saturno.

Though the murals of San Bartolo and Xultun are located only 8km apart in the lowland forests of Guatemala they are separated by more than 800 years of Maya history and reflect very different relationships between society and the cosmos as well as between the artworks and their intended audiences. Where one publicly recounts episodes of Maya mythology and the idealized roles of both gods and kings in the creation and maintenance of cosmic order, the other painted within a private household...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ricardo Morales.

La costa norte del Perú ofrece impresionantes evidencias de una intensa actividad artística, asociada al manejo geopolítico de las sociedades desarrolladas entre desiertos y valles (3000 a. de C. a 1542). Una muestra del ingenio y habilidad de artistas al servicio de los grupos de poder. Colosales templos de tierra policromada, con impresionantes espacios ceremoniales que fueron acondicionados para pintar en sus paredes un ordenado discurso iconográfico que evidencia la función ceremonial de los...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Véronique Wright.

Mural art is an artistic expression common to most of the Prehispanic societies and it was often investigated though iconographic point of view. Nevertheless, the recent researches particularly on Moche mural paintings (1st-8th century) have demonstrated the archaeometry contribution to study these polychromic vestiges. Indeed it constitutes a valued tool to apprehend these ancient societies and to preserve its exceptional painting patrimony. Thus, until 2012, a new research project is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelley Hays-Gilpin.

Over a period of centuries between about AD 1000 and 1540, Ancestral Pueblo communities in what is now the southwestern U.S. developed elaborate, iconic mural painting traditions. The most detailed and best-known murals were excavated in kivas (ceremonial structures) at the sites of Awat’ovi and Kawayka’a on the Hopi Mesas, Arizona, and at Pottery Mound and Kuaua near Albuquerque, New Mexico. These murals not only express ritual and worldview in the 15th century but inspire contemporary artwork...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tamara Bray.

The incorporation of signs and symbols derived from an ancient, indigenous past has a long and venerable history in the tradition of New World muralism. As an important form of public art, murals merit a more sustained consideration of content, context, and communicative intent. The use of specific, realistic archaeological content in contemporary works is an interesting phenomenon that underscores the relation between the politics of identity (re-)construction and historical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriela Uruñuela. Patricia Plunket.

Almost half a century has gone by since the discovery of Los Bebedores (The Drinkers) in 1969, and it still has not received the attention that one of the most extensive large format murals in Mesoamerica deserves. A poor preservation, a hasty register because the Cholula Project was ending, an unfortunate later restoration, and the repetitive selection of the more obvious personages to illustrate the few publications on the theme, are just some of the factors responsible for the scarce...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Milbrath. Carlos Peraza Lope.

The changing pictorial imagery in the murals of Mayapan offers a rich picture of cultural transformation in Postclassic Yucatan. The archaeological chronology of Mayapan and comparisons with murals elsewhere in Mesoamerica provide an anchor for the mural chronology. Between 1350 and 1400, Mayapan’s murals represent imagery that apparently was inspired by different sources. One mural program can be compared with the hybrid Maya painting style of the Madrid Codex, which also uses the same pigments...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cherra Wyllie.

Mexican iconographer Sara Ladron de Guevara identified three distinct Classic Veracruz mural painting traditions centered at El Tajin, Las Higueras, and El Zapotal. In this paper I examine how canons of representation, color palette, and architectural planning reveal regional and inter-regional artistic preferences. Beyond aesthetic considerations I analyze these same attributes from the perspective of semiotics. I will focus on what the art and architecture at the three sites tells us about...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabrielle Vail.

Zapatista murals focusing on the autonomy of Maya women and their connections with the earth have strong ties to prehispanic iconographic programs that emphasize the role of female supernaturals and ancestors in nourishing and sustaining the cosmos. This presentation examines ideologies of the Zapatista movement, particularly those related to gender, as represented in the artwork associated with the movement, and draws comparisons to ideologies represented in mural programs such as those from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Franco Rossi.

The study of mural art has moved beyond analytical approaches that isolate these highly meaningful works from the anthropological contexts that produced them, toward approaches that underscore their inseparability from the complex circumstances surrounding their production. However, such contexts in the ancient world are not directly observable and therefore cannot be studied using ethnographic methods. Instead, sociological dimensions of ancient art must be reconstructed through careful...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nancy Deffebach.

In 1963 Leonora Carrington was invited to create a mural-sized painting for the highland Maya ethnography room at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. El mundo mágico de los mayas (1964) portrays the humans, gods, and spirits that inhabit the sacred space of the modern Maya. Carrington’s debt to surrealism is immediately apparent. Her greater debt to anthropology is less obvious. Carrington made several research trips to Chiapas and read extensively about the Maya before she...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Hurst.

The rock art of the Oxtotitlán and Juxtlahuaca caves are among the earliest known examples of Mesoamerican figurative wall painting. As part of the recent research initiative examining the Oxtotitlán cave paintings, re-illustration presents new images of the ancient artworks. Detailed field drawings are combined with multispectral imaging data and analysis of painting technology to precisely record the art, even when lines are no longer visible to the naked eye. Increased clarity of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julie Solometo.

Murals have played a role in Pueblo religious practice since the AD 900s. Mural painting seems to have reached its zenith in the late 1300s to 1600s when richly detailed scenes of anthropomorphs, animals, and objects were produced at multiple sites in the American Southwest, providing glimpses of a complex ritual system. While scholars have traditionally approached these wall paintings from a motif-centered perspective, ethnographic observations of 19th and early 20th century mural painting...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Filimoehala. Alex Morrison. Melinda Allen.

Archaeological assemblages provide data on marine prey age which can inform researchers about the influence of human predation and climate related habitat change. While, human predation may generally lead to a reduced mean prey age, climate related impacts may produce different age profile patterns. In this paper we model the impact of both human foraging and climate change on prey age using an agent based model. We assess our model results using zooarchaeological marine assemblages from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Dudgeon. Rebecca Hazard. Amy Commendador.

Previous analyses of subsistence activities on Rapa Nui generated new classes of data to explain human persistence on this remote, subtropical and ecologically-marginal island. Even compared to other small to medium-sized islands in Eastern Polynesia, Rapa Nui appears anomalous for: 1) an apparent shift away from marine protein sources, determined from stable isotope analysis of bone collagen, and 2) a far greater reliance on a single terrestrial carbohydrate (Ipomoea batatas), determined from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Damion Sailors.

Agricultural societies are commonly thought to have begun as small, kinship-based groups of people that eventually extended their social interaction beyond the household level and intensified their adaptive efforts through a variety of means. Most of these early, sedentary communities began to demonstrate aspects of social inequality and had cooperative, centralized settlements which have left a detectable pattern in the archaeological record. For this paper, stone-lined earth ovens from the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert DiNapoli.

Ancient Hawaiian society is often emphasized as a locus for the evolution of complex hierarchical polities. At the time of European contact, Hawaiian society was divided into a large class of commoners and a smaller class of hereditary chiefs and land-managers, the latter controlling a vastly disproportionate share of land and resources. This despotism by Hawaiian elites is regularly emphasized in discussions of the ‘development of the state’; however, the high level of cooperation inherent in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Hazard. John Dudgeon.

Microfossil analysis provides a valuable proxy for inferring prehistoric environmental conditions as well as direct evidence for the presence of agricultural domesticates and other important subsistence cultigens. However, the body of reference material for identifying individual plant morphotypes is lacking. Here we present our preliminary efforts at assessing the efficacy of modern herbarium specimens as a key for identifying archaeological sedimentary and calculus-derived microfossils. We...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Commendador. John Dudgeon. Bruce Finney.

Previous analyses of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in dentin collagen from prehistoric individuals on Rapa Nui suggested a predominately terrestrial diet in the early phase of occupation, followed by a slight expansion into marine-based subsistence post-AD 1650. This was unexpected as the documented pattern across Polynesia is a marine-dominated strategy in the early phases of occupation with terrestrial resources incorporated later, as agricultural systems supplant foraging behaviors. To...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Seth Quintus. Jeffrey Clark.

Pacific Islands have long been considered natural laboratories or model systems for the examination of human-environmental relationships. The impact of temporally variable environments on human populations is now well-documented throughout the Pacific, though questions remain on how the variable temporal scale of environmental change can modify the human response to these changes. An opportunity to address this question is presented by the cultural sequence of Ofu Island, a small island in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Terry Hunt. Carl Lipo.

The archaeology and prehistory of Rapa Nui (Easter Is.) reveals a paradox. Despite the island’s diminutive size and the lack of natural barriers preventing social interaction, prehistoric populations on the island show patterns of "hyper-locality." Evidence from ancient human genetics and multiple artifact classes show significant co-variation with space on an enigmatically small scale. Such spatial autocorrelation is likely explained by the structure of interactions in the context of Rapa Nui’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Lane.

Fortifications are found in the archaeological record around the world. Studies of fortifications on the landscape tend to focus on aspects of human territoriality, especially in relation to conflict, economics, and resources. This paper takes a Human Behavioral Ecology approach to territoriality and applies the use of viewsheds, as derived from a GIS database, to the examination of a central resource. Rapa, Austral Islands, French Polynesia, is often cited as a classic example of an island...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John O'Connor.

The colonization of Polynesia was a motivated dispersal of culturally related human populations on a massive geographic scale. The settlement of distant oceanic islands involved the development and sharing of technological information specific to local environments, including exclusively stylistic aspects of artifact design. A reassessment of artifact comparisons from a neo-Darwinian evolutionary perspective continues to provide information regarding social interaction among island communities....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Darby Filimoehala.

Exploring the complex relationship between humans and the environment is essential for understanding important mechanisms of cultural change. The last decade has given rise to advances in zooarchaeological research and computer-based modeling that provide tools to examine the links between environmental variability and human cultures. This paper draws on assumptions derived from evolutionary ecology using Agent Based Models (AMB), to test predictions regarding foraging and marine exploitation in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Giovas. Scott Fitzpatrick. Osamu Kataoka. Meagan Clark.

Previous research at Chelechol ra Orrak in the Rock Islands of Palau has revealed several critical shifts in marine resource exploitation between ca. 3000/1700 – 0 BP. These changes include a decline in fishing, increased reliance on molluscs, particularly Mactra clams, and statistically significant size increases in one of the most heavily exploited gastropod species, Gibberulus (Strombus) gibberulus. Commonly invoked explanatory mechanisms, such as broad scale climate change and anthropogenic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Linn.

Global heritage tourism is at an all time high with tourism numbers expected to increase in the coming years. The challenges associated with managing heritage sites are as countless as they are complex. Heritage resources are finite non-renewal assets that provide critical links to the past, a source of identity, knowledge, and cultural values that enable communities and individuals to better understand and navigate the present. The management of archaeological resources, as part of heritage...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Della Scott-Ireton. Jennifer McKinnon.

Underwater archaeological sites around the world draw thousands of diving tourists lured by the excitement of shipwrecks and the beauty of the marine environment. Through scientific research and beguiling information, archaeologists have the opportunity to educate these visitors about the history of the sites and, perhaps more importantly, about the need for preservation. Effective interpretation leads to appreciation of submerged cultural sites as links to our past, rather than simply as mines...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Deborah Gangloff.

Archaeotourism, the visiting of sites of historic and prehistoric significance, not only satisfies people’s interest in the past, but more importantly helps to build greater support for cultural resource preservation and research. While protecting sites is paramount, professional archaeologists cannot ignore or risk losing the opportunities archaeotourism provides; namely creating a scientifically- and culturally-literate population that can help advance the protection of cultural resources and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heidi Bauer-Clapp.

Tourism centered on archaeological sites or associated material culture can benefit local communities, financially or otherwise. Yet when the site in question involves "difficult" heritage such as violence, communities often must grapple with tensions regarding how to balance memorialization or education with profitability. Such tensions can be heightened when the site involves human remains. This paper presents a case study of St Helena, a small British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaime Almansa-Sanchez.

Literature in heritage and tourism usually addresses the multiple benefits of visitors, their threats and the controversial concept of ‘return’. As heritage managers we usually focus our efforts on these visitors, as the panacea for everything. In the context of postcolonial theory and public archaeology, there are two factors of this equation that we usually forget; local communities and the real recipients of the money. Working in Gondar (Ethiopia) I have come to define the concept of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fran Seager-Boss. Alfred Theodore. Kathryn Krasinski. Brian Wygal. Richard Martin.

In Southcentral Alaska, Matanuska-Susitna Borough is among the Nation's most rapidly growing regions. At the cost of losing indigenous archaeological settlements, subdivision activities have mushroomed in response to increased population. Collaboration with the Knik Native Dena'ina Tribe is tantamount to saving numerous proto-historic settlements where inland rivers confluence with Knik Arm in Upper Cook Inlet. Working with the State and Knikatnu Tribal Corporation who own sites adjacent to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Stine.

North Carolina’s Department of Cultural Resources is pressed by state legislators to justify keeping Historic Site’s properties open, and its Office of State Archaeology (OSA) staff gainfully employed. The state university system has also seen its share of cuts. By pooling research interests and resources, OSA and University of North Carolina Greensboro archaeologists and geography professors and students could highlight potential below ground features and excavate at two sites. The project...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ben Thomas. Meredith Langlitz.

A growing public interest in archaeotourism has resulted in greater numbers of visitors to archaeological sites as well as tourism being increasingly being seen as a use for sites for both social and economic reasons. While additional visitors can generate more revenue for local interests, they also increase human impact on the site. While tourism operators, archaeologists, and heritage managers frequently work at the same sites, they often work in isolation. While, many sites are preparing for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Surface-Evans. S.K. Haase.

Central Michigan University recently undertook a series of public archaeology projects in cooperation with local historical societies and county governments in to investigate two northern Michigan lighthouses that are public parks. The McGulpin Point Lighthouse operated from 1869 to 1906 and was purchased by Emmett County in 2009. The 40 Mile Point Lighthouse was built in 1897, was deeded to Presque Isle County in 1998. The modern political and socioeconomic conditions of the two counties are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Hester. Harry J. Shafer.

Beginning in the Middle Preclassic, the rise of small centers in the agricultural area of Northern Belize gave impetus to the intensive manufacture of stone tools at Colha. Craft specialization, mass production and export of stone tools and symbols were deeply entrenched by Late Preclassic times. Examples will be provided on the use of certain tool forms in agriculture and construction through out the region. Additionally, some artifacts were made mainly for caches, lithic symbols, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Grant McCall. Rachel Horowitz. Dan Healan. David Grove.

The site of Chalcatzingo, at the eastern edge of the state of Morelos, Mexico, has been an important source of information about shifting economic and social dynamics during the Formative period. Lithic analyses focusing on the site's specialized obsidian knapping have played a significant role in showing Chalcatzingo's place as a trade hub situated at the boundary between the central highlands and Gulf Coast regions. This paper reports on the site's chert lithic assemblage and presents the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Teresa Raczek.

For the past few decades, the analysis of lithic production has incorporated an extensive consideration of debitage. While this work has been fruitful, the social and economic context of early habitation mounds presents a number of challenges to debitage analysis. Debitage can result from a number of activities beyond chipped tool production; as a result, researchers must carefully analyze broader economic and social activities in order to offset these challenges. This paper will present the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason Nesbitt. Yuichi Matsumoto. Michael Glascock. Yuri Cavero. Richard Burger.

Campanayuq Rumi is a large civic-ceremonial center located near Ayacucho in the south-central highlands of Peru. Dating to the late Initial Period (1100-800 BC) and Early Horizon (800-300 BC), Campanayuq Rumi is notable for its close association with the Chavín sphere of interaction. In particular, the site has been considered significant because of its geographical proximity to Quispisisa, the most important obsidian source during the early first millennium BC. Recent excavations at Campanayuq...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Hruby. Jason W. Barrett.

Although they represent the foundation on which ancient Maya economies were predicated, Mayanists traditionally have ignored non-obsidian lithics in their entirety. We present an historical overview of how artifacts made of chert and related stones have been traditionally analyzed and documented in the archaeological literature of the Maya Lowlands, then examine the important contributions lithic studies have made in the past few decades. The institutionalized neglect of this material class...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Davis.

Lithics are one of the most common artifact classes encountered at nearly every site of the urbanized landscape of the Indus Civilization of Pakistan and Northwest India. This paper examines the lithic assemblage at the urban center of Harappa (3300-1900 BCE), one of the type-sites of the Indus, focusing on the chipped stone assemblage collected by the HARP excavations from 1986-2001. This assemblage is contextualized within the specialized production and the complex inter-regional distribution...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steven Rosen. Francesca Manclossi.

Analysis of the ad hoc component of lithic assemblages from three Bronze Age sites in Israel shows common technological patterns without significant chronological and geographical differences. Like more formal components of lithic industries, expedient and opportunistic production of tools can be characterized using technological criteria and parameters which discern recurrent patterns in lithic manufacture. Irregular flakes, variable in shape, size, and raw material, and with only minimal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason Paling.

From the gathering of agricultural surplus to the construction of small homes or large scale monuments, stone tools played a major role in many dimensions of everyday Formative Maya life. This presentation will examine the degree in which the production of stone tools made of chert and chalcedony were controlled by empowered political authorities or social groups at the sites of San Estevan in Northern Belize and K’o and Hamontún in the northeastern Petén region. The dynamics of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Horowitz.

A major topic of recent study about the ancient Maya is the role of elites and non-elites in the ancient Maya economy. Such studies have illustrated that different types of objects operated within varying economic modes; therefore the methods of production and distribution of diverse types of objects should be examined individually. This paper will examine the economic role of utilitarian chert tools in the Late to Terminal Classic Maya economy. This paper will utilize an examination of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Kardulias.

In part because of their lack of plasticity (compared to ceramics, for example), lithics exhibited relatively little change over long periods of time. This rigidity of form also conferred great benefits on lithics. With some modification, various stones could make extremely useful implements for cutting, scraping, drilling, incising, and abrading, grinding, or crushing various materials, even when compared to tools provided by new technologies. Indeed, both flaked and ground stone tools...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroline Schmidt. Ryan Parish.

Exchange between Protohistoric Period Native American and European traders in the Central Mississippi Valley reorganized the lithic industry to focus on hide processing. The most distinctive markers of this industry, thumbnail scrapers, increased as participation in the regional trade intensified and gradually led European-made goods replacing traditional tools. Although several avenues concerning the implications of thumbnail scrapers have been investigated, their raw material source remains...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fumiyasu Arakawa.

Archaeologists that conduct research in agricultural societies of the American Southwest have contributed little discussions and interpretation regarding sociopolitical organization using lithic data; several negative factors may be at the root of the problem. These factors include 1) archaeologists in the American Southwest have developed a remarkable level of pottery analysis that allows for the reconstruction of some aspects of sociopolitical organization, 2) none has developed a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Leone.

The role of the supernatural in establishing subjectivity is well understood in Marxist terms, particularly through Althusser and Zizek. There are two parallel, complementary religions at Wye House near Easton, Maryland in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. Through archaeology, African and African American religions and their role in the cosmos, people's lives, and the maintenance of heritage is becoming well understood through African and African American material remains. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steve Kosiba.

The Incas built the largest indigenous empire in the Americas, and though they lacked a written history, they were keen to tell Spanish scribes how they assembled their domain. Inca nobles explained that their ancestors vanquished anyone who dared challenge Inca claims to authority. Like the boasts of other conquerors, these stories cast only particular people as the subjects of history and the cultivators of "civilization." But they also conceal another side of Inca history: For, it was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Gillespie.

La Venta, the Middle Formative Olmec capital, is famous for its unique structured deposits composed of thousands of serpentine blocks. The discovery of these "massive offerings" along with caches of fine jade artifacts was taken as evidence of a powerful ruling class who controlled this wealth and commanded the labor of countless commoners to bring the serpentine to La Venta, shape it into standardized forms, and bury it in a ritual precinct. This paper challenges that conventional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Voss.

Communal violence is often central to subjectification and the process of creating and sustaining social difference. Preliminary results of archival studies and archaeological research trace the relationship between violence and subject formation among participants of the anti-Chinese movement in 19th century San Jose, which enacted campaigns of harassment and direct violence against Chinese immigrant and Chinese American residents of the city. What material practices and social performances...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Janusek.

A specific range of human subjects, or fully socialized, moral persons- rigorously categorized according to age, sex, kinship, and so forth -are, of course, the most critical ‘things’ that any society seeks to produce. I investigate the production of prehispanic human subjects in the Lake Titicaca Basin of the South American Andes. To understand the emergence of the Middle Horizon center of Tiwanaku at around AD 500, I investigate the deployment of innovative spatial, material, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francois Richard.

This paper explores rural communities’ historical relationships to state authority in the Siin province (Senegal). I engage with classic literature to examine how the concept of ‘peasant’ might be relevant to archaeological realities in Senegal’s countryside during the Atlantic era, and how it might helpful to think about political identity among social actors chronically understudied (and under-documented) in the African past. I am interested in the term as one way to conceptualize the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Baltus. Sarah Baires. Timothy Pauketat.

Though processes of subjectification are continuously ongoing, there are moments when powers coalesce in particular persons, places, or objects and bring about pervasive transformations. We explore these moments through gendered divisions of key religious spaces, objects, and practices at the Native American city of Cahokia and other early Mississippian places. Through cosmological oppositions, these spaces, objects and practices both created balance and fomented politico-religious...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Hauser.

Water and the making of authority has generally been viewed as a basic metabolic need whose capture and distribution provides a nexus through which power flows. The household becomes place of water consumption where subjectification was achieved in other domains and subsequently inscribed into the container. In this paper I take a slightly different approach. Specifically I ask the question, at what point does water become a convenience and how does its status as a convenience inflect both...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Weismantel.

In the ethnohistoric record of the Andes, the bodies of the dead feature as key material objects through which living rulers claimed power over people and territory, especially irrigated land. This was true for the highland Inka, and also for coastal societies such as Chimu. In the archaeological record for earlier societies such as Moche, we see evidence for a similar complex of practices involving tombs, entombed bodies, and associated artifacts and offerings. These mortuary assemblages were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stacey Camp.

Amidst wartime xenophobia, the United States government unjustly imprisoned over 120,100 individuals of Japanese heritage during World War II. Despite being housed in dreary, tar-papered military barracks at sites that ranged from former racetracks to prisons, Japanese internees transformed their inhospitable living conditions into places that embodied some semblance of home and Japanese culture. These transformations were material in nature; internees creatively modified and consumed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Rosenzweig.

Thinking of political subjectification as the processes by which individuals recognize themselves as subjects to authority, this paper pursues the negotiation of this subjectivity for people living within the purview of the ancient Neo-Assyrian empire. Negotiation resides between the poles of subjugation and resistance to authority, and constitutes the ways in which people participate in defining the contours of their socio-political positions. In the provinces of Upper Mesopotamia in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Parker VanValkenburgh.

Recent archaeological research has called attention to the performative dimensions of imperial built environments, shedding new light on how regimes and subjects emerge (and persist) in acts of place-making, urban planning, and monumental construction. However, our focus on clarifying the semiotics of imperial architecture has drawn attention away from longer-term process of subjectification and elided the role that landscapes play within them. The study of landscapes in Peru's Zaña valley...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Loren.

This paper explores the intersections of health, religion, race, and dress; how theories of disease and illness in the eighteenth century intersected with Spanish imperial understandings regarding race and dress of colonizer and colonized and culturally-distinct medicinal practices for treating physical and spiritual sicknesses. Colonial empires reshaped and redefined colonial bodies: physical and spiritual care, social and sexual interactions, and dress and language were just a few of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolina Mallol. François Bachellerie. Eugene Morin. Brad Gravina. Isabelle Crèvecoeur.

The extinction of the Neanderthals remains an open question and the current chronological, archaeological and paleoclimatic evidence reflects complex scenarios. In this context, southwestern Europe is an interesting region because as it represents not only a "dead end" for the east-to-west migration of anatomically modern humans but may have acted as a potential 'refugium' for local Neanderthal populations. Several sites in the region play a key role in ongoing debates concerning the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Chazan.

The archaeology and geology of the Earlier Stone Age of Wondewerk Cave (Northern Cape Province, South Africa) present a paradoxical picture. On the one hand there is a record of hominin occupation spanning a period of at least one million year that includes multiple proxies indicating the use of fire. However, the micromorphological study of the sediment shows almost no anthropogenic signal and the density of artifacts is extraordinarily low. This paper presents an overview of the current...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Mentzer. Christopher Miller.

Since the 1990’s, Paul Goldberg’s micromorphological analyses at Kebara and Hayonim Caves (Israel) as well as his collaborative efforts to understand chemical diagenesis in caves have served as benchmarks for the high-resolution study of Paleolithic combustion features. This paper highlights the results of micromorphology, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopy and microscopic x-ray diffraction measurements, which were employed together order to understand different diagenetic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Miller. Susan Mentzer.

Geoarchaeologists, like their colleagues in the geosciences and archaeology, are required to understand the archaeological record at a variety of scales: from the sub-microscopic to the continental. We track human behavioral change across millions of years and geographic expansions across continents. Yet, our data come from archaeological sites, individual layers, and single artifacts. As archaeologists who investigate past human interactions with various geosystems, we are required not only...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Sherwood. Tristram R. Kidder.

Traditionally the study of prehistoric earthen monuments has focused on their staged surfaces and the buildings and artifacts recovered there. Mound construction was simplified to volume, and the type of labor and oversight necessary to move basket loads of dirt. With rigorous attention to stratigraphy, there is a new interest and awareness of these earthen monuments as complex constructions. Selection, preparation, placement and maintenance of earthen materials allowed the establishment of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rolfe Mandel. Paul Goldberg. Tony Layzell. Jennifer Haas.

The Finch site is a multicomponent open-air habitation located in southeastern Wisconsin. Archaeological excavations conducted at the site yielded numerous artifacts and cultural features indicating recurrent and/or continuous occupation (or use) spanning twelve thousand years, from the Early Paleoindian through Late Woodland periods. The site is situated on the rim and side slopes of a kettle basin formed in matrix-supported glacial till overlying outwash and glaciolacustrine deposits. The till...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Harold Dibble. Alain Turq. Laurent Chiotti. Marie Soressi. Laurent Bruxelles.

There are few researchers who have achieved the breadth of experience of Paul Goldberg, whose work spans almost every continent on the planet, and from the early Pleistocene to the Holocene. There are some regions, however, that have greatly benefited from his expertise, including SW France. In this paper we will review some of his work here, beginning with his dissertation work at the site of Pech de l’Azé II, and over the past 14 years at the sites of Pech de l’Azé I and IV, Roc de Marsal,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Trina Arpin. Harris Greenberg.

The anthropogenic landscape of a prehistoric site is made up of artifacts, structures, and features. However, the three do not receive equal attention. Features--by which we mean stationary but non-structural evidence of human activity--are usually the least analyzed. Inspired by Paul Goldberg’s work on Paleolithic hearths, we hope to bring a new, more inter-disciplinary look at some of these less-studied elements of the anthropogenic landscape. To do so, we will expand the study to a later...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dennis Sandgathe. Vera Aldeias. Harold Dibble. Shannon McPherron.

Many people are familiar with Paul Goldberg's contributions to archaeological research around the world through micromorphological analysis. Many are also familiar with his innovations in this area of analysis. However, few may know of his many other contributions. Applying his notable skills and talents to a wide range of practical applications, scientific and otherwise, Paul has made major contributions to life as we know it. His has been, and continues to be, a most interesting career. SAA...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandy Rinck.

Solving geoarchaeological questions in a cultural resources management (CRM) context can be difficult due to time and budget constraints. In the Pacific Northwest, however, recent projects have fortunately allowed for some micromorphological analyses. Paul Goldberg has championed micromorphology as a valuable geoarchaeological method over the past three decades. The micromorphological analysis of shell middens, peat deposits, and alluvial sediment in and around the Seattle, WA area has elevated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Vera Aldeias.

Cabeço da Amoreira is a long-known Mesolithic shell midden located in the shores of the Muge River in Portugal. Like in similar midden contexts, sedimentation is greatly influenced by anthropic inputs associated with an intensive exploitation of marine and estuarine resources. The abundance of shell-fish refuses favors an intricate and laterally variable stratigraphic succession of layers and lenses, which result in an extensive artificial mound. The complex stratigraphy of shell midden sites...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Reid Ferring.

Recent excavations and geoarchaeological testing at Dmanisi have revealed a large and complex site structure. Up to 7 meters of stratified deposits, with nine artifact and fossil-bearing strata, are now documented over an area of at least 35,000 square meters on the Dmanisi promontory. These new data indicate that the site was visited repeatedly for a considerable period, indicating a well-established pattern of group cohesion, mobility and planning. These patterns are rarely evidenced in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Curtis Marean. Panagiotis Karkanas.

A series of sea caves and rock shelters with strong anthropogenic contributions are found at Pinnacle Point (PP) near Mossel Bay in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. Two of these (PP13B and PP5-6) have been the target of extensive archaeological excavation and both document anthropogenic and geogenic contributions waxing and waning over time. A variety of caves at PP do not bear anthropogenic remains, such as Staircase Cave and Crevice Cave. A third, PP29, is filled with sediment but...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Goodman-Elgar.

This paper brings a microstratigraphic perspective to debates about the origins of sociopolitical complexity though a study of floors from nondomestic structures. Such civic and ceremonial buildings are central to models of community formation and leadership development. In the Bolivian Middle Formative Period I (800-200 BCE) communities became aggregated and expanded the range of civic architecture as populations rose. Demonstrating these trends, the Kala Uyuni site expanded and developed two...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alan Simmons. Rolfe Mandel.

Akrotiri Aetokremnos is a small collapsed rockshelter that has provided evidence of the earliest well-documented human presence on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. It is, in fact, amongst the earliest numerically dated site on any of the Mediterranean islands. A large suite of radiocarbon ages indicates that Akrotiri Aetokremnos was occupied around 12,000 cal. B.P., during the Late Epipaleolithic. More controversial than the ages is the association of extinct endemic pygmy hippopotami with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ethan Watrall.

The spaces we inhabit and interact with on a daily basis are made up of layers of cultural activity that are, quite literally, built up over time. While museum exhibits, archaeological narratives, and public archaeology programs communicate this heritage, they do not generally allow for interactive, place-based, and individually driven exploration by the public. In recent years, mobile and augmented reality applications have offered both platforms and models for mobile heritage experiences that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Bollwerk. Eve Hargrave. Elizabeth Konwest. Rebecca Simon.

There is no doubt that public archaeology is delving into the digital realm. While the web provides a number of new and exciting avenues for the public to interact with archaeology, its complexity also introduces new challenges for individuals and organizations who want to use websites as an engagement tool. This paper discusses recent efforts to redesign a major online resource for public archaeology: the SAA's Archaeology For the Public website. The authors first provide a brief history of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carrie Heitman.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve been involved in various forms of "digital archaeology" with different forms of public and community outreach. In this paper I profile the more and less successful forms of public and community engagement entailed in these digital efforts. I also discuss current efforts to concurrently engage in humanistic and scientific forms of digital archaeology through communities of collaboration. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chiara Bonacchi. Andrew Bevan. Daniel Pett. Adi Keinan-Schoonbaert.

A core aim of public archeology is to study and strengthen the public value of archaeological research. In pursuing this goal, the MicroPasts project sees archaeological research, public engagement with archaeology and the study of the cultural, social and economic implications of citizen participation as overlapping and mutually reinforcing areas, that can generate high quality new resources (data, enhanced interpretations, skills, funding, etc.) and processes (e.g. methodological innovations,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Holly Wright. Michael Charno.

The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) continually explores new ways to make the data we hold more useful and accessible. One of these avenues has been the development of a mobile app called "Archaeology Britain", which we recently created in partnership with the British Library. This paper outlines the development of this partnership, and our attempt to create an iPad app with unique and interesting content from both organisations. The app presents antiquarian drawings, paintings and maps for some...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lorna-Jane Richardson.

This paper examines the impact of the democratic promises of Internet communication technologies, social, and participatory media on the practice of public archaeology in the UK. This work is based on my doctoral research undertaken from 2010-2014 and addresses the following issues: the provision of authoritative archaeological information online; barriers to participation; policy and organisational approaches to evaluating success and archiving; community formation and activism, and the impact...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Gann.

With a wide range of digital tools now being successfully utilized for capturing and modeling archaeological data, public archaeologists have realized how entertainment software (aka video games) can be repurposed to create compelling visualizations and interactive experiences to share our research on the people, landscapes, places, and objects of the past. Archaeology Southwest, with support from the National Science Foundation, recently began an effort to develop one such interactive...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Reinhard. Shawn Graham.

While there is an extensive literature on the pedagogical uses of video games in STEM education, and a comparitvely smaller literature for langagues, literature, and history, there is a serious dearth of scholarship surrounding videogames in their role as vectors for public archaeology. Moreover, video games work as 'digital public archaeology' in the ways their imagined pasts within the games deal with monuments, monumentality, and their own 'lore'. In this presentation, we play the past to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriel Moshenska.

This paper offers an overview of recent and emerging trends in digital public archaeology in the UK. It draws on examples of research and practice in public archaeology by academic, museum, amateur and professional archaeologists engaged in public engagement activities, as well as the emerging field of crowd-sourced and/or crowd-funded public archaeology in which digital public engagement has played a leading role. I take a sceptical view of some of the more extravagant claims made for digital...