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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Smith.

Flaked-stone crescents are an artifact type unique to the western portion of North America, and based on direct obsidian hydration and associated radiocarbon dates this artifact was used between the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene. Previous studies have attempted to uncover the function of this artifact, associated with the earliest inhabitants of western North America, hypothesizing the use of crescents as sickles, ulus or hide scraping tools, among other uses. Recent studies have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Igor Chechushkov.

There are 22 fortified settlements of the Middle Bronze Age discovered in Russia for last 40 years through the methods of aerial photography analysis and field excavations. All together they are known as Sintashta archeological culture of Southern Urals. The typical Sintashta settlement is usually enclosure consists of 1-4 meters deep ditch and the wall built of dirt and clay. However, the current analysis of the settlement patterning using GIS suggests that people chose the place of living...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juan Melendez.

At the core of the ancient Maya site of El Perú-Waka’, Petén, Guatemala, an elaborate burial was discovered inside Structure M12-32 dated to around AD 600. The burial contained human remains of a ruler, who probably belonged to the centipede dynasty, known in the past as Wak. The diversity of artifacts placed with the ruler, including a greenstone mosaic, pyrite mirror, and an alabaster vessel, suggest not only that this person was wealthy, but also asserts the important influence of El Perú...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Cruzado Carranza.

Many people in our society misunderstand the nature of archaeological fieldwork. The misunderstanding often results from a lack of open access with the public by professionals in our discipline. An aggressive shift to providing the public with information and education about archaeological research and the value of cultural heritage will address this concern. In the highlands of Ancash, Perú, a central objective of PIARA (Proyecto de Investigación Arqueológico Regional Ancash) promotes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jillian Okray. Ashley Christianson. Susan Spencer.

Cemetery grave sites allow a continual dialogue between the deceased and their descendants. Many living relatives choose to decorate graves with flowers, ceramic figurines, flags, letters, and decorative seasonal items. This study was aimed to examine the relationship between the deceased and loved ones who choose to decorate graves after burial. Two cemeteries in Evansville, Indiana were examined in order to investigate the typology of decorations and the length of time graves remained...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Clayton Meredith. Willa Trask. Keith Prufer.

Recent excavations at Tzib’te Yux, a small rockshelter in Southern Belize, have revealed evidence of human occupation in the area spanning the Paleoindian and Archaic periods. Strata dating to the Late Pliestocene contain abundant faunal remains, lithic debitage, and highly fragmentary human remains. Preliminary indicators suggest that a broad spectrum of food resources was exploited including considerable input of lotic protein sources as early as the Late Pliestocene with continued...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Gonzalez Lauck.

The Olmec site of La Venta in southeaster Mexico has a wide repertoire of sculptures known as "altars". These will be reviewed in terms of form and compared to similar kinds of sculptures in the Gulf Coast lowlands and other regions, in order to thematically and functionally differentiate between them. 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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Evan Parker. George Bey III. Tomás Gallareta Negrón. Stephanie Simms. Amanda Strickland.

Investigation of a hilltop residential complex at the Terminal Classic (A.D. 800-1000) Maya site of Escalera al Cielo in the Puuc region of Yucatán, Mexico has yielded one of the most holistic data sets on household life in this area of the Maya world. Horizontal excavations of over nine buildings, many with on-floor assemblages, have unveiled evidence for both the discrete and general functions of architectural spaces in the complex, including evidence of spaces used for storage, culinary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Ahlrichs.

The Red Ochre Burial Complex, like it’s later and more intensively studied Adena and Hopewell counterparts faces questions about its usefulness in understanding the cultural prehistory of the Western Great Lakes region. Over 50 years ago the complex was defined using a "trait list" approach. These traits are, for better or worse, still the clearest depiction of what is and is not a Red Ochre mortuary site. This study utilizes GIS to bring together disparate cultural data on a variety of Red...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Litschi. Kayeleigh Sharp.

Archaeometric approaches to ceramic analysis allow us to critically examine differences in ceramic manufacture and use. By integrating pXRF methods with spatial analysis, it becomes possible to contextualize such differences. Do elemental and technological differences correspond to distinct ceramic styles? Are these differences spatially meaningful? Attendant to our broader objective investigating Mochica-Gallinazo identity and coexistence at the Songoy-Cojal site complex, Zaña Valley north...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mariana Sanders. Stephen Acabado. John Peterson.

The Little Ice Age was a global phenomenon beginning in the late 13th century A.D. that impacted the northern Philippines by creating more arid conditions. This was more evident in the eastern lowlands of Luzon where northeastern trade winds were typically dry. Conversely, the central highlands of Ifugao and the Cordilleras were relatively more humid due to orographic relief. These conditions, caused by periodic volcanism cooling the northern hemisphere, forced the Inter-Tropical Convergence...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Hadel. Dr. Terendagva Yadmaa. Dr. Joan Schnieder. Jennifer Farquhar.

The creation of an exportable indigenous heritage management program for developing nations responds to a growing concern about the rapid effects of globalization and industrialization on the natural and cultural landscape. In 2010 an international partnership was formed between the Mongolian Institute of Archaeology, Denver Zoo, Anza-Borrego Foundation, and California State Parks with the goal of establishing a cultural heritage management program in the Ikh Nart Nature Reserve in the Northern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Warren. Sergio Calla. Sonia Alconini.

In the last decades prior to the Spanish conquest, the Inka Empire expanded its frontiers into the ethnically and culturally diverse region of the Bolivian Chaco, ushering in a brief period of limited colonial control over its indigenous inhabitants. In a geographically isolated area far from the imperial heartland, the Inkas and their imperial allies established settlements in the vicinity of Saipurú; in this context, several disparate highland and lowland cultures met, interacted, and created...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karla Oesch.

The unique nature of ceramics from the Mississippi Valley provides an important basis for detailed ceramic studies that serve to aid researchers in understanding social agency and processes. These ceramic assemblages, especially those dating to the Protohistoric period, will be the focus of this research. Ceramic vessels from counties in Arkansas and Mississippi will be used to compile database of design motifs, in addition to other ceramic characteristics. Using the dates from these sites, my...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joanne Mack.

The geology of Shasta Valley, California provides an extremely rich food resource for fish and shellfish, which produces abundant fish resources in the Shasta River and its tributaries, well documented by fishery biologists and historical records. The geographical location of the valley and the Upper Klamath River allows relatively easy access to high quality obsidian sources to the east, providing a valuable item for trade to the west. Consideration of the geology and geography allows for a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Heller.

Archaeological research has increasingly revealed the role of elite labor and influence in ancient Maya political economies. Rising awareness of the complexity of ancient Maya socioeconomic organization and attention to households as loci of production has led to new understandings of the structures and practices of production within elite households and the position of elite individuals in relations of production that extend beyond their households. Status-enhancing material goods of elite...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bobbi Hornbeck. Caroline Funk. Brian Hoffman. Debra Corbett. Nancy Bigelow.

Low mound groupings were defined during the multidisciplinary Rat Islands Research Project during the summer of 2014. These mounds are clustered in at least three areas on Kiska Island and Segula Island. Traditionally interpreted as "bird mounds" by non-Aleuts, these mounds were thought to be places where birds habitually sat over millennia. The hypothesis has been that subsequently enriched soils fostered exaggerated vegetation growth relative to the surrounding landscape. While various bird...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Perry Gnivecki. Michael Pateman. Ilya Buynevich.

In 2013, under the auspices of the Bahamas Antiquities, Monuments, and Museums Corporation, a re-survey of known prehistoric Lucayan sites on the island of Eleuthera was conducted in order to assess coastal storm surge and hurricane damage. In addition, two sites were subjected to test excavations in order to recover carbonized material suitable for carbon-14 dating. ground penetrating radar (GPR) was used to identify subsurface features. Both sites, were partially covered by contemporary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Janene Johnston. Lara Homsey-Messer. Karla Johnston.

Calcitic plant ashes are a ubiquitous indicator of anthropogenic activity at archaeological sites. In conducive preservation environments, ashes may form undisturbed deposits in which individual ash crystals remain intact and identifiable. Under these conditions, ashes afford a unique opportunity to better understand both the human selection of fuel as well as to investigate changes in vegetation communities in response to climate change. This study seeks to characterize ash crystal morphologies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Swoger.

Three dimensional (3D) imaging technologies are being increasingly utilized by archaeologists to improve the accuracy of material analysis. To facilitate the development of these technologies, it is crucial to determine the limits of different devices and materials. This project focused on the challenge of scanning obsidian blades with the Next Engine HD 3D Laser Scanner, a popular and inexpensive choice among researchers. The Next Engine device was used to scan six small obsidian blades from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Hodges. Brandy Rinck.

The Bear Creek site (45KI839) in Redmond, Washington, has yielded important information about Native American settlement, subsistence, and technology in the Puget Lowlands during the Late Pleistocene-Holocene transition (LPH). The depositional sequence within the site represents a well-preserved stratigraphic and archaeological record extending from the postglacial and early Holocene, and is characterized by several clearly expressed shifts in depositional environments. The high amount of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca D'Occhio. Julien Riel-Salvatore.

We present a preliminary analysis of the Late Mousterian lithic assemblages from Riparo Bombrini, in Northwestern Italy. Riparo Bombrini is an important site because it contains some of the most recent Neanderthal occupations for that region. Our analysis includes both retouched pieces and unretouched debitage, focusing especially on piece dimensions; the presence, kind, and intensity of retouch; platform and termination types; as well as raw material procurement. These multiple dimensions...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Ziegenbein.

Since the 1990s, archaeologists have increasingly become interested in teasing apart the varied experiences of the past. Feminist and critical race frameworks have forced a reconsideration of the stories that have been told and whose viewpoints have been privileged in historical interpretation. One area that remains undertheorized and poorly understood across the discipline is the role impairment has played and its effect on people and society. This paper considers what an archaeology of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacquelyn Bluma.

This study describes statistics of life expectancies among the immigrant population and its sub-sets throughout the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries in southeastern Wisconsin. At this time, German populations were becoming established as a major cultural and ethnic force in Milwaukee and the surrounding counties. Data from individuals disinterred from two unmarked cemeteries in Ozaukee county were analyzed to assess cultural and physical disparities in the mortuary record among these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Wiewel.

The Protohistoric period in the southeastern United States is known for being a time of social upheaval and transformation. Groups living in the Central Arkansas River Valley during the early seventeenth century had to contend with the aftermath of the De Soto entrada, severe drought conditions associated with the Little Ice Age, and perhaps widespread population movement accompanying the dissolution of chiefdoms in the Mississippi Valley. Societal coalescence is one strategy that many later...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kassi Bailey.

Small vertebrate remains are often ubiquitous in archaeological contexts, with rodent and microvertebrate activity recognized as a common source of disturbance. On the other hand, small vertebrates can have great significance for archaeological interpretation because they provide key evidence, directly or indirectly, on human subsistence and settlement behaviors, such as food storage, sedentism, seasonality, and site abandonment. This poster presents the results of a preliminary analysis of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Colene Knaub. Nicole Jacobson. Kate Flor-Stagnato.

Records of human rights violations precede biblical times and have shown no signs of decelerating despite the contemporary measures taken to clearly define such atrocities. In the case of the Armenian Genocide, committed by the Ottoman Empire during WWI, the Young Turk government took great care as to restrict the publication of photographs and reports that would expose the widely condoned practice and to this day claim to have no responsibilty or knowledge of such occurrences. The physical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Yankowski. Puangthip Kerdsap.

Using an ethnoarchaeological approach, this paper examines the production, processing, storage and consumption of salt and salt fermented fish products In the Mun River Valley of Northeast Thailand, and the greater Mekong Delta region. It highlights the regional specialization in these products from prehistory to the present, and explores how the study of foodways can help us to understand the nature of the early-political economy, as well as aspects of cultural and social identity, both in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mackenzie Miller.

The Oneota culture has dated in La Crosse Wisconsin to between AD 1300-1625 (Boszhardt 1994). Single component sites have allowed for definition of specific ceramic types and attributes as diagnostic of each of three phases. Previous excavations and analysis of materials recovered from the Tremaine site (47-LC-95) by the Wisconsin Historical Society revealed pottery and radiocarbon dates corresponding to all of the phases (O’Gorman 1995). During the summers of 2011 to 2014, new excavations by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Virginia Mcrostie.

This research is part of the ongoing Conicyt-NSF project "WATER MANAGEMENT AND AGROHYDRAULIC SYSTEMS IN DESERT ENVIRONMENTS: THE UPPER LOA FROM A.D. 1000 – 1500". Complex irrigation systems and extensive terraces are silent testimony to the outstanding achievement of these agricultural societies in a highly arid and extreme environment. Within an interdisciplinary framework, archaeobotanical analyses are providing preliminary and novel information about the crops that were planted during...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sunnie Sartin. Winona Patterson. Kristen Corl. Todd Scarbrough. Angel Pena.

The Twin Pines site, located in the Gila National Forest, New Mexico, is a large Mimbres site that shows signs of multiple occupational periods spanning the Late Pithouse Phase (AD 550-1000) through the Mimbres Classic phase (AD 1000-1130). On the basis of recent mapping and reconnaissance, the Twin Pines site can provide crucial information about the Mimbres culture. First, it is a large Mimbres site which lies farther north of the extensively studied Mimbres Valley and most other sites of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Salgán. Paz Pompei. Adolfo Gil. Gustavo Neme.

Obsidian sources in northern Patagonian reflect they early use (ca. 8000 years BP). Provenance studies conducted so far realize that obsidian sources located in the Andes even with limited access (only during the summer) are those that reflect a wider spatial dispersion and more continuous use than those located in the plains. In this way, the sources located in the plains, reflect a local use and for the last 1000 years BP. This presentation compares the results of the technological studies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Bender.

The Corps of Discovery Expedition traveled the stretch of the Missouri River that today divides Nebraska from South Dakota in August of 1804. From their vantage point on the river, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark both note an abandoned Omaha village at the mouth of what is now Bow Creek, Cedar county, Nebraska. The explorers' map identifies the village as having been founded by Omaha leader Little Bow after branching off of the main Omaha tribe. Since the 1940's archeogists have made attempts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sofia Pacheco-Fores.

The social meaning of cranial modification in the Andes has long been debated. Ethnohistoric accounts recorded by Spanish priests and travelers after the conquest assert that within Inca Peru, the practice of cranial modification was related to social status. They claimed that the Inca royal family preferred a particular head shape, and only certain noble families were permitted to reproduce that shape. In contrast, non-elite Inca supposedly practiced strictly local traditions of cranial...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tanya Chiykowski.

Archaeologists study the movement of potters, materials and techniques to understand migration and exchange on both a local and regional scale. Modern international divisions, such as the Mexican- US border, interrupt these research questions in the Greater Southwest culture area. In Sonora, archaeologists have clear evidence of population upheaval after AD 1300; Southern Arizona Hohokam groups migrated into the Altar Valley, bringing with them new ceramic technologies and displacing a resident...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tomás Gallareta Cervera. George J. Bey III. Rossana May Ciau.

Research on the site of Kiuic, in the Puuc region of the Yucatán Peninsula, has recovered evidence of a long and continuous period of building activity that dates from approximately 700 B.C. to A.D. 900. The construction sequence of Structure N1065E1025, a nine meter temple-pyramid located at the center of the site, evidences episodic changes that transformed the building from a raised platform in the Middle Preclassic to the center of a royal court in the Late Classic and finally a ceremonial...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Roger Sierra. Traci Ardren. William Pestle.

The Stock Island site (8MO2), located in the southernmost Florida Keys, was a black dirt midden affiliated with the Glades tradition. Construction of the Monroe County Detention Center in the 1980s destroyed the site, necessitating the uncontrolled and uncontextualized recovery of a large quantity of ceramics and faunal (osteological and malacological) remains. Unprovenienced collections from this salvage work reside in numerous repositories across the state of Florida. In this work, we present...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Vadala.

The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset used alongside 3D site reconstructions provides a huge potential for a phenomenologically based landscape analysis. This presentation explores the methods and results of a study using these technologies that focuses on understanding the diachronic changes in the construction of ritual space at the Maya site of Cerros, Belize. Site maps were modeled in 3D according to each historic phase and converted for use in a highly immersive and interactive video game...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Louis Fortin. Donna Nash.

This research investigates lithic artifacts, and debitage recovered from Middle Horizon (A.D. 550 – 1000) households in the Moquegua Valley, Peru to assess models of Wari state expansion and polity interaction. While lithic technology, in the form of formal and informal flake tools, are present throughout complex societies, they are traditionally overlooked by archaeologists and result in few published studies. This study examines two Wari sites (Cerro Baul and Cerro Mejia) in the upper Moquegua...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Herdrich. Christopher Filimoehala.

In 2013 an archaeological survey was conducted on Swains Island, American Samoa, a remote atoll in western Polynesian. This paper presents a comparative analysis of a traditional Polynesian religious structure known as a tupua that was identified and documented during the survey. The tupua is a unique structure when compared to other religious structures that have been described in the archaeological and ethnohistorical literature. However, analysis shows that individual structural features are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katharine Fernstrom.

Objects are central to looting. The illegally excavated object has a relationship to the past person who produced it; the landscape that held it; the person who clandestinely excavates it; and the people who sell and buy it. To date, in the United States, there are no systematic multi-State data assemblages that can be used to analyze the culture and behavior of looters. Studies of dealers and collectors examine object relationships after the looting has occurred. Understanding the connection...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Scharf.

With construction beginning about 3,700 years ago, Poverty Point (16WC5) in northeast Louisiana is one of the earliest and largest sites of its kind in the United States. What were conditions like when people began constructing the mounds? What kind of environment did they live in? How did this change (or not change) over time? This poster presents lithological and palynological evidence covering the period before, during, and after prehistoric occupation at this site. Comparing and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Ewing.

The technical ability of women to engineer clothes as adaptation to the harsh arctic environment in Indigenous North America has not been extensively investigated. My research focuses on the analysis of the thermal and transpiration properties of Arctic clothing. The materials chosen for clothing have certain inherent properties that include species of animal selected, different tanning processes, patterning of the garments, seam construction, and tailoring. All these properties play into the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Long.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (SEKI) has evidence of a well-established trade network for raw lithic material, specifically obsidian. Obsidian was widely traded throughout the central and southern Sierra, since local material was unsuitable for tool manufacture. High elevation archaeological sites, such as those observed at Taboose Pass (11,400 feet in elevation), consist of high density obsidian lithic scatters with tools, blanks, and diagnostic projectile points. Low density...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yuichi Nakazawa. Fumito Akai.

Recent progress of obsidian hydration dating (OHD) notably in accurate estimates of effective hydration temperature (EHT) and systematic measurements of rim thickness has now extended the utility of OHD to evaluate chronometric dates of prehistoric sites in various climatic conditions. The present paper discusses the reliability of OHD as the dating method, through a comparison of multiple specimens that were recently obtained from prehistoric sites in temperate and subarctic regions in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kassie Sugimoto. Ann Ross. Danielle Kurin.

The role of climatic conditions on sociopolitical systems has been a highly discussed theme in archaeology. Over the past decade, archaeology has had great advancement in the realms of method and theory which have facilitated interpretations of environmental influences on social development. This paper presents research that investigates the biological responses to either environmental or social stresses to help elucidate how ancient Andean populations coped during periods of climatic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Rankin.

It has been suggested that high elevations are highly demanding environments, poor in resources, and only heavily used to procure high ranked animal prey. In the Great Basin Steward’s work with the Shoshone and Piute showed that valley and foothill resources dominated subsistence patterns with high altitude resources playing only a minor role for hunting. In the Great Basin and Rocky Mountains however, there is evidence of high altitude residential sites in both the White Mountains of eastern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Becker. Paul Goldstein.

Diverse, lower elevation areas were home to producers and procurers of goods not easily grown or obtainable in the South Central Andean heartland of the Tiwanaku state. Various Tiwanaku colonial settlement clusters, near present-day Moquegua, Peru, comprised one such region. Tiwanaku colonists in this area participated in activities that included farming of corn and coca, as well as transportation of goods between the heartland and colony. For example, Omo-style (Omo M16D and Rio Muerto M70...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia Longo. Cyrus Banikazemi. Brian Billman. Patrick Mullins.

During the July field season of 2014, the authors conducted a survey of sites within the proposed reserves of Ciudad de Dios and Bello Horizonte in the Middle Moche Valley of Peru. GPS data was collected for comparison with previously recorded site boundaries to offer insight into the threat of modern encroachment on archaeological sites. Using GIS and statistical analysis, the authors identified areas of site degradation and loss, categorized each site on a sliding scale of endangerment, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia Burtenshaw. Diana Magaloni. Johannes Neurath.

The study of objects that are without context or provenience, as we most often find in museum collections, is challenging. Focusing on LACMA’s collection of Colombian ceramics, this paper will present the results of research carried out by the Program for the Art of the Ancient Americas at LACMA, and examine procedures and outcomes of integrating historical, ethnographic, and archaeological data for interpreting museum objects. Colonial text sources convey a sense of the impression that 16th...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lylliam Posadas Vidales.

This research will address how contemporary archaeology can be used to explore notions of identity, gender expression and self-determination, community belonging, and the value of queer cultural heritage, with an emphasis on the experiences and engagement of queer and trans youth. Queer and trans youth are organizing in their schools and communities to create change that affects their lives and the lives of their friends and families. They are creating new language for queer and trans identities...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Smallwood. Thomas Jennings. David Anderson. Jerald Ledbetter.

For the Southeast, Meeks and Anderson (2012) propose Younger Dryas climate changes triggered a human population crash and/or substantial reorganization. We use the Georgia point record in the Paleoindian Database of the Americas to test for evidence of changes in landscape use through the Paleoindian period and consider these changes in the context of the Georgia paleoenvironmental record spanning the YD. Based on differences in point frequencies, distributions, stone types, and transport...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren OBrien. Jennie O. Sturm.

In June of 2014, multiple pithouse sites within the Taos Valley were surveyed with ground-penetrating radar (GPR). GPR survey was employed to map two known pithouse sites and two possible pithouse sites. The Taos Valley ranges dramatically in elevation and terrain, many times leaving the surface indications of sites nonexistent. Also, the components (features) of each site exist at different depths. Because GPR is a high resolution mapping method that allows features of interest to be analyzed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katie Zejdlik.

The Mississippian period is exceptional for the fast and wide ranging influence it had on the mid-continent. Processes behind the Mississippianization of the Midwest are often derived from explanations of trade or religion as inferred from the presence of material culture and site organization. It is unknown to what level direct contact occurred. Biological distance investigation using odontometrics and dental discrete trait analysis was conducted on individuals from Late Woodland and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra McDougle. Adam Lauer.

The Ifugao Archaeological Project (IAP) seeks to develop a holistic understanding of the peoples of the Philippine Cordillera, specifically the bio-cultural adaptations to colonizing forces and environmental change. Presently relatively little is known about dental development and it's relationship to long bone growth given that current evidence regarding prehistoric Ifugao neonate and infant health is scarce. This study examines a dental sample from 15 neonate and infant skeletons...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Brown. James Chatters. Patrick McCutcheon. Jon Adler. James Feathers.

Radiometric dating is problematic in non-midden sites of the Pacific Northwest. Charcoal is ubiquitous in the forest soils and unburned bone readily dissolves. This fact impedes development of a regional chronologies and understanding of the process of resource intensification that was so important to development of Northwest cultures. To alleviate this deviciency, DirectAMS and Central Washington University undertook research to demonstrate the validity of alternatives to traditional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eugene Morin. John D. Speth. Julia Lee-Thorp.

This paper examines dietary patterns amongst Middle Palaeolithic foragers in Europe and southwest Asia from ca 300 to 40 thousand years ago. In both regions, faunal studies show that a relatively narrow range of presumably high-ranked animal species—mostly medium- to large-sized ungulates—was hunted. The present review stresses the importance of considering fat procurement and the effects of transport constraints on faunal assemblages while assessing the diet composition of Middle Palaeolithic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Petra Cunningham-Smith. Elizabeth Graham.

The zooarchaeological remains associated with ancient coastal communities are an important source of information on how past societies used their natural resources. They reflect people’s interaction with their environment and can yield information on how these interactions affected culture, economy and—not least—the ecology of such areas. The research presented here is an analysis of large invertebrate remains, primarily conch but also other large mollusks found at the ancient Maya site of Marco...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Elizabeth Graff.

Mortuary contexts are archaeologically and anthropologically ambiguous. Moreover, mutilcomponent-use archaeological sites are difficult to interpret as the original purpose of these designated spaces reflects the ever changing living society. The ancient Roman site of Troia is a multicomponent-use site. Originally constructed as a Garum production and distribution center, in fact the largest known in the Western Roman Empire, Troia was also utilized as a cemetery throughout its use from the 1st...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margaret Homko.

The Orkney archipelago, at the northern end of Scotland, has a rich and well preserved record of Neolithic settlement. Radiocarbon dates from northern Scotland indicate the establishment of farming communities quite soon after those in southern England. However, the process by which agriculturalists reached these far northern territories is still not well understood. Faunal analysts (Watson 1931, Noddle 1983) have drawn attention to an apparent distinction in morphology between the cattle...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyra Pazan. Robert A. Cook.

This study analyzes faunal remains from a recently excavated house at the Guard Site in southeast Indiana, which was occupied by the Fort Ancient culture between AD 1000 and AD 1300 during a period of optimal climate in the American Midwest. During such periods, abundant resources and low stress allow people to pursue more desired resources. In the case of Fort Ancient, the key species was the white-tailed deer. We hypothesize that Guard’s inhabitants were free to pursue large deer in the primes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chihhua Chiang.

This is a multi-stage project intending to extrapolate the possible usages of various stone tools excavated from the Neolithic Wansan site in Northern Taiwan. In this poster, I want to demonstrate the preliminary results of the first stage that tries to identify possible patterns of tool use-wear. There are abundant finely ground lithic tools uncovered from the Wansan site. Previous research categorized these tools based on their morphology, and classified these tools as projectile points,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Conger. Adam Watson.

Previous investigations of craft industries at Chacoan great houses have focused largely on finished objects (e.g., ceramics, turquoise, and shell). This study explores an often overlooked but ubiquitous and highly diverse class of artifacts – ground stone abraders – in an effort to better understand the organization of production at Pueblo Bonito great house. Analysis of variation in form of these versatile implements provides insight into the range of craft items manufactured. Drawing on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tekla Schmaus.

Our understanding of the structure of pastoralist societies in prehistoric Eurasia is currently being reevaluated in light of new data from a range of sources. I present the results of a cementum annulation study done on domestic sheep teeth from prehistoric pastoralist communities in Semirech’ye, Kazakhstan. These data provide evidence that past mobility patterns were not necessarily rigidly dictated by seasonal climate conditions. Rather, although the environment was certainly a major factor...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steve Wolverton. Andrew Barker. Jonathan Dombrosky. Barney Venables. Stanley Stevens.

Protein residues were identified from zooarchaeological turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), rabbit (Leporidae), and squirrel (Sciuridae) remains from ancient pueblo archaeological sites in southwestern Colorado using a non-targeted LC-MS/MS approach. Results indicate that protein residues preserve well in tissues of origin, such as bone. Trace levels of protein residues from artifacts are more problematic to characterize because of poor preservation and due to several methodological challenges. ...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Keith Eppich.

This paper present new work from the analysis of recovered ceramic vessels from the Classic Maya site of El Peru-Waka'. The research focuses on the development and evolution of four shape-classes from AD 300 to AD 1000. These include presentation platters, cacao vessels, small drinking cups, and bowls. These were serving vessels, designed not only to hold foodstuffs, but as social and political currency in their own right. They were to be present at Classic feasting events to display the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kate Magargal.

In arid, topographically variable desert environments, resources important to humans are typically distributed heterogeneously. This variability required prehistoric humans to evaluate trade-offs over accessing spatially distinct patches. A potentially important and largely unexplored resource in these trade-offs is firewood. This work examines the distribution of archaeological sites along the watershed of the Dolores River of southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. With new archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Sutton.

Dispersal of human populations is often perceived as synonymous with abandonment and collapse. Alternatively, cross-cultural studies of historic and contemporary dispersal suggest it should instead be considered a strategic adaptation to external pressures. I argue that strategic dispersal represents a conscious, purposeful transformation of social and cultural structures in the face of bifurcation, resulting in cultural continuity and the selective adoption of external cultural traits and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Evan Tudor Elliott. Thomas Origer. Katherine Dowdall.

One of the most unique, enigmatic, and intriguing artifacts of the Western United states is the flaked-stone crescent. Crescents are tools that have been bifacially reduced into a crescent shape, although in some, referred to as "eccentrics," this form is extensively modified with multiple notches or extensions to their inner and outer margins. These lithics capture the imagination of both professionals and the public, reflected in the 1991 designation of a "bear-shaped" eccentric crescent as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Stuck. Claudio Carini. Beatrice Villagomez. Jerry Moore.

This paper will address the validity of the claim that the Battle of Rancho Dominguez (Battle of Old Woman’s Gun) took place on the lower terrace of the Rancho Dominguez. In the summer of 1846, the US military took control of Los Angeles. Soon after, the Mexican Army was able to regain the city. Captain Mervine, of the US military, landed his troops in San Pedro hoping to regain Los Angeles. Folk history tells of Captain Mervine’s troops being besieged in the early hours by Californios, wielding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elijah Hermitt. Kirk French.

Many sites in the Maya Lowlands relied heavily on water storage features in order to sustain the annual dry season. However, in Palenque the opposite challenge was presented, as there was an abundance of perennial water flowing through the city. Palenque’s ancient name of Lakamha’ or Big Water was indicative of this issue. In response, there were intricate water management systems constructed in order to divert the water underground through aqueducts. In May of 2014, the Palenque Pool Project...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victoria Sluka. Chase M. Anderson. Donna M. Glowacki. Edward J. Stech.

Although Mesa Verde Black-on-white pottery paste and temper have been well-studied, the composition of the decorative black paints and white background slips to identify available resources and the varying recipes used across time and space has received much less attention. Paints are typically categorized as either coal-based (organic) or iron-based (mineral), and archaeologists have long used visual differences to identify these two paint bases. While it has been shown that even novices can...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Grooms. Norman Easton. Mary Samolczyk. Joel Cubley.

The Little John Site (KdVo-6), Yukon Territory, Canada, contains the presence of Chindadn complex (East Beringian Tradition), Denali complex (Paleoarctic Tradition), Northern Archaic Tradition, and Late Prehistoric artifacts in unique stratified contexts. The site contains loess/paleosol stratigraphic sequences dating to the Wisconsin Interstadial c. 44,000 years ago, and cultural deposits from the Late Pleistocene to the recent past. Optically Stimulated Luminescence and Accelerator Mass...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Alonzo.

This study investigates the rarely studied iconography of Pseudo-Cloisonné vessels from Jalisco and Zacatecas through a comparison with earlier portable imagery. Recent interpretations of the shaft tomb figures of the Formative/Classic periods have begun to interpret their religious and political content and contextualize them archaeologically. But imagery in western Mexico takes a radical new turn in the Epiclassic period (AD 500-900), when the most elaborate iconography is found on the complex...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Kessler.

Geoarchaeological fieldwork has documented an alluvial deposit associated with a flood event which overtopped a relatively high terrace in the Kansas River Valley near present day Topeka, Kansas. The deposit, defined as an overwash phase, exhibits structures indicative of flowing water. The overwash phase’s position, overlying a historic Kaw Village, corroborates second hand historic accounts which date its origin to a flood in the year A.D. 1844. This flood event probably resulted in the rapid...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Vernon. Kate Magargal. Ashley Grimes. Will Rath. Brian Codding.

Ethnohistoric accounts suggest that fire played a significant role in Great Basin foraging strategies; however, there is little quantitative data on why, where, or when people burned. To begin to fill this gap, we develop a behavioral ecological model designed to test predictions about the impact of anthropogenic fires on hunter-gatherer diet breadth. We conduct an ethnographic test of the model using historic band-level variation in prey choice coupled with ecological data on variation in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Bergin.

During the sixth millennium BC agropastoral subsistence spread rapidly across Mediterranean Europe. The results of the currently available radiocarbon chronology suggest that this transition may have occurred in less than 1,000 years. The swift proliferation of new types of material culture and new modes of subsistence has led researchers to hypothesize that the appearance of agriculture in the west Mediterranean was the result of a migration of farmers, the adoption of agriculture by indigenous...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kong Cheong. Chris Carleton. Dan Savage. James Conolly. Gyles Iannone.

In 2012, a settlement survey was conducted on the North Vaca Plateau in west-central Belize as part of the Social Archaeology Research Program (SARP). The survey was intended to test the predictions of a new archaeological potential assessment method called the Locally-Adaptive Model of Archaeological Potential (LAMAP). A LAMAP assessment was produced for Minanha, a Classic Maya civic-ceremonial center, which served as the first case study for the new method. When conducting the survey to test...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jenna Domeischel. Leland Bement. Scott Hammerstedt.

The erosion and subsequent looting of archaeological materials from reservoir sites has long been a cause for concern. The damming of rivers results in the inundation of prehistoric camp and burial sites. Human remains and associated burial goods are a favorite of looters, and are frequently exposed by the rise and fall of reservoir waters. This project employs geospatial analysis of the Lake Altus-Lugert reservoir in southwestern Oklahoma to locate high-risk sites before they are exposed to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolyn White. Elizabeth Bennett. Laura Sechrist.

Granite Creek Station was one of several significant stopping places for emigrants, travelers, saddle trains, and stagecoaches passing through the Black Rock Desert region of Northern Nevada on their way to California in the mid-19th century. The site functioned as a campsite, trading post, ranch, stagecoach station, and military camp. As a site along the emigrant trail, it was the locus of extraordinary pain and suffering by travellers, described in their own words through diaries and letters....

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Lewandowski.

This poster examines the changes in the social networks of the Mogollon Highlands that accompanied the transition to pueblo architecture around A.D. 1000 using Social Network Analysis (SNA). SNA offers a set of formal methods in which ties and relations between sites can are examined. Using the proportions of decorated ceramics within a site’s assemblage, social networks are created for 50-year intervals, allowing for changes in the networks to be observed before and after the pithouse-to-pueblo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Mueller. Ted Goebel. Julie Esdale. Kelly Graf.

In 2014 archaeologists from Texas A&M University and Colorado State University began a long-term excavation of the McDonald Creek site (FAI-2043), located in the Tanana valley of central Alaska. In this paper we present our initial results. At least two terminal Pleistocene cultural components with preserved living floors, lithic artifacts, faunal and floral remains have been unearthed, respectively dating to about 14,000 and 12,600 cal BP. At the end of the 2014 field season, a probe unearthed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eugenio Bortolini.

The dynamics of cultural change and transmission are consistently interwoven with processes of human interaction, demic movements, and population history (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldmann 1981, Boyd and Richerson 1985, Renfrew 1992). Linguistic and genetic coevolution was first envisaged by Darwin (1859) and subsequently addressed in several studies (Sokal 1988; Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1988; Belle and Barbujani 2007; Gray et al 2007; Bouckaert et al. 2012; de Filippo et al. 2012). However, traditional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Guiterman. Thomas Swetnam. Jeffrey Dean. Nathan English. Christopher Baisan.

Materials arriving in Chaco Canyon from AD 900 to 1150 came from many distant sources, and the necessary construction timbers for the great houses are no exception. Here we present tree-ring sourcing of great house construction timbers and the plaza tree of Pueblo Bonito (the "rooted tree", labeled JPB-99). To source these trees, we compared their tree-ring growth patterns to a network of millennial-length tree-ring chronologies surrounding the San Juan Basin. For JPB-99, we present new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Crebbin. Chelsea Rose. Shana Sandor.

Jim Rock was an historical archaeologist known for his passion for the humble ‘Tin Can.’ Prior to his death in 2010, Rock spend much of his lengthy career with the Forest Service focusing on education and outreach. Rock amassed a large comparative collection of bottles and cans, which he housed in suitcases and carted around teaching both the public and the professional archaeological community about the importance of often overlooked and undervalued artifacts, particularly cans. Rock’s 1987...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edines Pebe. Camila Capriata.

The Qhapaq Ñan or great Andean Road was declared World Heritage by UNESCO in June 2014. The road located between the Pachacamac Sanctuary and the Inca administrative center of Hatun Xauxa, located in the central highlands of Peru, not only constituted one of the main sections of this network, but was also one of the segments selected for this declaration. Following this process, a series of conservation projects have started taking place along this network in the segments that have been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Moy.

This poster assesses the applicability of the term "Neolithic" to describe the beginning of sedentism and agriculture in Ethiopia, and whether we can compare it to similar periods in other regions. The use of the term "Neolithic" has been criticized in recent years (Finlayson 2011; Zeder 2009) both for the implication that the period was one of revolution and its associated package of characteristics. This designation originally derived from the definition of the term as including the birth of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matczak Magdalena.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the biographies of two peculiar women from early medieval Poland, one from Ostrow Lednicki and the other from Kaldus sites, both of which were the capitals of the Polish state. This paper presents the most representative and interesting biographies of the ill and the disabled from these sites. The very best sample for such a study is the giant woman whose skeleton was discovered in the cemetery on the Ostrow Lednicki. Her height was 215,5 cm. Osteoma of skull...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Raul Zambrano. Camila Capriata.

Lately, several research projects have been taking place in the Lurin valley, central coast of Peru, in archaeological sites dating to the Late Intermediate Period (s. XVII-XV) and the Late Horizon (s. XV-XVI). This work has been complemented with recent studies focused on the presence of a segment of the Qhapaq Ñan and its importance as an articulating axis between these settlements during the Late Horizon. Preliminary results of these research studies have allowed us to reevaluate hypothesis...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emma James. Erik Otárola-Castillo. Jessica Thompson. Shannon McPherron.

Zooarchaeologists use traces on bones to understand something about the ecology and subsistence behaviour of our ancestors. Although we may not be equipped with the proper interpretive analogues to understand the possible range of roles hominins had in past ecosystems, numerous taphonomic studies have investigated the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of natural and cultural bone surface modifications (BSM). Most experimental taphonomic research relies on 'naturalistic' simulated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Merritt.

Assemblage-scale proportions of modified specimens are difficult to link with hominins’ early versus late carcass access because fragmentation and other taphonomic processes affect assemblage composition and taphonomic trace visibility. This work advocates butchered specimen interpretation and describes the skeletal location of butchery traces inflicted during the sequence of carcass consumption behaviors. Tool-assisted carcass consumption is divided into early (defleshing limbs), middle...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Krigbaum. Christina M. Giovas. George D. Kamenov.

Increasingly, studies seeking to understand the interconnectivity of pre-Columbian Caribbean island societies have employed isotopic approaches to identify the movement of peoples and goods between islands and continents. These investigations advance reconstructions of mobility and exchange, and their social context, by providing robust data on the non-local status of archaeological remains and their ultimate origins. Here we report on the results of strontium (87Sr/86Sr) and lead isotope...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angelique Neffe.

The study applies a qualitative and quantitative characterization of polished jade tools from Cape Espenberg in Northwestern Alaska, dated from the Thule period. An experimental study of polishing techniques on jade was carried out in order to reproduce diagnostic use-wear traces associated with different polishing techniques, processing, and craft activities. The study was carried out at the Laboratory of Tribology and Systems Dynamics - Ecole Centrale Lyon 2 and was based on different scales...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Morgan. Tristan Carter.

While the obsidian used by southern Aegean prehistoric communities has long been known to derive primarily from Melos, there has been little investigation regarding the relative importance of the two Melian quarries – Sta Nychia and Dhemenegaki. This study employed portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry to investigate this question and begin to map regional traditions of obsidian source selection during the 3rd millennium BC. The 715 artifacts analyzed derive from 11 Early Bronze I - late...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Picard. Rachel McTavish.

The late prehistoric landscape of Southeastern Wisconsin was characterized by the dynamic interaction of at least three distinct ceramic cultures. The Aztalan site (47JE001) has yielded both Late Woodland and Middle Mississippian vessels dating between A.D. 1000-1200, indicating a period of cultural coexistence. At the nearby Crescent Bay Hunt Club Site (47JE904), in the Lake Koshkonong locality, Upper Mississippian Oneota ceramics have been recovered; no indication of a coexistent occupation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alina Tichinin. Eric Bartelink. Gunita Zarina. Sabrina Sholts. Sebastian Wärmländer.

In this study we investigated 28 skeletons of children (age 0-18 years) from a 17 th-18th century cemetery in the city of Jēkabpils, Latvia. The cemetery is located in the city center, and was part of a salvage excavation effort in 2011 due to ongoing construction work. It is still unclear to which church and Christian denomination the cemetery belonged. Bioarchaeological evidence indicates high mortality for children: half of the burials were children under the age of 14, while a third were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Valerie Bondura. Alfonso Fanjul Peraza. Vanesa Trevin Pita.

During the 2014 field season of the Archaeology of Violence in Asturias Project, a survey of caves in the Spanish province of Asturias was undertaken with the aim to document the usage of these subterranean shelters during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and their continued importance as vital landscape features in the guerrilla resistance movement (1939-65). These caves-- as well as other features such as roads, valleys, industrial buildings, and villages-- have long been ignored in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martina Láznicková-Galetová. Tomáš Zikmund. Marie Šejnohová. Jozef Kaiser.

This poster examines the utilization of non-destructive and non-invasive microCT analysis to identify raw materials used to fabricate Gravettian artifacts, assess their current state of conservation and work out a procedure for treatment of artifacts in a problematic state of preservation. Raw materials and manufacturing technology of Gravettian personal ornaments from Dolní Věstonice (Czech republic) made from hard animal tissues, such as mammoth ivory, can only be identified using the microCT...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pascale Meehan. Rachel Egan.

Increasingly, archaeologists recognize the value of oral tradition and ethnohistorical records in as sources of regional historical knowledge that can contribute to archaeological interpretation. This paper will combine examples from two regions, the Pueblo area of New Mexico and Colorado and the area of Santa Maria Zacatepec, Oaxaca. The section on the Pueblo area will examine how Pueblo oral migration stories and traditional knowledge have directed archaeological investigations and informed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Christie.

This paper will reassess relationships between the Inka and the Canari in the northern frontier zones of the Inka empire through local archaeological data. So far, scholarly knowledge about the Canari has been based upon ethnographic descriptions provided in various Spanish sources. The Canari have been characterized as a strong-willed independent people who offered fierce resistance to Inka domination. They were entrenched in the civil war between Waskhar and Atawallpa and eventually their...