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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Urban. Ian Buvit. Steven Hackenberger. Robert Jacob. Jeffrey Rasic.

The Slaven’s Roadhouse Site in the Yukon-Charley National Preserve, Alaska, is a multi-component archaeological site with historic age buildings and a prehistoric record dating to at least 4,000 B.P. The site is located on a deep, stratified river terrace along the Yukon River. Work conducted in 2008 revealed a mid-Holocene age cultural component at a depth of 0.5 m, however, the stratified deposits extend as deep as 6 m and have good potential to contain significant archaeological deposits...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexis Torrano. Andreas Angourakis. Veronica Martinez. Josep Maria Gurt.

Pottery technology is a well-studied field of archaeological research. However, particular contributions are often limited to a partial characterization, due to the technical and theoretical backgrounds of the researchers involved. Pottery samples are interrogated separately through chemical analyses, petrographic characterization and the assignation to both decorative and functional classes. In most cases, the results of such myriad of studies remain relatively unconnected up to a general...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Stutts.

At present, the archaeological record of eastern Oklahoma reflects abundant evidence of prehistoric occupation in the region’s river valleys, from the Paleoindian period onward. Conversely, little archaeological work has been done in the upland environments of the Western Ouachita Mountains. Yet these uplands are notably rich in resources, ranging from high quality lithic sources, lush plant-life, diverse animal species, and many streams and rivers providing water throughout the year. I...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Voeller. Ann Ross.

One problem forensic archaeologists have encountered during the investigation of mass graves is the commingling of human remains. Commingling can consist of disarticulated body parts, and can be more complex when remains are skeletonized or fragmented. Methods exist to address this problem; however, some are costly while others are time consuming. It has been shown that mapping the three dimensional location of body parts in a mass grave is useful for re-association based on proximity of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cherie Walth.

The large sample of Pre-Latte and Latte period burials from the Naton Beach Site on Guam offers an opportunity to examine the differences and similarities in the mortuary practices. This poster examines several research questions: What is the pattern of burials in terms of location within the site? Do the patterns relate to potential residence areas? What is the pattern of internment in terms of orientation, position, placement, age, gender, and grave goods? A cluster analysis was completed by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Hadden. Maran E. Little. C. Frederick T. Andrus. Gregory A. Waselkov.

Stable oxygen isotope analyses are commonly used in archaeology to assess the seasons-of-death of fishes and molluscs, and to make inferences about seasonal aspects of human mobility and resource use. We present stable oxygen isotope sequences from 33 bivalve shells, representing four taxa, and eight fish otoliths, representing two taxa. These were recovered from two sites located on the Gulf Coast of Alabama: Plash Island (AD 325–642) and Bayou St. John (AD 650–1041). Specimens recovered from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meagan Clark. Scott Fitzpatrick. Frances White. Christina Giovas.

Archaeological investigation of the Pre-Columbian site of Coconut Walk on the island of Nevis (northern Lesser Antilles) revealed midden deposits dating between ca. AD 850-1440. While the site had been previously excavated by the British Time Team television show in 1998, only cursory examination of faunal remains was conducted (NISP=451). We report on the complete analysis of more than 18,000 recovered vertebrate remains from a 5×5m trench in the core midden area, providing enhanced...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jenna Carlson.

The methodologies for identifying and analyzing draught cattle from the archaeological record have been developed and refined over the past twenty years. However, little research has been done which applies these methodologies to faunal assemblages from the New World. This research identifies possible draught cattle from an eighteenth-century well and a possible smokehouse at Oxon Hill Manor in Prince George’s County, Maryland, using pathological and osteometric analyses. Analysis of pathologies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aron Crowell.

Late 19th century harbor seal hunting among the glacial ice floes at the head of Yakutat Bay attracted hundreds of Tlingit, Eyak, and Tsimshian participants who harvested thousands of seals, an annual congregation of indigenous peoples that exceeded any other in southeast Alaska. The extraordinary scale of this communal, clan-mediated enterprise by the 1870s derived in part from the abundance of seals at Yakutat and subsistence demand (especially for seal oil) but appears to have been increased...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Cullen.

The Park and Chaquaqua Plateaus—politically bisected by the Colorado-New Mexico state line—are distinctive geographical features that demarcate the transition from the Rocky Mountains to the Llano Estacado and High Plains. Regional archaeology has emphasized interpretation of sites as part of a cultural demarcator between the Northern Rio Grande Pueblos and residents of the Southern and Central Plains. Yet there has been limited work to examine local, between-household interactions and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Singer. Brian Jones.

Over the past thirty years, many Paleoindian sites have been identified near the Great Cedar Swamp on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in Southeastern Connecticut. Examination of isolated Paleoindian lithics and three excavated sites, Hidden Creek, Ohomowauke, and Raspberry Trail highlights Paleoindian site variability on the local landscape. The comparison of the lithic technological organization, intra-site patterning, and age of occupations among the sites provides insight into the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Hennek. Stephen M. Hennek. Susan C. Kuzminky. Diane Gifford-Gonzalez. Tatiana Xifara.

Mussel species comprise a substantial portion of dietary evidence from archaeological sites along the California coast. Most research has concentrated on harvesting, meat yields, and transport of California mussel (Mytilus californianus). Fewer studies have engaged with bay mussels (Mytilus trossulus) within the California archaeological record. Bay mussel harvesting, shell measurement methods, and meat yields have not been analyzed systematically. Our study used actualistic samples of both...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Heath.

This poster examines life at the periphery of the Postclassic Mesoamerican World System, discussing the access that rural or peripheral people may have to the larger economic, political, and informational networks of their region. It addresses these questions by presenting an analysis of the Epiclassic and Postclassic period ceramic assemblages from the site of La Laguna, Tlaxcala, Mexico. Almost all of the sherds come from Feature 185, a sheet midden context deposited during the late...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alison Harris. Vaughan Grimes.

The scarcity of clearly identifiable dog bones and artifacts associated with dogsled traction has led many archaeologists to posit that the Dorset did not keep domestic dogs. While this statement has implications for the ability of the Dorset to cope with the variability of the arctic environment, it may also be an oversimplification of the problem. Canid remains do occur on Dorset sites, albeit in low numbers, but they are not identifiable to species based on skeletal morphology alone due to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ralph Burrillo. Michael Lewis. Joan Coltrain.

For aboriginal agriculturalists, subsistence strategies are tightly constrained by ecological conditions. The primary carbohydrate staple of prehistoric communities in the American Southwest (Zea mays) derives from low-altitude, subtropical conditions in Mesoamerica and is at its environmental limit on the cooler, more arid Colorado Plateau. In areas like Cedar Mesa in southeastern Utah, environmental limitations were addressed by either of two strategies. Dry farming with summer monsoonal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Allison. Jeffrey Ferguson.

San Juan Red Ware pottery is most common in southeastern Utah, where most of it appears to have been made, but is widely distributed throughout the Four Corners region from about A.D. 750 to 1100. Neutron Activation Analysis of San Juan Red Ware potsherds shows that there were numerous production locales, and red ware pottery from southeast Utah falls into several distinguishable chemical groups. These chemical groups have distributions that suggest relatively little exchange among the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kaitlyn Davis. Scott Ortman.

This paper analyzes the artifact assemblage from Tsama, an ancestral Tewa community along the Rio Chama in north-central New Mexico. This site was excavated by Florence Hawley-Ellis during a field school in 1970, but basic analyses of the resulting collections were only completed recently by the laboratory at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center as part of a project investigating Tewa origins. We present the results of these analyses and compare the artifact assemblage from Tsama with that of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Colin Thomas.

In November 2013 the Las Minas Archaeometallurgical Project completed excavations at the Chimu Era copper smelting site of Dos Cruces in the Zaña valley. Dos Cruces is an artificially terraced hill located near a river and several known copper mines. The site was divided into 4 distinct sectors, each of which was put to a different use. This paper focuses on excavations and preliminary laboratory results from the industrial or smelting sector of Dos Cruces, an area filled with slag, furnaces,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Cornwell.

To contend with expensive and invasive ‘big dig’ excavations, archaeologists have trended towards using regional surveys to examine and interpret distribution patterns across a given area. Regional surveys offer an effective and efficient way of analyzing the long-term use and wide scale development of variably occupied spaces. With the introduction of Geographic Information Systems and other new technologies, archaeologists have been able to capitalize on the insights gained from statistical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kasey Cole. Heather MacInnes. Eric Bartelink. Gary Breschini.

Reconstructing dietary variation among earlier human populations remains a major goal of archaeological research. Along the central California coast, archaeological reconstructions of hunter-gatherer subsistence have primarily focused on data gleaned from archaeofaunal remains and lithic assemblages. In this study, we examine paleodiets in Late Holocene (ca. 3430-660 B.P.) humans and fauna from the Monterey Bay area of the California coast. Using stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mahesh Joshi.

The study traces the origin of ink, paper, writing instrument and art of writing in perspective of Indian antiquity and in the light of India’s past -unraveled by researchers, testimony of foreign writers, literary evidences and paleographic facts along with a few old religious & astrological documents like almanacs, horoscopes etc., written ‘Sanskrit’ language. A prolific art of writing, well developed scripts e.g. "Brahmi", a well-established Grammar "Sanskrit" and writing materials such as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Courtney Astrom. Olivia Navarro-Farr.

It is generally agreed upon that the Aztec practiced cannibalism, but scholars have proposed various hypotheses explaining what function this practice had in the Aztec culture. This study focuses on the nature and ritualistic function of Aztec cannibalism. The Aztec would only consume the flesh of outsiders, mostly war captives, as part of religious rituals which provided a foundation for their culture. A detailed examination of the ethnohistoric and archaeological evidence for cannibalism among...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Picin.

Understanding the changes in the technological organization of prehistoric hunter-gatherers is important to research into hominin foraging activities. During the Middle Paleolithic, the coexistence or the replacement between Levallois and discoid technologies has frequently been recorded, but there is still no clear understanding of the reasons for their alternating and fragmented use in the archaeological record. This paper aims to contribute with new data to the current debate, by exploring...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsay Johansson. Sara Cullen. Kaitlyn Davis. Rachel Egan. Scott Ortman.

In 2014 The Pueblo of Pojoaque and University of Colorado-Boulder began a collaborative project at Cuyamungue ( K’uuyemugeh ‘stones falling down place’), an ancestral Tewa village. The goals of the project are to increase awareness of local ancestral sites in contemporary Pueblo communities; to strengthen local community identities; and to integrate archaeological, historical and traditional knowledge in telling the story of Cuyamungue. The first season of work involved surface survey,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kit Wesler.

In many ways, the Willey and Phillips’s (1958) Method and Theory in American Archaeology still sets the parameters of how we conceptualize the units of North American archaeological classification. The authors defined three types of units, in theory independently based on time, space, and material content. Integrative units juggled the three dimensions to create local sequences, which then built into larger and larger constructs. Wide use of various dating mechanisms and detailed studies of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Suzanne Pilaar Birch.

This paper discusses ecological novelty in the archaeological record from a multispecies perspective. Pivotal research topics in archaeology have long simplified these novelties into transitions that emphasize the uniqueness of the human species. Though views have evolved from completely anthropocentric perspectives in archaeology and natural history in the 19th and 20th centuries, there is still a pervasive sense of progressivism when we center our points of inquiry on human originality. To...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Torpy. P. Nick Kardulias.

During the Archaic period (750-480 BC) the island of Cyprus underwent a dramatic transformation as new city-kingdoms rose to dominate the political landscape of the island. This shift resulted in increased competition for resources, establishment of political boundaries, and emergence of a pronounced social hierarchy within the new polities. The site of Athienou-Malloura, surveyed and excavated by the Athienou Archaeological Project includes a Cypro-Archaic sanctuary and nearby tombs on the hill...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bianca Hand. P.Nick Kardulias.

The Hellenistic and Roman periods on Cyprus (310 BC- AD 330) were times of transformation. Drastic changes in politics such as the movement of the island capitol to Paphos, new coinage, and the introduction of Christianity into the region had pervasive and deep consequences throughout the island. These changes can be traced through the artistic record, specifically through votive statues, as these can be seen as a reflection of social and political conditions in the region. As one of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Salmon Schreck. P. Nick Kardulias.

Maize is known to have originated in Mesoamerica from which it spread north and south adapting to many varied climatic and environmental conditions. This study details the origin of the species Zea mays L. The teosinte hypothesis and the concepts of seasonality and scheduling are used to discuss the domestication of maize by means of human selection. This information is used to highlight the basic circumstances necessary within a human population for maize agriculture to be adopted. Furthermore,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Blair Heidkamp. Olivia Navarro-Farr.

Robert Smith began The College of Wooster excavations at the site of Pella in 1967. Pella is among the longest inhabited sites in the Southern Levant, with first occupation in the Paleolithic and down through the late Islamic phase. In the first season, excavations were focused on the Western Church Complex and the Eastern Cemetery. One of the tombs excavated, Tomb 1, possessed in excess of 100 artifacts, mainly ceramic vessels. Publications on that season contain only a short report on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachael Aleshire. Olivia Navarro-Farr.

Artifacts are crucial to the understanding of past societies. Archaeologists are able to learn about the values and cultural practices through material remains left behind by ancient civilizations. Museums display artifacts not only to educate the general public, but to make modern nationalistic statements connecting the country in possession of material to the ancient civilization which created it. The critical point with most of these exhibitions is that many of the artifacts are not excavated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meagan Shirley. P. Nick Kardulias.

This study compares the funerary practice of ship burials in Anglo-Saxon and Viking societies. The custom of ship burial is an expression of rank and wealth held by an individual during their lifespan. In addition to common outward appearance of rank shown through such funerary treatment, similar artistic traditions are evident from grave goods and hoards. Items such as jewelry, furniture and boats are crafted in related styles that also express their owner’s rank through the materials and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Enrique Rodriguez.

This analysis focuses on figurines made after the Spanish conquest (1521 CE) of Mexico, based on the collections from three museums: the Hearst Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Field Museum. The central questions address figurines as media that could potentially negotiate issues of racial (or casta) categorization, phenotype, and artifice. The figurines were collected and accessioned in the early 20th century, before the development of archaeological methodologies that pay...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Borislava Simova. David Mixter.

Across the Maya Lowlands, dedication ritual served a vital role in endowing public and household spaces with meaning and function. Through ritual, structures acquired the soul-force, or k’ulel, necessary to sustain activity within their walls. However, many structures lived (at least) two ritual lives: one associated with their original intended function, and a second following the abandonment of their initial use. We argue that through ritual resignification the original meanings of public...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anastasia Panagakos. Amanda Paskey.

There is a perception that community colleges offer few practical opportunities to students interested in archaeology. Through an agreement with California State Parks and the support of our college, we established the Cosumnes River Archaeological Working Lab (CRAWL) to provide community college students hands-on training with artifacts. This paper discusses the project and findings, logistics of starting a community college lab, and benefits of exposing novice students to archaeological lab...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Dubois.

Recent fieldwork documenting hundreds of rock art panels in the region of Huánuco, Peru has allowed the author to begin to establish a more finely tuned chronology than has previously been possible. The process of revealing this chronology involves stylistic seriation using such features as color, line thickness, superpositions, and preference for particular design features during certain periods and in certain groups. One of the surprising revelations of this work has been the widespread...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shênia Novo. Daniela Leles. Raffaella Bianucci. Adauto Araújo.

The identification of Leishmania parasites in archaeological material is performed by molecular and immunological diagnosis.The present study aimed to detect Leishmania sp. in samples from archaeological sites in South America.After the lack of inhibition observed in the samples we proceeded with PCR Leishmania spp.using a molecular target to Kinetoplast minicircule kDNA in samples from different individuals with datings from different periods from archaeological sites in South America(Brazil...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Azevedo. David Byers.

This poster presents an analysis of archaeofaunal fish remains from Bluefields Bay, Jamaica and findings of resource depression from the Caribbean. The Jamaican collection derives from recent excavations of a shell midden in Belmont, encompassed by the Bluefields Bay marine sanctuary. Preliminary radiocarbon results suggest the site dates to the late Taino occupation of Jamaica known as Meillacan Ostionoid (900-1500 AD). The Jamaican collection contains over 17,000 bones, with 8,961 specimens...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Margaris. Mark Rusk. Patrick Saltonstall. Molly Odell.

The site of Mikt’sqaq Angayuk (KOD-014) on eastern Kodiak Island provides an intimate view of Native Alutiiq responses to the colonial labor regime imposed by 19th century Russians in Alaska. Recent excavation of KOD-014 through the Alutiiq Museum’s Community Archaeology Program revealed a well-preserved Alutiiq style sod house and associated faunal midden dating to the 1830s. The midden was rich in cod remains, and the artifacts comprised mostly colonially-introduced products including metal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Dolan.

Archaeologists in the North American Southwest have documented the source provenance of obsidian artifacts throughout the Ancestral Pueblo, Hohokam, and Mimbres Mogollon regions. These results have impacted how we portray obsidian lithic technology, procurement, and social interaction at both macro and micro regional and temporal scales. Despite the methodological and theoretical advances in southwestern archaeological obsidian studies over the years, obsidian from the Casas Grandes region in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only A. Dudley Gardner. Glade Hadden. Adreanna Jensen.

Eagle Rock is a multi-component site with occupational horizons dating from 13,000 to 350 BP. This rock shelter is located in west central Colorado along the Gunnison River. Between 13,000 to 6,000 BP there is evidence of change in the lithic technology at the site. This is readily apparent in the artifact assemblage. There, however, seems to be some continuity in food-ways at the site. This presentation will briefly put forward what we have learned as a result of micro and macro botanical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robyn Dodge.

The ancient Maya site, Hun Tun is located in northwestern Belize and serves as a platform of inquiry into social complexity at the household level. This paper addresses ancient Maya commoners in household contexts while discussing data that are pertinent to ideas of household identity, social formation, and household production by re-evaluating the value of domestic space. The analysis of everyday objects in domestic contexts contributes to these data. Major archaeological features at Hun Tun...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ivan Gatsov. Petranka Nedelcheva.

This paper deals with the main features of the lithic technology, which appeared at the settlements south and east of Marmara Sea and Eastern Thrace during the 7-6 mill BC. The new results show evident invariability in those technological and typological characteristics, which may provide direct proof for common lithic traditions and possibly similar environment features in the region. A new question arises after the research of the Central Northwest Anatolia lithic aterfacts. This empirical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Philip Slater. Stanley H. Ambrose.

Ol Tepesi rockshelter (GsJi53) is located in Kenya’s central Rift Valley on the southern slope of Mt. Eburu, northwest of Lake Naivasha. Its 30-meter high rear wall and 45-meter wide floor would have provided prehistoric inhabitants with a vast habitable area. Excavated deposits span the most recent 17,000 years, from the Iron Age back to the late Pleistocene LSA. The base of the sequence was not reached and likely extends further back in time. Almost 200,000 artifacts, including pottery,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Britt Starkovich.

An ongoing faunal analysis at Kephalari Cave documents a remarkable standardization in the butchery of small game animals during the Upper Paleolithic. The site spans several phases of occupation, including small Middle Paleolithic, early Upper Paleolithic, and Aurignacian components, but the majority of the materials are from the post-Aurignacian Upper Paleolithic, Epigravettian, and late Upper Paleolithic (possibly Mesolithic) periods. Diverse ungulate taxa are found at the site, but the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Ferguson. James Allison.

Previous studies of obsidian from archaeological sites in Utah Valley and the Salt Lake Valley have used relatively small samples to document temporal shifts in obsidian procurement, with southern sources (especially Black Rock) dominating Fremont assemblages, while most post-Fremont obsidian comes from the Malad source to the north. Our greatly expanded XRF analysis of almost 4,000 obsidian artifacts from sites in Utah and Salt Lake Valleys confirms the temporal change noted by earlier...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Sportman.

The Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office contracted AHS, Inc. to conduct a multi-phase archaeological survey at the National Historic Landmark Old New-Gate Prison and Copper Mine in East Granby, Connecticut, prior to planned repairs to the ca. 1790 prison guardhouse. Beginning in 1773, the Old New-Gate copper mine was used as a prison and criminals, Tories, and POWs were incarcerated there during the Revolutionary War. In 1790 Old New-Gate became the first state prison in the U.S. and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Boyd. Terry Melton. Donna Boyd.

The 13th Century Late Woodland Shannon site (44MY8), located near Blacksburg in Montgomery County, Virginia, was excavated in the 1960s. Excavations identified palisade lines, several circular structures, refuse-filled pits, and over 130 burials. Most burials were single, primary interments located around structures or between structures and palisade lines. Researchers have assumed that individuals buried close to one another around structures were genetically related, or at least shared clan...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ariel Malinsky-Buller.

The division of the Paleolithic era into the Lower, Middle and Upper Paleolithic is an arbitrary research construct that confounds chronological, behavioral and evolutionary aspects. The Lower/Middle Paleolithic transition has received lesser attention. This transition is depicted as a worldwide change from biface production to flake production through Levallois flaking systems, similar to the way it has been perceived in the initial stages of research. Yet, some European Middle Paleolithic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Hayden. Suzanne Villeneuve.

Secret societies are one of the most under-theorized and ignored aspects of prehistoric societies in archaeology, yet they may be pivotal in understanding major developments in sociopolitical complexity in the past. Probable prehistoric examples of secret society remains include the elaborately painted caves of Upper Paleolithic France, the communal structures or caves of the Early Near Eastern Neolithic (Gobekli Tepe, Jerf el Ahmar, Nahal Hemar, and others), and the kivas and caves used in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only A. Jay Van Der Reijden.

Culturally modified teeth are one of the few personal identity markers to survive into the archaeological record, have modern comparatives, and exist as a global deep-time behavior. Typology and description, however, have suffered from a multitude of, often misinterpreted, classification systems usually restricted to specialized geographical areas and local publication. With the high variation of designs, a lack of consistent codified definitions makes cohesive discussion frustratingly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cristina Tica. Xenia-Paula Kyriakou.

Osteoarthritis is one of the more ubiquitous and abundant forms of pathology seen on ancient material. Osteoarthritis (OA) has a complex etiology with variable clinical characteristics. Documenting it is important because it may shed light on aspects of lifestyle (e.g. occupational), and social and cultural habits. Osteopathology studies conducted on modern, documented skeletal collections can add an important dimension. The aim of this paper is to present patterns of OA in the elbow and knee...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Burham.

Recent research in outlying residential groups at Ceibal, Guatemala has contributed to our understanding of ritual practices carried out by different segments of society. More specifically, the termination of minor temples located in the peripheries of Ceibal reveals information about ritual destruction and reutilization of ceremonial buildings in the Maya area. At the end of the Protoclassic period (ca. AD 1-225), many temples in outlying residential groups were completely buried and the nearby...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fumie Iizuka. Masami Izuho. Pamela Vandiver.

Hunter-gatherers of late-Pleistocene Japan were among the first in the world to adopt ceramic technology. Archaeologists have suggested that in southern Kyushu, these people of Incipient Jomon (13500/14000-12000 cal yr BP) also used large grinding stones, stored food, occupied pit houses, and made boats for navigation; they had signatures of reduced residential mobility. Nevertheless, there have not been systematic tests to assess the hypothesized decreased residential mobility. Identification...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Shoup. Luca Zan.

Between 1998 and 2000 archaeologists discovered nine well-preserved Roman shipwrecks at San Rossore, Pisa, 500m from the leaning tower. Shortly afterward a grand vision for a "museum with three vertices" was articulated: a public excavation area plus a conservation laboratory and museum of Mediterranean navigation, to be constructed in a underused 16th century barracks nearby. But despite urgent conservation needs, neither the public excavation nor the laboratory opened until 2005, while the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Ames.

This paper presents heavy fraction data from the archaeological site of Dhiban, Jordan, dating to the Middle Islamic period of occupation (late 12th to late 15th centuries CE). Based on a comparative study between larger heavy fraction materials and microartifacts I argue for the importance of smaller material residues in interpreting specific use-space as well as understanding Dhiban in relation to larger regional trends. Using a systematic flotation sampling strategy that recorded volume and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristina Whitney.

Historic Pueblo potters formed ceramic canteens that have one flat and one bulbous side. This form posed unique issues for construction. The form is symmetrical along only one axis, and while other Pueblo ceramic forms exhibit this feature, such as duck effigies, these flat-sided canteens are unique in that they were made to carry water. The shape suggests it was designed to be transported against a flat object. 19th century ethnographic research suggests transportation against a human back,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rhiannon Stammers. Andy Herries. Nicola Stern.

The heat treatment of silcrete for lithic production has been identified as far back as 72,000 years ago, using a variety of scientific techniques. However, in most contexts simple visual assessment, notably the appearance of a lustrous red surface, is used to identify the use of heat treatment. Mass Gloss Analysis (MGA) is a quantitative, non-destructive method designed for measuring the increase in lustre noted on heat-treated lithics. Initially developed to investigate microcrystalline...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yu Liu. Zhanwei Yue.

Casting technology played a more significant role in the formation of Chinese ancient civilization than any other early civilizations. Accompanying with the appearance of bronze vessels in Erlitou period (1800B.C.-1500B.C.), the piece-mold casting technology was first established and then became a prolonging thousand-year traditional method after Shang Dynasty. The formation of piece-mold casting technology tradition, which is very different from mainly using the forging method and lost-wax...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Thompson. Aaron Poteate. Scott Fitzpatrick. William Ayres.

While atolls are the most ubiquitous island type in the Pacific, there has been a general dearth of archaeological research to help elucidate when they were settled prehistorically and how they fit into regional systems of exchange and interaction, particularly in Micronesia. Recent fieldwork on Mwoakilloa Atoll in the eastern Caroline Islands have shown that settlement of the island ca. 1700 cal. BP coincides with the earliest occupation of larger high islands in the region (1700-2000 BP)....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Veth.

This paper will critically assess new evidence for the antiquity of maritime economies from North West Australia. Northwest Australia has evidence for hunter-gatherer occupation from 50,000 years ago from sites now located in the interior. The evidence for antiquity of coastal resource use extends back to over 41,000 cal BP, however this is soon expected to approach the earliest dates from these interior sites. Recent research on continental islands of the Northwest Shelf illustrates rich...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shelby Putt.

There is now a general consensus that the earliest Oldowan artifacts were made by skilled toolmakers with a clear understanding of the fracturing mechanics of different toolstone materials, thus leading several researchers to propose a simpler lithic reduction stage that occurred prior to 2.6 Ma. Three reduction techniques that are within the behavioral repertoire of the genus Pan are proposed as potential intermediate stages between the percussion behaviors of the LCA of chimpanzees and humans...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Duffy. Timothy Garrett.

Ceremonial vessels used by the ancient Maya are common archaeological findings, and are thought to have contained beverages made from cacao, maize and other plants of ritual and economic importance. Increasingly, methods of chemical analysis able to detect trace levels of organic compounds are being applied to the investigation of these artifacts. Two whole pottery vessels from the site of Cerro Maya, Belize were selected from the collection at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amalia Nuevo Delaunay. Juan Bautista Belardi. Flavia Carballo Marina. Hernán de Angelis. Maria José Saletta.

Since the arrival of XVIth Century Europeans to Patagonia, different indigenous societies inhabiting the region were forced to deeply modify their ancient lifeways. The incorporation of new raw materials (for example glass and stoneware) in the production of traditional instruments (for example scrapers and projectile points) was one of several of modified aspects recorded both archaeologically and historically. At first glance, the use of new raw materials appears to have been equally...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Huff.

Highland Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a region of independent invention of non-cereal-based agriculture. Consequently, the transition from a mobile lifestyle to a sedentary residential pattern, and the transition from a forager/gatherer subsistence practice to the adoption of agriculture by the past peoples of highland PNG have been a subject of considerable interest for archaeologists. Models of these transitions have changed through time with the arrival of new evidence such as palynological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Garlinghouse. Sarah Peelo. Linda Hylkema. Clinton Blount.

Recent archaeological excavations within the Indian Rancheria at Mission Santa Clara de Asís have uncovered a dense accumulation of Mission Period refuse, most conspicuously cattle bone. Analysis of these remains suggests a "matanza-like" event that was geared primarily toward supplying the indigenous community with beef. A variety of wild foods, especially fish and waterfowl, was also recovered. This variety suggests that mission Indians devoted considerable time, energy, and effort in securing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kirsten Tharalson.

The seasonality of the kill events from Certain site in Beckham County, Oklahoma is determined through x-ray analysis of bison mandibles. The distribution of bison dentition at archaeological sites has been studied extensively to provide information about seasonality, age, diet, and migration patterns. Because bison calf at roughly the same time during the year, understanding the age at death determines the seasonality of the kill. Knowing the seasonality of a bison kill reveals when a site was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tom Flanigan.

This is a study of stone tool raw material procurement utilizing archaeological sites located in and around the Sheeprock Mountains in north-central Utah. In an effort to apply Metcalfe’s and Barlow’s "Field Processing Model" (1992), to prehistoric lithic raw material procurement, the researcher collected culturally deposited obsidian from archaeological sites in and around the Sheeprock Mountains. Over the course of 3 field sessions from 2011-2013, 250 samples of obsidian lithic debitage were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Thomas.

Residents of Jackson, North Carolina in Northampton County have found what they believe to be an 18th century tavern site. The area was inhabited by the Tuscarora until the Tuscarora War ended in 1715, after which European settlers began to move into the region. The residents of Jackson believe this to be a tavern owned by Jeptha Atherton. This research assesses this claim by comparing those artifacts to the artifacts at two other contemporary taverns: Dudley’s Tavern in Halifax, North Carolina...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steven Hackenberger. James Brown. Patrick McCutcheon.

Resource intensification is a concept used in explanations of sedentism, storage, social ranking and hierarchy. Within the Pacific Northwest treatment of these concepts have developed through three orientations: evolutionary-ecology, political economy, and social agency. We compare performance criteria (dynamic and empirical sufficiency, and tolerance limits) for both synthetic works and archaeological studies. Our poster-sized visual synopsis is intended to elicit comment and revision that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Witt.

The Chacoan polity of northwestern New Mexico exercised hegemony throughout the San Juan Basin and surrounding highlands during the Pueblo II (A.D. 900 – 1140) period. Hegemony is defined as the predominant influence in ideological, political, military, and/or economic matters exercised by one culture over another. Furthermore, it is an historical process, and as such is theorized as "eventful," along the lines of Sewell (2005) and Beck et al. (2007). The extent and nature of this hegemony on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aleksa Alaica.

The Moche Period (1-850AD) is well known for its iconography with naturalistic depictions of a variety of different figures and themes. One aspect of the corpus that has been under-analyzed is the common representation of plant and animal life. The ceramic assemblages of the Moche depict numerous animal species from coastal, highland and Amazonian locations. Recent work conducted at the Larco Herrera Museum reveals that various animal species may have been considered important symbols of group...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Mathwich.

Mission Santa Clara de Asís, located in south San Francisco Bay, was one in a chain of Spanish Franciscan missions stretching from the south to the north of Alta California. Founded in 1777, Mission Santa Clara has been the subject of archaeological investigation for decades, but only in the past few years has the lens of research focused on native people’s experiences and navigation of the mission system.This paper presents the results of a zooarchaeological analysis of a sampled pit feature...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arturo Pascual Soto.

Hay en Mesoamérica, en el arte del período Epiclásico local (ca. 850-1000 d.C.), la clara necesidad de proclamar que sólo los actos del gobernante y no los del pueblo eran verdaderamente eficaces. Es revelador que en los relieves y murales de El Tajín la comunidad en su conjunto esté representada por la figura simbólica del soberano. Sus enemigos aparecen como un montón de desvalidos cuyo ineficaz oposición sólo sirve para resaltar la naturaleza sobrehumana del gobernante. Este es justo el...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aleisha Buckler. Jonathan Prangnell.

This paper explores the complex and diverse connections between people, places and material culture in the past through a case study from Queensland, Australia. Established in c.1860 as part of the development of pastoral and mining industries in Central Queensland, today the former thriving port settlement of St Lawrence is a small, little-known town. Historical, material and spatial evidence from distinct but interconnected archaeological sites within the settlement are integrated to explore...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Wilson.

The Washington Mounds site is an Early to Middle Caddo period (A.D. 800-1300) mound site with 11 mounds, some of which contain burials; two village areas are associated with the site surrounding the mounds. It is located in southwest Arkansas between the Red River and Little Missouri River Basins. Some level of ritual activity occurred at the site, but what types or scale of ritual is unknown. Two excavations have been done at the site: one in the early 20th century by M. R. Harrington, and a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lee Bloch.

It has long been obvious to archaeologists that Mississippian and Woodland mound centers in Southeastern and Midwestern United States were parts of large-scale regional exchange networks. However, modeling how goods moved from point A to point B remains more troublesome. Do these goods represent direct or down the line exchange? Do they represent a shared ceremonial complex or loose connections between very different complexes? Oral traditions maintained by a descendant Muskogee (Creek) tribal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maxwell Lopez. Nathan Goodale. Alissa Nauman. Greg P. Lord.

Virtual reconstructions are becoming increasingly commonplace in archaeological vernacular and cultural heritage initiatives. As with any emergent technology however, the advantages, limits and drawbacks of such an approach are not well defined. This study assesses and contextualizes the validity and usefulness of virtual reconstructions in archaeological interpretation and academic publication and explores how such technologies are utilized in the field as a whole. In addition to a survey of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian Jones.

This paper argues against a common view of medieval Levantine villages as isolated from larger regional centers by examining a group of hand-made ceramics — commonly called Hand-Made Geometrically Painted Wares (HMGPW), and formerly "pseudo-prehistoric" wares — prevalent across the Levant from the 12th-17th centuries AD. They are generally seen as the products of non-specialist village potters and, as the older name suggests, an example of technological decline. That view, though, is based...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaclyn Nadeau.

There is little evidence to support widespread changes in subsistence and settlement practices from the Late Archaic through the Mid-Late Woodland in Eastern New York. Analysis of lithic assemblages from a multitude of sites suggests a gradual settling in of past populations. Specifically, it does not appear that methods of procurement, manufacture, or use differed in any significant way. The question, then, is what forces were driving those cultural changes apparent throughout the Eastern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brigid Grund.

Understanding technological replacement is a ubiquitous problem in archaeology. Modeling the transition from atlatl to self bow has implications for elucidating the driving mechanisms behind why and how prehistoric culture change occurs worldwide. At different periods of human prehistory, atlatls were replaced by self bows as primary hunting weapons on all continents except Australia. Previous scholars have hypothesized that this shift may have occurred when changes in environment/subsistence...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Charles.

Time perspectivism has been defined as "the belief that differing timescales bring into focus different features of behaviour" or "or different sorts of processes." These different behaviors and processes require different concepts and explanatory principles. Criticism of time perspectivism has ranged from seeing it as advocating environmental determinism to it simply being a version of Annales history. Research under the umbrella of time perspectivism has generally focused on processes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Nowak. Daniel Bigman. Daniel Seinfeld. Grant Stauffer.

This poster presents the results of magnetometer and ground penetrating radar surveys as well as excavations conducted in 2014 at the Lake Jackson site located in northwest Florida. The geophysical and excavation results augmented with previously recorded site data provide a new view of occupation and architectural placement in and around the mound complex. Evidence from the remote sensing survey reveals several anomalies that represent probable Mississippian-style structures, while shovel test...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Chan.

Over the last forty years the analysis of monuments has lain at the center of our understanding of Neolithic societies. Interpretative approaches toward monuments range in scale from the overarching view of Renfrew’s emerging chiefdoms to embodied perspectives focusing on their materiality. Regardless of analytical scale, most accounts treat monuments as complete architectural forms and fail to grasp the significance of the wider activities that surrounded their construction and use. This paper...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Vilsack.

A 2x2 meter fractured limestone cobble surface was excavated in February of 2001 through May of 2002 at the Gault Site in Bell County, Texas dating to either the Clovis or pre-Clovis period. Current research indicates two toss zones associated to the 10-centimeter thick stone floor. One toss zone is illustrated through the faunal assemblage arcing around the southwestern corner of the feature and the second toss zone is associated to lithic artifacts concentrated around the northeastern corner....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Slaughter. Jon Czaplicki.

The Black Mesa Archaeological Project (1967-1987) was undertaken to clear archaeological sites to mine coal for the Navajo Generating Station to provide power for the Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Arizona Project. The original permit for this work expires in 2019. The Bureau of Reclamation is in the process of re-permitting (from 2019-2044) all of the connected features of the project that include the Kayenta Mine on Black Mesa, a railroad, and two large powerlines. This paper will present...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Munson. Matthew Looper. Yuriy Polyukhovych. Jonathan Scholnick. Martha Macri.

Inscriptions found on Classic Maya monuments largely document important historical events and record the political achievements of named royal individuals. Previous onomastic studies of these king lists identify striking patterns in naming conventions which may mark ethnic boundaries as well as signal important attributes or transitions in the life history of Classic Maya rulers. This study investigates the hypothesis that divergent dynastic traditions existed during the Classic period based...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kerry Hull.

Epigraphic studies have confirmed what Classic period iconography has long shown—the Ancient Maya cultivated and smoked tobacco. Ethnographic studies among various Maya groups have brought to light a wide range of uses for tobacco, from pleasure, to healing, to witchcraft. In this paper I will address several lesser discussed topics related to tobacco. First, I will discuss ethnographic data relating to the use of other plants that are mixed with tobacco to alter its effects or tastes. Second, I...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ricardo Elia. Amalia Perez-Juez.

The island of Menorca, Spain, belonged successively in the 18th century to Spain, England, France, again England, and finally Spain. During this period, the British constructed their first purpose-built naval hospital on Isla del Rey, a small island in Mahon Harbor. To date, heritage-related efforts on Isla del Rey have focused on the architectural restoration of the hospital buildings, as well as on the development of exhibit spaces. In 2013, Boston University started a collaboration with the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Frank Winchell.

Various ceramic-bearing groups occupied and settled in the Nile Valley during the end of the 5th millennium BC and through the 4th millennium BC, ranging from hunter-gatherers, agro-pastoralists, agriculturalists, and finally to state level societies. Some of these groups appear to have been involved with intergroup trade and cooperation at various levels, while others were not. This paper will look into the characteristic traits associated with these groups in northeast Africa and how their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yonatan Sahle.

There is not yet clear evidence for the beginning of complex projectile technologies (propulsion via mechanical aid). Morphological attributes and miniaturization of stone points at Aduma have been used to suggest early complex projectile use ~100,000-80,000 years ago. Hafting traces on stone segments and geometric pieces were presented as better indications of early complex projectile use at Sibudu Cave, South Africa, ca. 64,000 years ago. However, neither point shape/size nor evidence for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Farnsworth. Nydia I. Pontón.

Hacienda La Esperanza, a sugar plantation on the north coast of Puerto Rico, was established in the 1830’s by Captain Fernando Fernández, a wealthy merchant and slave trader. Hacienda La Esperanza thrived until the abolition of slavery in 1873. At its height, La Esperanza was the most technologically advanced sugar factory in Puerto Rico and one of the most successful plantations at the semi-mechanized level in the Antilles. It also housed one of the largest enslaved populations in Puerto Rico...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Odewale.

This paper argues that theories in favor of resistance as the primary cultural response of enslaved African-Americans do not offer a complete picture of the diasporic experience but rather theories in risk management offer a better explanation for the variation inherent in slave responses and material culture. Risk management theories suggest resistance as only one of a myriad of responses a slave community might choose in reaction to their environment. When investigating the residential spaces...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Nicholson. James Hinthorne. Shelia Pozorski. Thomas Pozorski.

Differential distribution of mineral resources in the Andean area has necessitated a long history of interaction between coastal and highland peoples. However, when it comes to the Casma Valley, it is not clear when these interactions began. This paper addresses this issue through an examination of the mineralogy of a set of pigment samples collected from tools found at four sites of the Sechin Alto Polity identified by way of X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results of the XRD findings will be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kim Christensen.

From the satirical website The Onion to the venerable New York Times newspaper, mason jars are receiving attention due to their current resurgence in popularity for food preparation, décor, and do-it-yourself projects. These contemporary examinations of the mason jar’s popularity tend to contrast the frivolity of today’s use with a singular utilitarian historical view. In this paper, I examine the varied discourses that they have been placed within historically and by archaeologists in order to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Noll.

Volcanic rocks such as obsidian were commonly used for the formation of chipped stone tools by people during prehistoric times. Archaeologists have been able to learn a great deal about the movements of prehistoric people by charting the procurement sites and use locations of these stones through x-ray fluorescence (XRF). Typically XRF can determine the procurement location of volcanic tool stone within a few square kilometers. Occasionally sources are characterized that are widely scattered and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Davis. Knut Rassman. Hans-Ullrich Voss. Chris Carey. Christine Markussen.

The Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site in Ireland is one of Europe's most significant Neolithic landscapes, and has been the focus of significant effort as regards remote sensing for the last 20 years. Until recently this focused on relatively low-resolution lidar survey and small-scale geophysical prospection, often 'monument-centric' in approach. In 2014 much higher resolution lidar data were obtained for part of the WHS alongside the first landscape-scale geomagnetic surveys within the area,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Clare Conner.

The Hoecake site is a Late Woodland to Early Mississippian (A.D. 500-1100) site, located in the Cairo Lowland in southeast Missouri. This mound site contained as many as thirty to fifty mounds at one time, some of which contained burials. Multiple excavations were done at the site in the 1960s as part of the land leveling salvage archaeological work done in the area at the time. Other than an initial report of the excavations, no major analysis has been done on the site until now. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Jones. Pierce Wright. Peter Ellis.

Excavations at the Redtail site (31Yd173) have begun to reveal the internal arrangement of a Piedmont Village Tradition (PVT) settlement occupied during AD 1200–1600 in the upper Yadkin River Valley of the western North Carolina Piedmont. Research projects over the last 40 years have established similar information for a small number of settlements in the eastern and central Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia. This research examines the morphology and spatial patterning of postmolds and pit...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Bisson.

Tabun Cave, Israel, has provided the reference sequence for the Late Lower and Middle Paleolithic in the Levant. Re-excavation by Jelinek (1968-73) recovered a large sample of lithics including over 23,000 small finds. This paper reports the first detailed typological, technological and forensic analysis of the small lithics from beds 60 to 68, the Early Middle Paleolithic (EMP) "D-Type" Levallois Mousterian. These pieces provide clues to lithic reduction sequences, as well as examples of...