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

Part of: Society for American Archaeology

This collection contains the abstracts from the 2015 annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most files in this collection contain the abstract only. The Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology provides a forum for the dissemination of knowledge and discussion. The 80th Annual Meeting was held in San Francisco, California from April 15-19, 2015.


Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 601-700 of 3,720)


  • Exploring regionality: a chaîne opératoire approach to ‘style’ in the rock art of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ghilraen Laue.

    Regional differences in southern African hunter-gatherer rock art have long been noted, but methods towards a rigorous definition of these regions have not been developed. Addressing a recent call for the use of style in defining rock art regions I propose a chaîne opératoire approach. Rather than focusing only on the finished product I will consider multiple factors in the production and consumption of rock art images. Instead of relying on vague notions of style, the component parts and...

  • Urban Agriculture within the Valley of Oaxaca: Investigations and Implications of Agricultural Terracing at Monte Albán (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Anthony Tricarico.

    The use of GIS to determine the spatial boundaries between terracing and the ceremonial center at Late Classic Monte Alban (250-700 CE), will validate or falsify current Late Classic population estimates. The determinants for what defines agricultural versus residential terracing and whether both types are present at Monte Alban, has been highly contested. Archaeological investigations yielding residential debris, does not indicate the total sum use of an individual terrace, nor does it indicate...

  • Chronology of Ahmarian and Levantine Aurignacian occupations of Manot Cave, Israel (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Bridget Alex. Omry Barzilai. Elisabetta Boaretto.

    Recent excavations of Manot Cave, in the Western Galilee, Israel, have revealed abundant Upper Paleolithic finds, including modern human fossils, in situ hearths, shell beads, bone and stone tools, and faunal remains. The two major Early Upper Paleolithic traditions of the Levant—the Ahmarian and the Levantine Aurignacian—are well represented at Manot Cave. The Ahmarian is thought to have developed from local Initial Upper Paleolithic traditions, while the Levantine Aurignacian may represent a...

  • Exploiting, Exchanging, and Establishing Boundaries: Lithic Trade during the Neolithic on the Great Hungarian Plain (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle Riebe.

    There has already been extensive analysis of Late Neolithic material culture on the Great Hungarian Plain. Much of that research, however, typically has been restricted to one site as opposed to multiple sites within a region. This paper explores assemblage variation in lithic materials from multiple sites across the Plain. By identifying differences in lithic materials, one can assess the extent to which lithics either reflect or even potentially reinforce social boundaries. In addition,...

  • Replication of Stone Disk Beads from the Salish Sea Region, British Columbia (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Harris.

    This poster presents the methods and results of experimental replication of stone disk beads from the Salish Sea region along the south coast of British Columbia. This particular type of beads is abundant across the region and found in a variety of contexts. Despite their ubiquity, little is known about their production. Through this poster, I discuss the methodology of the four experiments I conducted to replicate these types of beads using similar lithic raw materials, tools, and methods to...

  • Medicine dog; medicine baboon: images of horses perceived by contact cultures in rock art. (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sam Challis.

    Horses traveled when Europeans expanded across the globe and thereafter swiftly spread among indigenous groups on those continents colonized. The way they are portrayed in rock art can potentially tell us much about the nature of the entanglements of contact and the groups both bringing and adopting this hugely influential domestic animal. This paper draws on rock art evidence from South Africa, Australia, North and South America. Indigenous portrayals of the horse are sometimes conflated with...

  • At Yaxuna X Marks the Spot: Centering across in a Middle Formative Maya Landscape (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Collins.

    From the placement of objects in household offerings, to monumental works of art and architecture, it is well known that the ancient Maya commemorated their cosmological center in a variety of ways. Even at the settlement level, quadripartite divisions of space are observed branching out from a central core giving modern researchers insight into the way ancient Maya peoples may have understood their world. At the Maya site of Yaxuná, Yucatan, Mexico investigations have made it apparent that...

  • Sourcing Interactions: X-Ray Diffraction of Central Plains Tradition Ceramics during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Day. LuAnn Wandsnider. Matthew Douglass.

    Recent research by Roper (1995 and 2007) questions the long-held perspective that the various phases of the Central Plains tradition (CPt) consisted of small village dwelling populations with distinct borders. New evidence suggests a more fluid distribution of autonomous farmsteads following major stream systems throughout the Central Plains (USA). This debate has led to various questions surrounding the interaction amongst communities and individuals in the CPt populations with an emphasis on...

  • The Associations Model for use of Hemphill-Style Engraved Pottery at Moundville (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Phillips.

    This paper will examine one possible model for the use of pottery engraved in the Hemphill style at Moundville, the associations model. The Hemphill style is Moundville's local representational art style. The most commonly engraved themes in the style are winged serpents, crested birds, raptors, paired tails, center symbols and bands, and human trophies in the form of skulls, scalps, and the hand and eye design. It is suggested that these designs represent patron supernaturals relating to the...

  • Archaeology of Fueguian Islands: Tierra del Fuego, Dawson and Navarino, Human Settlement and Cultural Interaction (Patagonia, Chile) (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Flavia Morello Repetto. Fabiana Martin. Mauricio Massone. Marta Alfonso-Durruty. Manuel San Roman.

    The fueguian archipelago, dominated by three mayor islands named Tierra del Fuego, Dawson and Navarino, is located in the southernmost end of South America. Peopled by hunter-gatherer societies since c. 10.500 BP, the interior sea formations date to Early Holocene. Shoreline environments have evidence of specialized marine adaptation since c. 6.500 BP, after which colonization has been generally interpreted as homogenous, stable and continuous. Ethnohistoric and ethnographic records account for...

  • Archaeological Implications of Vegetation Shifts in the Northern Chihuahuan Desert (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Leonard Kemp. Cynthia Munoz. Raymond Mauldin. Robert Hard.

    Modern climate and ecological data from the Northern Chihuahuan Desert suggests that precipitation is temporally and spatially localized leading to pulses of plant production. Regional paleo-environmental models have been developed that focus on large temporal and spatial scales. These scales obscure short-term human adaptation within this region. We present a study of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes of bone collagen from leporids that can provide a high-resolution proxy for aspects of the...

  • Coffee and captivity in the 19th century Paraíba valley (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Landscape archaeology and phenomenological recording (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rui Gomes Coelho.

    The expansion of modern capitalism in the 19th century led to higher demands for commodities such as coffee, sugar, and cotton. The production of these commodities, however, was associated to an increasing industrialization of slave labor ("Second slavery"). The Paraíba valley in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, produced most of the coffee consumed in Europe and North America. The central question is: how was the valley constructed over the 19th century as a landscape of enslavement? Labor routines...

  • Educating Children on Texas Archaeology (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Katy Jones.

    This paper will discuss the education of school aged children in the archaeology of early Texas. How to create a program that is easily condensed into a two hour time window that will engage children of all ages, be easy for teachers to follow up on, and will generate positive intellectual growth in the children. Steps include creating a proposal for schools which will meet the core state educational requirements, devising methods that will work in multiple environments, and achieve a goal set...

  • What Once Was…: Taphonomical processes and their implications for understanding Tiwanaku funerary practices and social identities (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Baitzel.

    Archaeological investigations into group affiliation and status, gender and other social identities are often based on human burials and their grave goods. Once deposited burials become subject to a series of cultural and natural taphonomic processes that alter the material record. The systematic recovery of over 200 provincial Tiwanaku burials from the Middle Horizon Period (A.D.500-1000) settlement of Omo M10 in the arid Moquegua valley (southern Peru) presents a compelling case study for...

  • The Need for Practice Theory in Unusual Monumental Architecture: A Residential Comparative Analysis (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Catherine Johns.

    The recognition of different activities through ceramic analysis is critical to understanding the uses of formal architecture, but little functional analysis has been done to date in the "guachimonton" architecture commonly interpreted as temples. A previous study of the ceramics from guachimonton Circle 5 at the site of Navajas, Jalisco, provided evidence for aggrandizing rituals, group feasting, and daily domestic activities and helped to develop a model relating ceramic wares and types to...

  • Rabbit remains analysis in the Upper Paleolithic in Portugal (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Zorn. Jonathan Haws.

    Ongoing excavations and research at the cave site of Lapa do Picareiro in the Estremadura region of Portugal have recovered a large number of faunal remains, including thousands of rabbit bones. These remains have yielded new data and insight on human exploitation of small prey during the Upper Paleolithic. This poster focuses on the spatial and temporal distribution of rabbit remains within the cave and the taphonomic processes acting on these bones. The work builds upon previous research using...

  • Sexual dimorphism and morphological variability with regard to the socio-economic structure of the Early Medieval European Population (6th – 9th century). (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Petr Veleminsky. Petra Havelkova. Jan Dupej. Jana Veleminska. Dominique Castex.

    The socio-economic conditions of past societies can be studied with the help of the biological characteristics of human skeletons. We intend to focus on the early medieval Central and West European populations. The subject of our contribution is a study of the sexual dimorphism and biological diversity on the basis of non-metric and metric traits in relation to socio-economic conditions. We focused primarily on the traits associated with the locomotor apparatus. The aims were to establish :...

  • How to use DNA analysis to assess health in the past. Applications for New World soft-tissues. (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Abigail Bouwman. Giada Ferrari. Frank Rühli.

    Human remains can offer many insights into our past culture, especially about our attitudes to death. However, how we lived is a much larger question. Whilst paleopathology can give us some understanding of the diseases that affected our ancestors, DNA evidence can give us so much more. Mummification, either artificial or natural, of human remains is highly variable, for example frozen ice-mummies such as the Tyrolean Iceman have a very different thermal history to heat desiccated mummies such...

  • The Archaeology of Politics in the Highlands of Persia (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Tobin Hartnell.

    The case of the Neo-Elamite highlands is significant for understanding more about the potential of archaeology to reconstruct elements of political history through politicized landscapes. This project is particularly important in ancient Iran, which did not create the types of literary genres or historical narratives found in Mesopotamian or Greco-Roman civilizations. For archaeologists studying the Elamite dynasties and the early Achaemenid Empire, the central problem is the absence of...

  • Ethnic Disparity and Stress in Prehispanic Peru: A contextualized analysis of Cranial Pathology and Facial Asymmetry (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Davette Gadison. Kassie Sugimoto. Danielle Kurin. Bethany Turner-Livermore.

    This study evaluates the effects of stress on a prehistoric population from the south-central highlands of Andahuaylas, Peru during the Late Intermediate Period (LIP: AD 1000 - AD 1400). This era was characterized by skyrocketing violence, resource competition, and increasing social inequality. We test the impact of these phenomena by examining cranial lesions and fluctuating facial asymmetry--both indicators of non-specific stress-- among different ethnic groups, identified by the absence,...

  • Full-coverage survey techniques in the mountains of the Sierra Sur, Oaxaca, Mexico. (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alex Badillo.

    This poster presents full-coverage mountain survey methodologies in light of the development of GPS technologies and GIS software and data during the last decade. Oaxaca, Mexico is a well-known area for settlement pattern research as various successful full-coverage regional survey projects have been done there. Settlement data of the Oaxaca region, gathered using full-coverage survey methods, have produced large continuous datasets of the spatial distribution of archaeological remains....

  • Tula 2014: Reexamining Ball Court 2 through Cross-Cultural Comparisons with the Yucatan (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Dylan Birch.

    The Proyecto de Investigación, Conservación y Mantenimiento para la Zona Arqueológica de Tula 2014, directed by Dr. Robert Cobean focused on the restoration of Ball Court 2. Today, the three major ceremonial centers exposed at Tula are the Palacio Quemado, Pyramid B and Pyramid C; these structures form an L-shape that faces the Adoratorio situated in the center of the plaza. The positioning and architectural dimensions of Ball Court 2 in Tula’s main precinct are almost exact with the largest...

  • An XRF Analysis of Redware Artifacts from Hanna's Town, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Crise.

    Hanna’s Town in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania played a pivotal role in the history of the state prior to and during the American Revolution. Archaeological excavations at Hanna’s Town have yielded a vast assemblage of domestic artifacts including various types of historic ceramics, the majority of which are redware. An x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) analysis of redware artifacts from Hanna’s Town provides more detailed information on the character of raw ceramic materials and the...

  • Measuring Power and Influence: GIS Modeling of Political Spheres of Influence (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Bianca Gentil.

    In an area where most of the written record is destroyed, modeling political interactions through spatial relationships with the environment and other political centers along with exchange relationships, can provide insight into regional intra-site relationships. This poster displays a theoretical model using Geographic Information Systems technology of regional heterarchical relationships between sites in the Northeastern Petén. The model is formulated by implementing hierarchical political...

  • Predicting Archaeological Site Locations in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area in Colorado (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lucy Harrington. Natalie Clark.

    Archaeological predictive models are used in two main applications to 1) identify areas of cultural resource sensitivity in an unsurveyed area and 2) better understand historic and prehistoric use of a landscape. The model created here straddles these two applications, serving to predict cultural resource sensitivity in the primarily unsurveyed McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area (MCNCA), and to understand the distribution of known sites in that area. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM)...

  • Migration Terminus? Late Pleistocene/and Early Holocene Archaeology at Rock Creek Mortar Shelter, Upper Cumberland Plateau, Tennessee (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jay Franklin. Maureen Hays. Frédéric Surmely. Lucinda Langston. Ilaria Patania.

    Rock Creek Mortar Shelter (40Pt209), in Pickett State Forest on the Upper Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee, possesses a more or less continuous 11,600 year occupation history. This history may be consistent with previous ideas of first colonization of upland rock shelter zones at the end of the Younger Dryas with significant climatic amelioration. However, we have not yet encountered culturally sterile deposits and believe the site may be older still. We focus here on the late Pleistocene and...

  • Spatial distribution and site formation of the Schöningen Spear Horizon, Lower Saxony, Germany (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alejandro Garcia-Moreno. Jarod M. Hutson. Aritza Villaluenga. Elaine Turner. Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser.

    The discovery of the Schöningen 13II-4 Spear Horizon represents a major milestone in the study human behavioural evolution. Once viewed as a single mass kill site of horses, aided by wooden spears, it is becoming increasingly clear that the site represents multiple hominin hunting episodes along the margin of a middle Pleistocene lakeshore. However, there are still questions to be addressed regarding the spatial relationships between and within the spear, lithic, and faunal assemblages. Here we...

  • Market Exchange Seen Through the Mist: Network Visualization for Variable Data (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Johnston.

    In analyzing micro and mesoscale distribution systems, it is necessary to identify the economic structures and elucidate the socio-economic conditions governing the interaction of agents. Of particular interest in assessing economies of the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean is the potential incorporation of extra-palatial actors in privatized production and non-centralized exchange. Central to this issue is the question of whether marketing activity was extant outside royal jurisdiction, providing...

  • Quantifying the effects of erosional processes on stone artifact concentrations: Implications for site formation at open-air Paleolithic sites (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacob Davis. Shiela Nightingale. Jessica Thompson. Elizabeth Gomani-Chindebvu.

    An essential part of archaeological site management and interpretation is determining how recent landscape modifications affect artifact distributions. Stone artifact scatters can be an initial indicator of subsurface concentrations, yet little scholarship has focused on quantifying the nature and rate of the erosional processes that affect them. The archaeological record of northern Malawi demonstrates that despite abundant surface scatters, subsurface distributions may vary considerably in...

  • Starch and Stone: Preliminary Evidence from Jomon Period Ground Stone in Southwestern Hokkaido (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Emma Yasui.

    Lithic assemblages from Jomon Period sites contain a wide variety of artifacts that were chipped or ground from a number of raw materials. Typological frameworks exist to aid interpretations about function and use, but many details are still unknown when it comes to how Jomon people incorporated this array of stone objects into their lives. The place of ground stone implements within Jomon lithic technology and society is particularly intriguing, as questions about the quantities and variations...

  • A ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD OF ANCIENT FISHES FROM THE MAYA: EVIDENCE FROM FISH BONES IN THE STUDY OF ANCIENT FISHERIES (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nayeli Jiménez-Cano.

    Large bodies of water surround the Maya Area and its ancients inhabitants had close subsistence relations with the aquatic world by exploiting the resources that the this scenario provided them. In this sense, fishes were one of the animals widely exploited by the ancient Maya and whose zooarchaeological study helps to uncover questions and pose new queries about their social and environmental uses. This paper gathers information about the archaeological presence of such resources from various...

  • Every end is a new beginning. An adaptive cycle in North-West Europe during the Weichselian Lateglacial (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sonja Grimm.

    Change in human societies is encouraged by innovators and slowed by traditional behaviour that provides the security of a running system. However, in times of significant climatic and environmental change traditional strategies might fail and innovations can become the more attractive option. 15,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers in north-western Europe were confronted with the important change from a glacial (Weichselian) to an interglacial period (Holocene) that was characterised by rapid...

  • Borderlands in the Amazon forest: can we draw boundaries? (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Myrtle Shock. Filippo Stampanoni Bassi.

    Amazonian occupations from 2500 BP to contact have been characterized into expansive traditions based on ceramic vessels. Meanwhile, ethnographic records point to diverse ethnic groups residing across the basin. Seeking variables that may be associated with pre-columbian cultural diversity we explore a possible intersection between groups, an area located at the headwaters of five tributaries to the Negro and Amazon Rivers. Archaeological data deriving from analyses of settlement structure,...

  • Deconstructing Multiple Intersecting Identities and Cremation Ritual among the Preclassic Hohokam of the Tucson Basin (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Cerezo-Román.

    Hohokam cremation funerary customs are unraveled to acquire a deeper understanding of intersecting identity differences among seven Preclassic Period archaeological sites (A.D. 475-1150) of the Tucson Basin. This is done by analyzing the mortuary treatment of 477 individual remains using two primary datasets: (1) biological profile of the skeletal remains; and, (2) posthumous treatment of the body inferred from the analysis of the remains and archaeological contexts. Results indicate the...

  • The Geoarchaeology of two Riverine Sites in New Jersey (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only John Turck. Joseph Schuldenrein.

    In dynamic environmental settings, various ecological processes can affect the landscape, the people living on those landscapes, and the subsequent archaeological record. Further confounding the situation is human-induced landscape change, which evidence indicates has occurred recently, historically, and prehistorically. Our efforts at two riverine locations in northern and central New Jersey reveal the efficacy of a geoarchaeological approach to understanding the archaeological record. Through...

  • Not Your Ordinary Models: Exploring Time and Space with Ordinal Regression and Other Methods (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Gillam.

    Advances in Archaeological Geographic Information Science and Informatics have enabled the refinement of archaeological statistics and other quantitative methods in recent years. Along the Central Savannah River of South Carolina, recent research on prehistoric site distributions and multicomponency has resulted in the development of several novel methodologies. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) enables the examination of the environmental context of archaeological sites through time....

  • Micromorphology of Middle to Later Stone Age sites at Mwanganda's Village, northern Malawi (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Flora Schilt. Susan Mentzer. David Wright. Jessica Thompson. Elizabeth Gomani-Chindebvu.

    The Mwanganda's Village site, northern Malawi, was first excavated in 1965-1966 under the direction of J. D. Clark, who reported the recovery of early Middle Stone Age (MSA) stone tools in possible association with the remains of an elephant. New work in 2009-2012 revealed that the elephant and the artifacts were not likely to have been behaviorally associated. The site lies within a series of river terraces dating from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene. Near the top of the sequence an in...

  • Agent Based Modelling on the origins of the sexual division of labour (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Francisco J. Miguel Quesada. Eduardo Tapia. Débora Zurro. Jorge Caro.

    Social differences between men and women are still an object of debate among several areas of knowledge. These differences are the result of a long historical process that led to the establishment of the sexual division of labour as we know it, although we do not know the original cicumstances and steps that initially originated it. In order to throw light on this, we are focusing on hunter-gather societies; ethnographic and historical documentation about these human societies points to...

  • Touching the Past in Museums: issues of authenticity and identity for crafted replicas and 3D print facsimiles of rare, perishable and iconic artefacts (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Hurcombe. Alison Sheridan. Fiona Pitt.

    Traditional museum presentations of rare or fragile archaeological artefacts are dominated by displays behind glass; vision dominates the sensory experience. The emotional connections built by more multisensory engagement with artefacts offer a better appreciation of the ancient objects and an enhanced museum visit. The research focused on icons of identity which were too precious to allow handling and items which were too fragile to touch, such as ancient perishable textiles and basketry. The...

  • "Of what use is a bear?": Examining Black bears (Ursus americanus) as a Capitalized Resource in Northeastern North America during the Woodland and Colonial Periods (A.D. 1300-1800) (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Vivian James.

    One of the largest terrestrial mammals in Northeastern North America, black bears (Ursus americanus) were an important dietary component throughout the Woodland and Colonial Periods (A.D. 1300-1800). Previous research has demonstrated an increase in the frequency of black bear remains recovered from archaeological sites in New York State that have been dated to this five hundred year period. Primarily interpreted as a subsistence resource, the use of black bear secondary products has been...

  • Interpersonal violence among the prehistoric hunter-gatherers of Cis-Baikal, southern Siberia (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rick Schulting. Angela Lieverse. Vladimir Bazaliiskii. Andrzej Weber.

    The large number of mid-Holocene cemeteries from Lake Baikal and its surrounding river valleys provide an unrivalled archaeological resource for the study of northern Eurasian hunter-gatherers. In this paper we present an overview of the skeletal evidence for interpersonal violence, comparing the Early Neolithic (7550–6800 cal BP) and Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (5700–3700 cal BP), two broad periods exhibiting different mortuary traditions and subsistence practices. Despite the nomenclature,...

  • Micromorphological Studies from the Clear Lake Basin California (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Roger Werner. Val Dufeu.

    Geoarchaeology has a wide range of applications for the understanding of the past. Within geoarchaeology, since the 1980s, micromorphological analysis has become a more common worldwide research tool for the study of soils from archaeological sites because it can play an important role in understanding site formation through the research of human waste, occupation debris, fuel residues and animal waste. It can serve as an aid in the reconstruction of human occupation, help identify economic...

  • Ancient Clam Gardens of the Southern Gulf Islands (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric McLay.

    Clam Gardens of the Southern Gulf Islands and southeastern Vancouver Island, British Columbia This paper describes a comprehensive, five-year archaeological project to identify and document the location of ancient intertidal clam garden features in the Southern Gulf Islands and southeastern Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It is discovered that clam gardens in the Southern Gulf Islands region are extensive, exhibit clear patterning in location and morphology, and demonstrate a monumentality...

  • Late Mousterian Industrial Variability in Southwestern France: A Case of Abri Peyrony (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Tamara Dogandzic. Karen Ruebens. Michel Lenoir. Shannon McPherron.

    Variability of late Neandertal technological behavior has been a long debated question in which sites from southwestern France figure prominently. As suggested by some, rich datasets from this region show a pattern of chronological sequencing of late Mousterian technocomplexes. According to this model that assumes technocomplexes reflect different cultural groups among Neandertals, Quina Mousterian is always followed by Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition (MTA) and discoidal-denticulate is...

  • Depopulation and Massacres: Bioarchaeological Evidence of Violence within the Ancestral Pueblo of the Southwest Region of North America (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Casey Hegel.

    This paper investigates forensic data within the Southwest region of the United States for indicators of violence, conflict, and warfare related events. The main focus is the Mesa Verde region of the Southwest and other sites inhabited by the Ancestral Pueblo. In this area, I examine forensic evidence supportive of trophy-killing and cannibalism; both have documented evidence at other sites in the Southwest area. Different types of trauma, such as, cut marks and blunt force trauma are also...

  • Remote Sensing at the Buffalo Lake Métis Wintering Site (FdPe-1): Preliminary Results (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Aaron Coons. Kisha Supernant.

    The Buffalo Lake Métis Wintering Site (FdPe-1), located in central Alberta, Canada, presents one of the most extensively studied examples of overwintering practices amongst the Fur Trade-era Métis. With historical records accounting for approximately four hundred cabins being present at the site in 1876, this site has the potential to have been the largest settlement west of the Red River at the time of its occupation. However, surficial evidence of these cabins is now scarce as a result of...

  • Spatial Analysis of Prehistoric Garden Features on Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Isabela Kott. Carl P. Lipo. Christopher Lee. Terry L. Hunt.

    Manavai are circular walled stone gardens used for cultivation by the prehistoric populations of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile). Though not fully mapped, over 1000 manavai are known across the island in a distribution that reflects dispersed settlement patterns. Object-based image analysis of newly available high-resolution imagery of the island offers a mean of systematically identifying manavai features. Using the results of these analyses, we examine the spatial patterns of manavai and their...

  • Application of Object-based Image Analysis of High Resolution Imagery to Identify Archaeological Features on Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jordan Pratt. Isabela Kott. Christopher Lee. Carl P. Lipo. Terry L. Hunt.

    Object-based image analysis provides a powerful tool for using remote sensing data as a means of identifying archaeological features. Object-based image analysis has multiple advantages over pixel and spectral based tools, because it isolates features in image data based on a combination of spatial, spectral, and geometric characteristics. Using high spatial and spectral resolution imagery available for Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) and the Trimble eCognition software package, we explore how...

  • 3D Photogrammetry and GIS for Tracking Edge Wear Accumulation in Lithic Experiments (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Waber.

    Digital photogrammetry is fast becoming a popular method for 3D landscape, feature, and object modelling. The ease with which photogrammetrically-derived models may be analyzed with conventional GIS software has streamlined archaeological landscape analysis. These same tools are eminently scaleable, facilitating comparable analyses of much smaller surfaces: those of lithic artifacts. Using 3D digital photogrammetry and GIS software, I propose a method to locate, define, and quantify edge damage...

  • Iron Grinding Technology in the Kofun Period: New Evidence and Research Techniques (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Lyons.

    Due to both a lack of direct evidence and lack of well-defined investigative methods, iron polishing and grinding technologies in the prehistoric Japanese archipelago remain poorly understood. Following the recent foundational research by Lyons, Kawano, and Suzuki, this project seeks to clarify the tools and gestures used to finish iron objects during the Kofun period. Photogrammetric techniques and 3D laser scanning were used to record and analyze striations left by original grinding on iron...

  • Using LiDAR and Relative Elevation Modeling (REM) to Identify and Analyze Archaeologically Sensitive Alluvial Landforms (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Shane Sparks. Elder James Tait. Daniel Stratten. Grant Novak. Crilly Ritz.

    Alluvial landforms are highly sensitive areas, with the potential to contain both surface exposed and buried archaeological deposits, but systematic analysis and identification of these landforms has proved problematic in the past. Although large alluvial terraces can be identified visually on topographic maps, high resolution LiDAR, and Digital Elevation Models; smaller, subtler terraces, and other complex alluvial landforms can be problematic due to stream gradient issues and resulting...

  • A Biface Cache from Paradise Springs, Central Mojave Desert (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeanne Binning. Jill Minar. Clifford Walker. Dan Stueber.

    A cache of eight pressure-flaked bifaces, including two Humboldt Basal-Notched knives of Coso obsidian and six, chert, dart-point performs, was found at Paradise Springs, south of Fort Irwin in the Central Mojave Desert. Hydration rinds on the two Humboldt bifaces indicate that the cache dates to about 1400 cal BP. The function of the cache within its social context, the special role of the Humboldt Basal-Notched knife, and the persistence of the altatl and dart into bow and arrow times are...

  • Depictions of Human Facial Decoration on Mimbres Pottery as an Indication of Social Affiliation (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Isabel Starr. James McGrath. Will Russell.

    The culture of the Mimbres Mogollon region is known for its intricate, black-on-white, geometric and figurative pottery designs. Analysis of ceramic iconography found on Mimbres pottery allows archaeologists to hypothesize about Mimbres life and social structure. Using provenienced, figurative vessel data from the Mimbres Pottery Images Digital Database (MimPIDD), this paper investigates the possible relationship between human facial decoration and the inter- and intra-site provenience of...

  • Indigenous Labor and the Hacienda System: Examining Everyday Micropolitics and Global Capitalism at the Historic Hacienda Guachalá, Ecuador (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Zev Cossin.

    Scholarship in a variety of disciplines pertaining to global flows of people, goods and ideas have begun to emphasize the mediating effects of local communities and cultural logics on and against broader transformations and structural conditions. This topic is of particular importance to an anthropological understanding of both contemporary capitalist processes globally as well as their historical precedents. Recent theoretical approaches to contemporary capitalism, specifically, approach...

  • Material Perspectives on Canal Ceremonialism at Chavín de Huántar (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Brown.

    This work presents an interpretive revaluation of canal ceremonialism at the Andean Formative civic-ceremonial center of Chavín de Huántar. Focusing on a set of spaces within the subterranean stone-lined waterway "Canal 2," excavated in 2012 in an "Esplanade" area flanking the site’s monumental core, this study explores the excavation hypothesis that canals acted as stages for the ritual-sacrificial deposition of artifacts. Through an analysis of stratigraphic and material patterning within...

  • Projectile Point Temporal Trends During the Mimbres Georgetown Phase (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Turnbow.

    Past excavations of Mimbres Georgetown phase occupations at the Diablo Village and Cuchillo sites produced assemblages critical to the refinement of the Mimbres projectile point chronology. Derived from structures and tightly dated contexts ranging between the late AD 500s and the 600s, these assemblages reveal evidence of diachronic technological and morphological changes not clearly represented in currently established Mimbres typologies. Of particular interest, a new arrow type called the...

  • Seeing Prehistory in Color: Interpreting the Use of Colored Pigments at the Tiwanaku Omo Temple, Moquegua, Peru (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason Kjolsing. Paul Goldstein.

    Although color is often at the background of our lived experience, colors also have the power to demand our attention. In this paper we explore how color was a meaningful component of the built environment in prehistoric South America and specifically the ways it demanded the attention of the Tiwanaku (AD 500-1100) of the south-central Andes. Extensive excavations at the Tiwanaku Omo ceremonial temple (M10A) in Moquegua, Peru have revealed the use of red and green pigments on selective walls...

  • Utilizing Tablets for Mobile Data Recording in a CRM Context (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Corey Hartley. Lap Kwan Tang.

    This poster session illustrates the effective utilization of tablet computers in archaeology using a cultural resource management (CRM) case-study. CRM in British Columbia requires rapid turn-around times between site identification, investigation, reporting, and project development. This dynamic makes tablets ideal for generating complex datasets from archaeological sites in short periods of time. Digital data can be imported into GIS or database management systems immediately, without...

  • From Trash Pile to Temple Wall: The distribution of Formative Period sherds in adobes at the Omo M10A Tiwanaku temple (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathleen Huggins. Matthew Sitek. Paul Goldstein.

    This project addresses site formation and construction processes in the Omo M10A provincial Tiwanaku temple in the Osmore drainage of southern Peru (ca. AD 500-1100). We will test the hypothesis that this structure was constructed using adobes made from soil deposits containing cultural materials from local, Formative Period Huaracane occupations (ca. 1750 BC–AD 600). This will be done by detailing the manufacture of Tiwanaku adobe bricks and charting the association of Huaracane style ceramic...

  • Infectious Diseases within the Tiwanaku Periphery (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Allisen Dahlstedt.

    Today, infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, devastate millions of lives annually. The prehistoric prevalence and distribution of such infectious diseases provide context for their modern (re-)emergence, spread, and associated social perceptions, as well as inform the experiences of individuals in the past. Here I examine the expression and distribution of pathological lesions on the skeletal remains of 143 individuals from Omo M10, a Tiwanaku migrant community in Moquegua, Peru. The Middle...

  • Cultural Landscape Assessment for the San Luis Valley-Taos Plateau (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Konnie Wescott. Angie Krall. Brian Fredericks.

    In support of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) recent shift toward a regional landscape-scale approach to resource management on public lands, Argonne National Laboratory is conducting a pilot cultural landscape assessment in the San Luis Valley–Taos Plateau region of Colorado and New Mexico. The cultural landscape assessment is a paradigm shift from looking at individual cultural resource locations on a project-by-project basis to a more holistic approach of land use patterns at a...

  • The Breaking and Making of Ceramics in the Pre-Columbian Caribbean: A Technological Approach to Grog Identification (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Guzman.

    Grog is a technological phenomenon present in archaeological assemblages spanning widely across time and space. Traditionally defined as a grounded down, previously fired ceramic used as temper during clay preparation, grog belongs to a wider category of additives which increase porosity and reduce shrinkage, thereby lessening the likelihood of vessel crack progression during the drying and firing stages of ceramic production. Beyond this basic description of its functional properties, grog has...

  • Predicting the Location of Human Remains on WWII Bombardment Aircraft Crash Sites (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Owen O'Leary.

    Examination of eight WWII bombardment aircraft loss incidents that have been resolved by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) since 2000 has allowed for the creation of a model that predicts where human remains can be expected to be recovered from within a crash scene based upon each crew member’s individual duty station. This paper will detail how the remains identification process was utilized in order to determine where each individual was found in relation to the aircraft wreckage at...

  • Resilience and Continuity in Iroquoia: An Analysis of Animal Remains from the 17th-Century Seneca Iroquois White Springs Site. (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Caitlin Miller. Siu Ying Ng. Adam Watson.

    In the summer of 1687, the Marquis de Denonville led a punitive expeditionary force from New France against the Seneca Iroquois in what is now western New York State. As a response to imminent invasion, the Senecas fled under the protective umbrella of the Cayugas. Upon returning to their homeland the following year, with all four settlements destroyed, the Senecas constructed two nucleated villages, one of which was located at White Springs, near present-day Geneva, New York, where they...

  • Patrones de desecho en los grupos domésticos de la Hacienda San Pedro Cholul. (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Luis Joaquin Venegas De La Torre. Mashelli A. Contreras Hernández. Héctor A. Hernández Álvarez.

    A partir de 2009 la Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán ha realizado exploraciones arqueológicas al interior de la hacienda henequenera San Pedro Cholul, teniendo como principal enfoque el estudio de la vida cotidiana de los antiguos pobladores. Como parte del proyecto, hasta el momento se han intervenido 3 solares habitacionales y sus respectivas viviendas. Mediante la recolección de superficie y la excavación de dichos espacios se han recuperado diversos elementos materiales que nos han permitido...

  • Evidence for Climate Change During the 3rd – 5th Century CE: The microvertebrate evidence from Tel Huqoq, Israel (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Brown. Miriam Belmaker.

    The 3rd-5th century CE Levant is known as a time period in which climatic conditions of the southern region were wetter than today. The climatic system of the northern Levant differs from the south, which raises the question of whether or not there was climate change in the north. At present there is no paleoecological data within the northern Galilee. Thus, obtaining paleoecological data is vital for understanding how climate may have affected the local social and economic sphere. The...

  • A Bioarchaeological Investigation of an Explosive Impacted Skeleton from Ifugao, Philippines Cordillera (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Amber Joliz Steinbruchel. Aaron Chang. John Kribaum. Adam Lauer.

    The Ifugao Archaeology Project (IAP) investigates the sparse prehistoric and colonial archaeological record of the Philippine Cordillera. The biological anthropology of the area is almost completely unknown. A single adult human skeleton has been recovered from primary archaeological context in the Ifugao area. The paucity of skeletal remains is largely due to cultural practices that include the processing and collection of juvenile and adult skeletons for ritual storage. One adult human...

  • New Carbon-14 (14C) Dates on "Old" Cultural Components near Quartz Lake, Interior Alaska (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Kielhofer. Josh Reuther. Francois Lanoë. Dave Plaskett. Jason Rogers.

    As part of the Quartz Lake/Shaw Creek Flats research initiative, excavations took place in 2014 at the Cook, Keystone Dune and Klein sites in the middle Tanana Valley, interior Alaska. Although these sites were previously tested, continued excavation was vital to expand the 14C chronology and enhance understanding of prehistoric subarctic foraging behavior and paleoecology. At the Klein site, our goal was to gather more geochronological information on a component previously dated ~3700-5100 cal....

  • Human-climate-landscape interactions within the Rio Blanco Basin, Southern Belize (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Thompson. Christopher Merriman. Clayton Meredith. Keith Prufer. Megan Walsh.

    Excavations of alluvial terraces along the Rio Blanco, near the Maya site of Uxbenká in southern Belize, Toledo District, record Holocene human impacts and sediment aggradation from the pre-ceramic through the modern period. Assuming sediment aggradation rates on the terraces are inversely related to basin-wide hill slope erosion allows us to develop a landscape evolution model during the Holocene and investigate possible anthropogenic vs. climatic effects on the landscape. Radiocarbon dates and...

  • The Potential Integration of Niche Construction Theory into the Framework of Human Behavioral Ecology (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Mohlenhoff. Christopher Parker. Brian Codding.

    Throughout the history of hominid evolution, our ancestors developed the ability to adapt to extremely different environments and eventually colonize the entire world. The capacity to adapt to environments as different as the Amazon Rainforest and the Arctic tundra is complex, and has led some anthropologists to question the utility of Neo-Darwinian evolutionary frameworks. The debate over the utility of these frameworks has become more heated recently, with some proposing the use of Niche...

  • Coastal Groundwater Seeps on Rapa Nui (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Cole. Matt Becker. Carl Lipo.

    Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) is a remarkably resource-poor volcanic island. Significantly, it lacks surface streams found on more tropical Polynesian islands, other than several remote access volcanic crater lakes. Due to the island’s highly permeable, volcanic subsurface, rainwater infiltrates rapidly and becomes groundwater. Only along the coast does the water table intersect the topography to form seeps or springs. We hypothesize these seeps and springs were a primary source of fresh water...

  • Late Pleistocene – Early Holocene Stratigraphic "Marker Horizons" in North Florida (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Charlotte Pevny. William Barse. R. Christopher Goodwin.

    The recognition of chronologically synchronous paleosols along the Cody Scarp in north Florida reflects broad patterns of deposition, pedogenesis, weathering, and climatic stability at the Pleistocene – Holocene transition. These paleosols, or stratigraphic "marker horizons," formed during rapid burial of A-horizons under mesic forest conditions. Marker horizons are best understood from the framework of genetic stratigraphy because they contain temporally diagnostic Early Archaic Bolen points....

  • Environmental reconstruction at Pueblo Grande, Arizona through stable isotope analysis of Leporid bone (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Wong. Andrew Somerville. Margaret J. Schoeninger.

    Stable isotope analysis of faunal bone can provide valuable information about the environments in which the animals lived. Reconstructing paleoenvironments at archaeological sites permits a better understanding of the factors that influenced their social development and decline. In this poster we present results of stable isotopic analyses (d13Capatite, d18Oapatite, d13Ccollagen and d15Ncollagen) of leporid bone apatite and collagen to investigate temporal changes in environmental conditions at...

  • Expedient Stone Tool Analysis from Tule Creek (CA-SNI-25) (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Moritz. René Vellanoweth.

    San Nicolas Island is the most remote of the California Channel Islands and has been inhabited since the Early Holocene. The island has an abundant supply of highly indurated sandstones as well as quartzites, metavolcanics, and metasedimentary rocks associated with densely packed conglomerate beds. Although there are no microcrystalline rocks such as obsidians, cherts, and fused shales, the local island toolstone is ideal for expedient tool technologies and for working sandstone. The Native...

  • Prehistoric High Elevation Seasonal Use in Wyoming: Results of Flaked Stone Analysis from High Rise Village (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lukas Trout.

    The analysis of flaked stone procured from 10 of High Rise Village’s 52 habitation features provided a unique glimpse into high-elevation prehistoric hunter-gatherer behaviors in western Wyoming, including occupational intensity, and settlement and subsistence behaviors. Rather than a hunting-focused and/or intensive logistical-residential settlement-subsistence strategy described throughout the Rocky Mountains and Intermountain West, High Rise Village was evidently targeted for specific...

  • The Effects of Sampling by Size Class on the Organization of Technology at the Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit Site (45PI408), Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Davis. Patrick Lewis. Patrick McCutcheon.

    Prior lithic paradigmatic classification at the Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit site (45PI408) has shown significant intra-site variation in chipped-stone technology and function. Recent fieldwork recovered an additional sample of artifacts bringing the total chipped stone assemblage to a sample size of n = 13036. Size grading, or mass analysis, was done for all lithic artifacts before cataloging. Recent attribute analysis of all lithic artifacts > 0.635 cm mesh size (n = 3681) demonstrates that...

  • Paleoarchaic Occupations in the Eastern Great Basin: Results of GIS Predictive Modeling for Identifying Paleoarchaic Sites in Southern Nevada (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Adams. Michael Ligman. Zach Scribner.

    Within the Great Basin, site locations dating to the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition (PHT) are generally associated with specific geographical features. GIS is a useful tool for identifying geographical features likely to contain sites dating to the PHT period. Guided by previous Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene investigations in the Great Basin, a GIS predictive model combining topographical features likely to have been favorable for PHT period occupation was developed. Topographical features...

  • Environmental Reconstruction at La Quemada, Zacateca, Mexico Through Stable Isotope Analysis of Leporid Bones (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Cheyenne Butcher. Andrew D. Somerville. Ben Nelson. Margaret J. Schoeninger.

    Reconstructing the interactions between past environments and the expansion and secession of complex societies plays an important role in our understanding of their social development. Stable isotope analysis of faunal bone is a useful tool in reconstructing past environments and can give insight into the social-environmental dynamics of past civilizations. In this poster we present results from the stable isotope analysis of leporid bones (N=79) excavated from stratified midden deposits in the...

  • Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction of the Northern Frontier of Mesoamerica: Stable Isotopic Analysis of Lagomorphs from La Ferrería, Durango, Mexico (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Lee. Andrew D. Somerville. Margaret J. Schoeninger.

    Central to understanding the social and economic dynamics of past societies is the reconstruction of the environment in which they developed. The marginal environmental region of Northwest Mexico, in particular, has been a focus of debate concerning the importance of environmental change in the rise and decline of complex societies in the region. This study analyzes 49 Leporid (rabbit and hare) bones from the settlement of La Ferrería in modern Durango, Mexico for stable isotope ratios of...

  • Zooarchaeology of the Late Intermediate Period in Minaspata, Cuzco, Peru (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Raija Heikkila. Kaitlyn Laws. Thomas Hardy.

    Minaspata, a site located in the Cuzco Valley of the south-central Peruvian Andes, contains evidence of occupation spanning continuously from the Early Horizon through the end of the Inca Empire. In 2013, several units were excavated in order to better understand the social transformations which occurred in local populations due to colonial practices, both under the Wari state in the Middle Horizon and in the early consolidation of the Inca heartland. Analysis of the faunal remains of the...

  • The Potential Role of Water Salinity in Limestone Tempered Logandale Gray Ware Ceramic Production in the Moapa Valley, Nevada: An Experimental Approach (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only William Willis. Karen Harry.

    Limestone has been shown to be an advantageous temper to use in utility vessels due to its ability to affect factors that mitigate problems caused by heat expansion and thermal shock during the use cycle of ceramics. Specifically, limestone alters the characteristics of the clay, allowing for the manufacture of thinner walled vessels. Additionally, it has similar thermal expansion characteristics as clay itself. However, it has been noted that limestone temper has a propensity to spall, thus...

  • Learning from the Past: Cinder Mulch Agriculture Past and Present (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Arendt.

    Cinder mulch agriculture has been studied in relation to the archaeology of the Flagstaff, Arizona, area since Colton in the 1930s, with several experimental studies assessing the agricultural benefits of this method. Recently, local gardeners in the Flagstaff area have begun experimenting with using cinder mulch on their own gardens. This provides an opportunity for public outreach and for archaeologists and the local gardening community to learn from each other, with gardeners gaining the...

  • Accessing and Assessing Coastal Shell Middens on Private Property in the Pacific Northwest (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Jolivette. Amanda Taylor. Sarah Van Galder.

    The majority of coastal property in the Pacific Northwest is in private hands. Although laws in Washington State protect archaeological sites on private property, such sites are traditionally only assessed on a case by case basis when the landowner seeks a permit. Landscape scale assessments of coastal resources in the Puget Sound region are rare. Here we compare the results of two such projects along Puget Sound; an academic project in the San Juan Islands conducted by researchers at the...

  • Hard Choices Along the Rio Grande: Piro Trade Networks and Decision-Making During the 1680 Pueblo Revolt (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Evan Giomi.

    The Piro Pueblos along the southern Rio Grande did not join with the rebelling Pueblos in the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and instead left New Mexico with the retreating Spanish or migrated to other Pueblos. The events of the Revolt and the circumstances of Spanish colonialism required that the Piro make political decisions such as these. The same was true for the northern Pueblos organizing the Revolt, who decided not to include the Piros as part of the rebellion. For both groups, these decisions were...

  • The Late Bronze Age Theran Eruption: A Spatial Analysis Study of Permanent Abandonment Processes (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Martin.

    Societies have been responding to natural disasters through evacuation and abandonment for all of human history. The same forces of nature continue to threaten human societies today and trigger many of the same responses. By engaging in cross-cultural comparisons, a pattern of responses may be articulated, directed towards answering such questions as: how far do people flee? For temporary evacuation, do they stay in existing settlements or build impermanent refugee camps? If evacuation is...

  • Idyllic childhood or practical placement: Examining children's homes using GIS, remote sensing, and landscape archaeology (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Paulina Przystupa.

    The late 19th century represents a turning point in Western beliefs about childhood. These new cultural beliefs redefined childhood as an innocent stage in the human life cycle and encouraged particular environments for raising children. Rural areas encouraged learning and exercise, sheltering children from the dangers of the polluted urban environment. However, this ideology contradicted the economic realities of the late 19th century. Other archaeologists have examined this tension between the...

  • Best Practices and Community Engagement for Reinternment of CA-LAn-270 (Los Altos Village) Cultural Materials on a National Registry Listed Site (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Candice Brennan. Jennifer McElhoes. Cindi Alvitre. Carl Lipo.

    Within the core of NAGPRA is a spirit of collaboration and consultation between institutions, investigators and native communities. At CSULB, we have partnered with Tongva/San Gabrielino community members and university administration to reinter cultural remains from CA-LAn-270 (Los Altos Village Site), a site excavated in the 1950s. Community interests have centered on placing the re-interment place on university campus property and at a location of CA-LAn-234, a National Register listed...

  • Reconstructing a Recuay Feasting Event at Hualcayán, Peru through Ceramic Analysis (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah McAllister. Rebecca Bria. Elizabeth Katherine Cruzado Carranza.

    Although research of the Recuay Culture has heavily focused on the practices and materials of Recuay feasts, these studies are limited to a few archaeological sites. Consequently, the variation of Recuay feasting practices between communities in highland Ancash is still unclear. This poster presents a typological and spatial analysis of Recuay ceramics excavated from the archaeological site of Hualcayán to reveal the local ritual practices of food preparation and consumption during the Early...

  • Indifference, Inertia, Limited Budgets, and Preservation: Insights from Site Stewardship Programs (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Beth Padon.

    Archaeological sites are fragile and non-renewable, but how do we protect them from visitors, development projects, and natural processes that are accelerated by climate change? People are interested in reports of new archaeological discoveries, but they don’t know -- or care -- about local archaeological resources, and publicizing them is restricted by confidentiality requirements. Government agencies are charged with protecting archaeological resources, but they do not have enough resources to...

  • Taking Tech on the Road: Mobile Makerspaces and Archaeological Engagement (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Compton. Ryan Hunt. Kimberly Martin.

    This poster introduces a London, Ontario-based initiative called the Digital Humanities MakerBus, a school bus converted into an innovative classroom, laboratory, and creative play space. The purpose of the project is to provide access to digital technologies and other hands-on resources to community groups wherever they may be located. Although the project has been wildly interdisciplinary since its inception and was not conceived of with any specific disciplinary purpose in mind, our team...

  • To Snatch the Baby from Its Mother’s Lap: Infant Mortality and Maternal Health at Tell el-Kerkh, Syria (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Dougherty. Akira Tsuneki.

    The injurious effects of the agricultural transition on health have been well documented. However, contributions from the Near East are relatively uncommon. Excavations at the Pottery Neolithic cemetery at Tell el-Kerkh in northwest Syria provide an opportunity to study into the effects of the agricultural transition in this less examined region. The cemetery sample consists of 258 individuals. The mortality profile reveals high infant mortality, with 40% of the sample dying before the first...

  • Symbols of Transformative Power:Wari Split Eye Iconography in the Middle Horizon (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Brittany Mistretta.

    Feline eyes have a refractory nature that relates to the dichotomy of light and shadows in Andean traditions in Peru and suggests they are significant in Wari iconography. Andean ethnographies have expressed an importance of binary concepts that play a role in understanding of cosmology, mythology, and ritual. I will use Susan E. Bergh’s (1999) classification of Wari elite textile iconography and apply it to ritual ceramic iconographic data from excavations at Conchopata to identify the...

  • Charcoal Identification as Means of Central California Landscape Reconstruction (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only GeorgeAnn DeAntoni. Peter Nelson. Rob Cuthrell.

    The purpose of my paper is to present a paleoethnobotanical study of a late prehistoric Central California site (located in Sonoma County) that reconstructs the pre-contact landscape via the identification of wood charcoal remains. The analysis of charcoal and the low-impact paleoethnobotancial methodologies utilized in this study provide the basis for generating hypotheses about how Native peoples interacted with the local environment while also considering how the landscape may have changed...

  • Geospatial Analysis of Material Procurement and Distribution in the Hinterlands of Northwestern Belize (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Marisol Cortes-Rincon. Adam Forbis. Erik Marinkovich. Kyle Ports. Robert Foster, Jr..

    The ancient Maya employed a wide variety of lithic raw materials for tool manufacture, such as strategies that combined local production of flaked stone tools with the import of some finished tools from distant sources. Over time, variable stone tool acquisition, manufacture, and use are reflected in the comparative differences in the formal versus expedient technologies and raw material types from a variety of contexts, including ceremonial, non-domestic, and domestic. The authors will present...

  • Moravian Ethnic Diversity: A Faunal Analysis of Northeastern Moravian Missionary Towns in Colonial Americ (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Cherilyn Gilligan.

    Moravian missionaries in the New World built towns in close proximity to Native American village sites in order to gain and house new converts. Although these Moravian town sites have received some archaeological attention, faunal remains have seldom been studied. A comparative faunal analysis between frontier-settled Moravian mission towns during the mid to late 18th century may reveal important information about the use of animals among the diverse ethnic groups inhabiting Moravian towns....

  • An Analysis of the Factors that Impact Accuracy During the Acquisition of Archaeological Geospatial Data Through the Use of GPS Units (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Spencer Mitchell. Jessica Blinman. Erik Marinkovich.

    In recent decades, archaeology has seen an increase in the use of geospatial technology. This paper weighs the factors that impact the accuracy of the acquisition of geospatial data in the field and seeks to establish a system to determine the ideal times for data collection through the use of GPS units. Control points were established both domestically, within the United States, and in northwestern Belize. Each point was input into a database in which we recorded a set of factors including;...

  • The UseWear Analysis of the Blue Lake Museum Lithic Collection (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra Cox.

    This paper examines the usewear related modifications on an assemblage of North American lithic artifacts that is held by the Blue lake Museum. The collection consists of a variety of material and tool types. There are a number of flaked projectile points and scrapers, as well as groundstone tools. All pieces were acquired by the Blue Lake museum through donation by private individuals and not all of the pieces have a known context. There has not been any intensive analysis carried out on this...

  • A Story Told Two Ways: Exploring the Intersectionality Between the Archaeological Record and Social Context of Undocumented Female Migrants (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Forringer-Beal. Polina Hristova. Jason De León.

    The number of undocumented women crossing from Mexico into the United States has been increasing since the 1980s, leading to a steady upsurge in studies focused on the experiences and strategies of this subpopulation of migrants. Much of the discourse thus far has been focused on the social contexts of female migrants, that is their interpersonal and informational networks which influence their experience and survival strategies while crossing. In this poster we investigate how these social...

  • Using Building Information Modeling Programs to Understand the Built Environment of the Virgin Branch Puebloan Culture (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Van Alstyne. Karen Harry.

    Architecture has always been a key focus in archaeological research. This is because it dominates the context where the investigation takes place. However, there is a dearth of research concerning the vernacular architecture within the built environment of the Virgin Branch Puebloan (VBP) people on the Shivwits Plateau. This stems from the sediments of the area, which have obliterated most floor features and thus have limited the amount of architectural information that can be recovered. To...

  • Beings from the Third Dimension: Imaging Weeden Island Effigies (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Donop.

    The use of 3-D imaging enhances the ability of archaeologists to record and analyze artifacts for both public and academic purposes. This study used 3-D imaging to scan a sample of ceramic artifacts collected by Decatur Pittman in the 1880s from the Palmetto Mound (8LV2) mortuary facility on the Florida Gulf Coast housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH). This collection consists primarily of Woodland Period (AD 200-1000) Weeden Island ceramics that include large portions of...