Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcie Venter. Lourdes Budar. Philip J. Arnold III.

One of the characteristic features of the Classic Veracruz style complex is ballgame imagery on ballcourt panels, molded ceramic vessels, paraphernalia such as yokes, hachas and palmas, not to mention the presence of courts, markers, and stelae or other monuments. Various components of the Classic Veracruz style have been documented throughout the Gulf lowlands and adjoining regions of Mesoamerica. Few examples, however, derive from stratigraphic excavations of in situ deposits. In this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Smith.

As riverine and lacustrine environments expanded across north tropical Africa at various times in prehistory, humans developed special methods for fishing or "aquatic hunting." Barbed bone "harpoon" points, used across much of Africa north of the equator during early Holocene times, represent an especially compelling innovation. Studying barbed bone points from Turkana Basin, NW Kenya can shed light on hunter-gatherer technology, tool use, and resource acquisition in a context of environmental...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gina Dezi. Kevin McBride.

The Calluna Hill Site (59-73) is a small Pequot Village burned down by the English allied forces during their withdrawal from the Battle of Mystic Fort. Recent excavations and metal detector surveys indicate the site was occupied for only a few weeks prior to its destruction on May 26, 1637. The site’s setting and faunal assemblage suggests the site was re-located away from the coast in anticipation of an English attack on Pequot territory. The artifact assemblage of re-processed brass and iron...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Nolan. Christine Thompson. Shelbi Long. Erin Donovan. Erin Steinwachs.

The Applied Anthropology Laboratories has conducted five years of research at the site of two of the most significant battles in the Northwest Territory: Battle of the Wabash (1791) and the Battle of Fort Recovery (1794). A recent survey and GIS analysis has shed new light on the Battle of the Wabash and particularly the Native American Confederacy’s (NAC) strategy and actions. Using visibility weighted cost paths we were able to predict the locations of survey finds. The survey results were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin McBride. David Naumec.

Conflict archaeology can offer a unique perspective into the nature and evolution of warfare in Native American and Euro-American societies in colonial contexts and how these societies shaped warfare and were in turn shaped by them. The Battlefields of the Pequot War Project, funded by the National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program, seeks to move beyond documentation of battle-related objects associated with Pequot War battlefields and place the conflict in a broader cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathaniel Kitchel. Bryan Shuman. Joseph Gingerich. Erick Robinson.

Research on the Paleoindian colonization of the northeastern US suffers from numerous chronological problems. These problems are exacerbated by the use of summed probability distributions, which do not take into account the unique sampling issues and specific probability distributions of individual dates and their particular relationships to archaeological contexts. This paper introduces a Bayesian statistical approach to clarify some of these problems and raise new questions about early...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anthony Krus.

Bayesian chronological modeling is used to investigate the origins and causes of warfare during the Mississippian Period (AD 1000-1500) in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. Radiocarbon results from seven Mississippian centers are presented within an interpretative Bayesian statistical framework. The results indicate that bastioned palisades were built and maintained primarily in AD 1200-1400. While there are a number of reasons for the origins of widespread intensified...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Cabaniss. Kristen Mann.

Twentieth century excavations contributed greatly to our knowledge of domestic contexts throughout the Aegean. These excavations occupy a broad spectrum in terms of sampling strategy, data collection quality and publication extent. Architectural studies of household behavior have received particular attention, and explorations of settlement social organization through household archaeology are ongoing. Yet few methodologies explicitly address this issue of diverse publication levels and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Birch. Sturt Manning.

An oft-cited problem in Iroquoian archaeology is that radiocarbon dating offers weak support for chronological estimates. These concerns focus on short durations of site occupation and multiple intercepts in the radiocarbon calibration curve. This logic has led researchers to rely on relative dating methods such as ceramic seriation—overlooking the assumptions and unverified step-wise logic transfers involved in these methods. Refinement in laboratory procedures and the application of Bayesian...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacob Lulewicz.

Advances in radiometric dating and statistical analyses are having a substantial impact on the archaeology of eastern North America, especially through the achievement of high precision intrasite chronologies. While detailed intrasite dynamics are invaluable to advancing understandings of rapid cultural change, more refined and empirically constructed regional histories are also necessary. An integrated regional Bayesian chronology is presented for Southern Appalachia using extant radiometric...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Wolff.

This paper examines a small drum that Giddings found in 1959 within a Late Western Thule structure on Cape Krusenstern, and places it within a broader historical context of drum production and use among prehistoric and historic groups within the region surrounding the Chukchi Sea and across the North American Arctic. Giddings only published a brief description and interpretation of the drum, despite elsewhere providing vivid depictions of the use of drums among Arctic peoples. The author’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Schwendler.

In 1996 Lawrence Guy Straus embarked on new adventures in fieldwork at El Mirón Cave in Cantabria, northern Spain. As a young University of New Mexico graduate student the author joined him there from 1997–2000. Excavating literally thousands of Magdalenian artifacts and features in the cave’s corral area and visiting other Magdalenian caves on weekends made Lawrence’s fact-filled and captivating classroom lectures come alive. The author’s fascination with personal ornamentation and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Deborah Nichols. Wesley Stoner.

Teotihuacan grew explosively ca. 100 BC to become the most influential city in Mesoamerica. For several decades little research has been directed toward understanding the origins of complex society in the Teotihuacan Valley. Recent archaeological investigations at the Early-Middle Formative site of Altica provide a fresh perspective on dating the initial establishment of agricultural villages, early social and economic differentiation, and the development of intra-and inter-regional exchange...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Watts.

Seventeenth century accounts of Huron-Wendat life, like those of myriad other Eastern Woodlands groups, underscore a relational ontology wherein the media which separate humans from non-humans, as well as the organic from the inorganic, is principally porous and naturally given to communion. These same accounts, however, also suggest that the Huron-Wendat possessed an intricate soul schema that, while variegated and capable of metamorphosis, was nonetheless primary and essentialist in nature. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann Marie Mires. Claire Gold.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) database lists approximately 100,000 missing persons in the United States. Many of the people who go missing in the United States are victims of homicide. In many cases, the investigation begins only when human remains are found. DNA technology has helped decrease the number of unidentified cases but still, many “unfound” cases remain unsolved. Victims of homicide have no choice as to where their bodies are placed and often suffer violations before and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mayya Azarova.

This paper addresses the question of the place of Belizean Maya jade artifacts within a broader Mesoamerican context. More specifically I examine the similarities between Belizean jade and other jade finds in different Maya areas. I discuss why a significant number of major jade finds have occurred in Belize while it is often considered to be on the periphery of Maya culture as well as examining the variations in the iconography of carved images on jade. I draw on evidence of recent finds and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Carr.

A summary of prehistoric circular earthworks in the Lake Okeechobee and northern Everglades is provided. Their forms and their relation to the area's wetlands is discussed, and a hypothesis as to their function is provided.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christian Davenport.

Some of the densest concentrations of prehistoric monumental construction in Florida are located within the Kissimmee River valley/ Lake Okeechobee basin areas. Based on 1930s-1940s aerial images and limited field investigations archaeologists have created typologies for the various circle ditch and linear earthworks. However, these studies did not examine the intra-relationships of the subcomponents that comprise the individual mound complexes, nor the intersite relationships to the physical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Simmons.

Payson Sheets has influenced the work of a great number of archaeologists over the years, particularly researchers interested in the nature of households and the quotidian aspects of domestic life, lithic production and use, and in the field of ‘disaster archaeology.’ This paper highlights some of those influences in the work of the Maya Archaeometallurgy Project and, more recently, the Ambergris Caye Archaeological Project II, both of which are in Belize. This paper focuses on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Faught.

I challenge the belief of biological and archaeological anthropologists that Beringia is the only place people have come into the Americas, even if along the coast. I show how researchers affirm their consequent, don't show direct historical continuity in areas where gene samples are modern, can't find any other than Dyuktai/Denali/Dene cultures archaeologically, nor have evidence of north to south, or west to east propagation after intrusion. In its place, I propose South America as the locus...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mike Thomin.

The Florida Public Archaeology Network has created a variety of unique projects throughout the past decade of its existence. Two of these projects called Unearthing Florida and DARC Geotrail used “airwaves” through the medium of radio and the technology of GPS satellites as a way to educate the public about Florida’s archaeological heritage and to promote archaeotourism. Unearthing Florida is a radio program broadcast Florida public radio NPR member stations designed to enhance the public’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Clark.

Since its inception, the Florida Public Archaeology Network has relied on partnerships with other organizations to help meet our goal of public awareness and education. Throughout the years we have partnered with various organizations to offer training, workshops, youth and adult programs and other opportunities for the public to learn about Florida’s archaeological heritage. Each of these partnerships is unique and bring with them their own challenges and successes. This paper will discuss some...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Della Scott-Ireton. Jeffrey Moates. Nicole Grinnan.

FPAN’s development of the Submerged Sites Education & Archaeological Stewardship (SSEAS) program targeted to sport divers and the Heritage Awareness Diving Seminar (HADS) targeted to diving leadership has led to gains in the appreciation and protection of the underwater cultural heritage, in Florida and elsewhere. In presenting these programs, FPAN staff have worked with divers ranging from newly certified to long-time educators, in the process learning as much as we teach. This paper describes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aleksander Pluskowski.

The Teutonic Order, the last of the major military orders founded in the Holy Land in the twelfth century, developed a strong, centralised hierarchy once it redirected its efforts to crusading in the Baltic. After the initial period of crusading was over, its fortified monasteries were built with consistent regularity, and the Order adopted a top-down, corporate approach to controlling the conquered territories, under the leadership of the Grand Master. However, despite this centralisation,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Johannes Loubser.

As far as can be ascertained, all documented petroglyph boulders in northern Georgia and western North Carolina occur next-to old Indian overland trails or certain river corridors, specifically at transition points on the landscape. Moreover, these transition points occur between sites with mounds and town houses at one end and certain mountain tops at the other. Whereas a few Cherokee accounts explicitly mention petroglyph boulders at such locales, the placement of some others can be inferred...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Brin. Leigh Anne Ellison.

The future of archaeological research is dependent on our ability to synthesize data across sites and leverage both current and legacy data. Asking questions of regions or clusters of sites where data was recovered over over decades or centuries and by multiple researchers becomes difficult without significant, manually-performed normalization and standardization processes at a great impediment to synthetic research. Beyond archiving, tDAR provides integration tools to extend the lifespan of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Crane.

Hand-built, low-fired pottery from South Carolina exhibit a sometimes bewildering degree of heterogeneity. Analysis of vessel form, construction technique, temper inclusions, chemistry and surface treatment suggests a broad range of practice and potential cultural influence. Colonoware vessel forms and surface treatment display a complex blending of traditions that arose from the entangled lives of Africans, Native Americans and Europeans and reveal something of the complex cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Ryan. Rebecca Simon.

The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center was created in 1983 to advance and share knowledge of the human experience through archaeological research, education programs, and partnerships with American Indians. Since its creation, over 70,000 students and adults have participated in the Center’s innovative experiential education, research, and travel programs. Crow Canyon’s programs vary in a number of ways in order to highlight different aspects of its tripartite mission. In 2015, Crow Canyon...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Taylor Napoleon. Alyssa Hyziak. Scott Rivas. Emily Falk. Ben Ford.

During the American Revolutionary War, Carleton Island was home to the British naval base Fort Haldimand. Located on the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York, the base served as an important connection between Québec and British interior forts. The Thousand Island Land Trust protects Fort Haldimand, but the area immediately outside the fort is privately owned. During June 2015, archaeologists from Indiana University of Pennsylvania implemented a variety of geophysical and archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Darvill.

In many parts of the world massive ceremonial centers appear at key stages in societal development, especially with the emergence of stable agricultural communities and the appearance of hierarchical or chiefdom societies. All differ in their detail, but they also share many characteristics. These include fixing key astronomical events in the structure of the monuments (solar and/or lunar); seasonal gatherings; associations with water; representations of ancestors or ancestral deities; burials;...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Albert Gonzalez. Heather Atherton. Javier Hernandez.

In the foreword to their 1931 review of nineteenth-century adobe houses in California, historical architects Donald Hannaford and Revel Edwards express despair at the state of such research in their time, noting that "printed material on the subject" could only be generated via discovery in the field. Eighty-five years later, research is still lacking. California’s famed colonial missions tend to draw the bulk of archaeological attention while research associated with Mexican- and Gold Rush-era...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Crowley.

Currently, models of colonial theory are being broken down with better understandings of fluid frontiers and more complex systems of culture contact. These new frameworks offer greater insights into how groups interact and provide us with a substantial platform on which to discuss nuanced exchange networks. With recent renewed interest in exchange during the Late Iron Age in the British Isles, there has been greater advanced scholarship in our understanding of interactions between Rome and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Hechler. William Pratt. David Brown.

El Morro de Tulcán is a massive earthen mound located near Popayán in southern Colombia. This structure towers over the surrounding landscape with a height of 50 meters at its highest point. This pyramid is an anomaly within the surrounding cultural vicinity, where tolas (i.e., earthen mounds) are a rare form of construction throughout much of Colombia. The closest region of tola development is in high concentrations in northern Ecuador, amongst the Caranquis and Yumbos. Research at El Morro de...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffany Cochran.

This presentation examines one unique project in which archaeologists from the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s (STOF) Tribal Historic Preservation Office act as caretakers of a living artifact; the Seminole Tribe’s Council Oak tree in Hollywood, Florida. The Council Oak evolved from a convenient shady spot for meetings to one of the most important cultural symbols of the Tribe today. Tribal archaeologists, despite a lack of experience in arboriculture, must face challenges such as natural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Warren Church.

This paper offers observations regarding the distribution of Cajamarca fine, painted kaolin-ware pottery recovered to the east, across the Marañon canyon in the Chachapoyas region cloud forests. Cajamarca’s complex societies lay at the center of expansive interaction networks during pre-Hispanic times. The clearest evidence of Cajamarca's long-distance communication networks consists of its signature fine, painted kaolin-ware bowls discovered in sacred and mortuary contexts across the Central...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lise Truex.

Past studies contextualizing residential neighborhoods within the socioeconomic, political, and geographic organization of early historic urban settlements in ancient southern Mesopotamia have concentrated heavily on architecture and ancient textual evidence to document diachronic changes in household fortunes. As part of a PhD dissertation project, this investigation of households from the late 3rd millennium BC levels of the Private Houses residential area at urban Tell Asmar (ancient...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gregg Harding. Jason Wenzel. Alita Huff Mikiten.

From 2006 to 2012, an extensive community-based archaeology program operated throughout the Greater Orlando area that was comprised of a team of researchers associated with regional colleges. In conjunction with local governmental agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private property owners, the efforts of the team led to the documentation and study of new and existing archaeological sites and the development of local museum exhibits. The poster will visually convey the scope and success of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mallory Fenn. Gabrielle Vail. Gail Fish. Vail.

Technologies for spinning fibers into thread by hand have changed little in Mesoamerica since they were first introduced. Made primarily of perishable materials, however, the wooden spindle and the fibers themselves are generally no longer present in the archaeological record. What does survive, however, are spindle whorls – spherical artifacts used to weigh down the spindle to keep it anchored during the process of spinning. In the Maya area, these artifacts are rarely found in primary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Fernandez. Christine VanPool. Heidi Noneman.

Ethnographic research on low-fired pottery has demonstrated that the production of alcohol deteriorates the interior vessels’ wall leaving deep pitting marks. Similar pitting is seen on some jars and sherds from the North American Southwest and Northern Mexico, causing researchers to suggest that alcohol was brewed in this region before European contact. The identification of these marks on archaeological materials relies on an observer to visually confirm and quantify the level of erosion...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katelyn Bolhofner.

With the advancement of inter-disciplinary research in medieval archaeology in recent decades, much progress has been made in the integration of bioarchaeological data into larger archaeological and historical questions. This growth may be seen in the increase in publications, professional associations, and programs of study focusing upon bioarchaeological research of the medieval period. Yet, particularly in Iberian medieval studies, the contribution of bioarchaeological research largely has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroline Parris.

Feasting is often identified in the archaeological record based on the discovery of high ceramic frequencies and the presence of faunal remains in a concentrated area. While these characteristics can prove useful an initial identification of feasting behavior, further examination of the potential feasting assemblage and comparison with other types of archaeological deposits is necessary to fully support a feasting interpretation. This paper compares two deposits from the Classic Maya site of La...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nina Versaggi.

For over 40 years, the Public Archaeology Facility, Binghamton University (SUNY) has benefited from an uninterrupted relationship with the New York Department of Transportation through projects administered by the NYS Education Department & New York State Museum. This started out as a non-competitive partnership with some SUNY campuses but became a competitive bidding situation about 20 years ago. The underlying principles of the contract call for a research focus that makes archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Naomi Sykes. Holly Miller. Karis Baker.

There is growing concern about the impact of biological exchange on human health, the WHO correlating shifts in biodiversity with the decline of medicinal biota and the emergence and spread of infectious diseases. Paradoxically, human desire to improve health and well-being has been the very motivation behind the worldwide translocation of many species. This is, in part, because ethnomedicine tends to target preferentially species that are exotic, the belief being that geographical distance is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Xu Zhang. Xiangqun Wu. Hong Zhu. Yidilisi Abuduresule. Wenying Li.

The archaeological site of Xiaohe cemetery (Cal. 3980 to 3540 years BP), one of the earliest sites in Lop Nur Desert of Xinjiang, China has attracted considerable attention in recent years due to its well-preserved organic materials, such as mummified human remains. However, questions of the regional diversity of populations are still not well understood, as few detailed researches have been undertaken. This study utilizes 17 dental morphological traits to assess the phenetic relationships...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kate McElroy. Darlene Applegate. Brianna Brown.

Site 15Wa916 is a prehistoric burial ground in northern Bowling Green is located immediately south of the pumping station on Barren River along Highway 957 opposite Beech Bend Park. Dr. Jack Schock of Western Kentucky University excavated several prehistoric grave features at the site in May 1973. One uncalibrated radiocarbon date of 910 BC indicates the site dates to the early part of the Early Woodland period. Schock’s excavation yielded, among other artifacts, hundreds of human bones and bone...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Marsteller. Kelly Knudson. Gwyneth Gordon. Ariel Anbar.

Archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence indicates that, for the Inca Empire and the Spanish Viceroyalty, the Rimac and Lurin Valleys on central Peruvian coast served as a key regional hub for religious and administrative activities. The nature of regional interactions prior to Inca imperial influence in this area, however, remains unclear. Well-known historical narratives claim populations from the adjacent Huarochirí highlands defeated coastal Ychsma populations for agricultural land, but...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Jastremski. Valentina L Martinez.

Bioarcheology is slowly being integrated into research programs in Ecuador. Ubelaker’s 1981 groundbreaking excavation and analysis of the Ayalán Cemetery, along the southern coast, was the first attempt at incorporating bioarchaeology in this region; however, since then, relatively little work has been done. We seek to investigate human skeletal remains found at different archaeological sites in the Manabí province. The sample comprises diverse burial type, age, and contextual information. Some...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Miller Wolf. Timothy Pugh.

The Spanish established the San Bernabé Mission in the heartland of the Itzá Maya area at Tayasal in the Petén Lakes region around 1710. Census data suggest that the mission was at the center of a multi-cultural community of 126 individuals in 1712, yet within three decades the population size had reduced by 70% potentially due to epidemics and flight. Excavations by the Tayasal Archaeological Project have recovered 46 individuals from 33 graves in the mission’s cemetery that shed light on what...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sian Halcrow. Nancy Tayles. Gail Elliott.

Until relatively recently, fetuses, along with infants and children, were largely overlooked in bioarchaeological research. Over the past 20 years there has been increasing recognition of the importance of research on immature individuals in the archaeological context. However, although fetuses are now sometimes included in analyses of population health and isotopic studies of infant weaning and diet in the past, most research focuses on postnatal individuals. This paper reviews some of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Black.

In the spring of 2013, the office of the Georgia State Archaeologist was contacted by personnel from Fort McAllister State Park in Richmond Hill, GA, concerning what appeared to be an historic coffin eroding out of the marsh edge. Emergency salvage excavation was conducted to recover the remaining portions of the coffin. Initial field analysis indicated a sharp shouldered, hexagonal style coffin. Neither the lid nor any mortuary hardware was recovered. The coffin’s location is within the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cecil Lewis. Christina Warinner.

Anthropological population geneticists often attempt to explain the pattern and distribution of human genetic variation globally. Central to this pursuit is understanding the degree to which cultural, biological, and geographic variation impact migration of people, and the genetic traits (alleles) they bear. Gene flow, the transfer of alleles from one population to another, flows in the path of least resistance. All other things being equal, this means that topology creates resistance, and we...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Prendergast. Michael Buckley. Heidi Eager. Alison Crowther. Nicole Boivin.

The Swahili coast, stretching from Somalia to Mozambique, has a long history of engagement in western Indian Ocean trade, from at least the first century CE according to documentary evidence. One result is the widespread use of animals of Asian origin – particularly zebu cattle (Bos indicus) and chicken (Gallus gallus) – in African subsistence systems today. However, tracing these animals’ arrival and spread is complicated by their osteological similarities to indigenous taxa and by poor...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Thornton. Kitty Emery. John Krigbaum. Camilla Speller.

The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is the only domesticated vertebrate to originate from North America. Accurate reconstructions of turkey husbandry and use are thus critical for understanding the domestication process in the ancient Americas. Isotopic and genetic (aDNA) research has yielded substantial insights into the history of turkey use and domestication in the American Southwest, but such methods have not been widely used in Mesoamerica to date, despite the fact that all modern domestic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Zedeño.

Euroamericans who encountered northern Plains bison hunters in the late 19th century believed that the Blackfoot held the Rocky Mountains in awe and fear, preferring to remain on the plains even as bison and elk herds dwindled. This incorrect assumption has hampered our ability to understand deep-time relationships between mountain and plains cultural expressions. Although the historic Blackfoot did not dwell in high elevations, the character of their relationship with the Rocky Mountain Front...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Byers. Suzann Henrikson.

Over the past several years, efforts to expand our knowledge of the Holocene climate of southern Idaho have been initiated through analyses of the relationships between bison remains recovered from seven cold lava tubes on the eastern Snake River Plain and several paleoenvironmental indicators. Although the mere existence of these unique storage features would suggest that they would always be utilized, we suggest the key variables associated with such use would revolve around fluctuations in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Barbier.

Beads made from the Olivella biplicata shell were used as both decoration and a form of currency by the Chumash living in the Santa Barbara Channel region, and large quantities have been recovered from many prehistoric sites throughout Western North America. Many of the bead types were made from different portions of the shell and conform to standardized shapes and sizes. A number of these types have distinctive spatial and temporal distributions in the archaeological record, and based on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lucas Vetrisano.

Evidence for blade production has been found in the Santa Cruz River basin, with chronologies between ca. 1900 and 1100 years BP, although not all the cases gexhibit the same characteristics. Differential frequencies in blade numbers have been used to argue that the Santa Cruz River was a frontier between human populations, but there is also variability in knapping methods. I will focus on El Sosiego locality, which includes an archaeological site dating to ca. 1900 yr BP and surface materials...

DOCUMENT Citation Only W. James Stemp. Adrian A. Evans.

The increasing adoption of approaches to lithic microwear analysis based on metrology and tribology by archaeologists has provided opportunities to revisit unresolved issues associated with microwear method, such as wear formation processes, the exclusivity of polishes derived from different worked materials, and, as presented in this paper, post-depositional damage and the accuracy and reliability of microwear analysis. In this paper, we discuss the results of blind-tests performed on chipped...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Billie Follensbee. Allison Robbins. Sammie Hernandez. Alexandra Thrower. Nicholas Deckard.

Among the most enigmatic artifacts to emerge from Formative period Gulf Coast deposits are thousands of small, roughly rectangular cubes of iron ore that are perforated in a consistent, t-shaped pattern. Numerous hypotheses have been suggested for the function and meaning of these artifacts, including that they may have served as beads that were strung together as helmet decorations; as objects that were strung together to serve as a sort of armor or mail; as tiny hammers for chipping obsidian;...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Conner Wiktorowicz. Bettina Arnold. John Wiktorowicz. Alexander Kurosky.

This paper presents the results of a proteomic analysis (protein-based mass spectrometry) of the contents of six ceramic vessels excavated from a burial mound near the Heuneburg, an early Iron Age (640-400 BC) hillfort in southwest Germany. One hundred and sixty eight proteins from human, animal, and microbial sources were identified with high confidence and low false discovery rate, demonstrating the suitability of proteomics for discovery-based residue analysis in untreated prehistoric...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Dolan.

Multiple lines of anthropological evidence demonstrate people moved from the northern San Juan region into the Pajarito Plateau in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries A.D. This Coalition to Classic period transition was a time of immense demographic and social reorganization that shaped the historical and cultural trajectories for future of Ancestral Pueblo people. As a consequence of the influx of diasporic households, how did this transformation affect traditions of obsidian...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luisa Aebersold. Tim Beach. Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach. Tom Guderjan. Fred Valdez.

Early to mid-Holocene humans domesticated a wide variety of plants and animals, which widely changed societies and environments around the world. The Archaic period in the Maya Lowlands was suited for this transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture with its abundant resources such as edible wild plants and animals, fertile soils, and abundant freshwater. To better understand long-term societal and environmental changes by early inhabitants, we studied sedimentation and paleosols in a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emiliano Melgar. Emiliano Gallaga.

Since the beginning of Mesoamerican societies, the elites employed prestige goods to display their power and status. At Chiapa de Corzo (Chiapas, México), a Formative period site that lasted until the late Classic, the archaeologist recovered a group of ornaments crafted on bluish stones that contrasts with the common greenstone objects found at the tombs. In this paper, we present the mineralogical identification and technological analysis of them in order to discuss their local or foreign...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Curran.

Conflict archaeology has recently begun to focus on the effect of warfare on hunter-gatherers. A key issue in Southern California revolves around the effectiveness of indigenous weaponry. Numerous accounts describe club-like weapons as well as bows and arrows. Little archaeological evidence, however, is available on the role and impact of these weapons on conflict. This paper reports on experiments designed to document trauma inflicted by weapons replicated from archaeological and museum...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Cerezo-Román.

Inhumation and cremation usually are studied in isolation regardless of the fact that they may be practiced in the same culture and time period. Among the Tucson Basin Hohokam in the Prehispanic American Southwest cremation was the main funeral custom and normative and non-normative inhumations were practiced with very low frequencies throughout the Preclassic (A.D. 700-1150) and Classic (A.D. 1150-1450/1500) periods. This paper explores changes through time in non-normative burial customs of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only YI-LING LIN.

This paper will discuss recent analysis of worked animal bone discovered at the late Shang Xinanzhuang site, and the manufacture strategies and raw materials manipulations within different locations in Anyang, Henan. Xinanzhuang is considered to be associated with the industrial-scale boneworkshop at Tiesanlu site because of the close proximity between the two sites. Previous studies on bone artifacts from Tiesanlu provide some understanding of craft production systems during the late Shang...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bruce Manzano. Carolyn Rock.

This poster discusses patterns of bone tool production and use in light of results from recent testing at six sites in the interior of southern Florida. More than 100 worked bone tools and production wastage were identified from the six sites dating from the Archaic to the Historic periods. The artifacts reveal patterns of bone tool production from various elements of Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fishes), Reptilia, Aves, and Mammalia. Functional interpretations of the bone tools and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Howard. Caroline Funk. Debra G. Corbett. Brian W. Hoffman.

Aleut bone tools offer a unique opportunity to study Aleut identity, relational ecology, interaction with seascape, tool technology, materiality, and subsistence strategies. A study of the Rat Islands was conducted in 2003 and 2009 by the Rat Islands Research Project to examine the Aleut sites found in the area in order to better understand the subsistence strategies, use of the environment, and the importance of landscape and seascape to the Aleut culture. During this study, due to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Engelbrecht. Bruce Jamieson.

In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries St. Lawrence Iroquoian populations gradually decline and disappear from their homeland at the same period that the Wendat and Iroquois Confederacies are evolving. One of the most striking differences between St. Lawrence Iroquoian assemblages and those of surrounding groups is the general absence of stone arrow points on the former. This paper considers the advantages and disadvantages of bone or antler versus stone tipped arrows. We argue that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Keene. Ted Goebel.

Though often considered parts of two different culture areas, the upper Snake River Plain of southeastern Idaho and the Bonneville Basin of the eastern Great Basin may have more similarities in land use and lithic technology than usually thought. In fact, commonalities can be easily documented in projectile point chronologies, subsistence patterns, and even the use of some of the same obsidian sources. In this paper, we consider the early Archaic period, when comparable ecological changes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine VanPool. MacLaren Law-de-Lauriston. Heidi Noneman. Andrew Fernandez.

Ceramic ethnographic research from Africa shows that the fermenting of alcohol in low-fired pottery results in a variety of tribochemical processes, which cause pitting in the interior of the vessel. Jars and sherds from the Casas Grandes region (AD 1200-1450) have similar pitting, causing researchers to propose that either alcohol or hominy was made in these jars. To evaluate these hypotheses we created low-fired vessels and used them for boiling water, making hominy, fermenting corn (corn...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Evan Muzzall. Alfredo Coppa.

Territorial and cultural boundaries remain some of the most elusive and compelling areas of anthropological study. We examine biological continuity at Campovalano (Teramo, Abruzzo, Italy) to highlight ways that biology can be used to elucidate interpretations of frontiers and borderlands. We test the hypothesis that geographic location strongly influenced biological continuity in Italian history. Eighteen cranial (n=278) and five maxillary dental (n=377) metric traits, and dental morphological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Graeme Barker.

Borneo has a 50,000-year record of Homo sapiens’ interactions with rainforest, a history assembled by the inter-disciplinary studies of human occupation evidence in the Niah Caves on the coastal plain of Sarawak. That project involved a collaboration in particular between archaeologists and environmental scientists, with studies for example in geomorphology, palynology, zooarchaeology, archaeobotany, palaeobiology, and material culture studies. More recent work by many of the same team in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jenna Battillo. Karen Lupo. Jaime Mata-Miguez. Rick W.A. Smith. Deborah A. Bolnick.

Over the last few decades archaeologists and paleontologists have made great strides in paleofecal analysis, not the least of which was the application of aDNA testing. However, most aDNA analyses of paleofeces have focused exclusively on studying human populations and researchers have largely ignored the potential for using this tool to study dietary constituents themselves. In this study, we present analyses of aDNA from both the faunal and floral dietary constituents of 20 Basketmaker II...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rossana May. Tomás Gallareta. William Ringle.

In the course of surveying a kilometer-wide strip linking the archaeological sites of Labna, Kiuic and Huntichmul, several types of rare feature clusters were recorded that are difficult to interpret. Although some spatial patterns of these "special" features with respect to the local topography were recognized as the survey proceeded, it wasn’t until the sample of 10 km2 was completed and analyzed using GIS "least cost routes" that we were able to offer a more thorough interpretation of their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lawrence Chiatti.

Within the collections housed at the Canyon de Chelly National Monument there are many archaeological artifacts and natural resource materials which were taken and subsequently returned by visitors to the park, along with associated letters and correspondence. While the existence of these returned unauthorized collections, also known as "Guilt Mail", is not common knowledge among the general public or park visitors, many national parks have similar items in their collections. Within the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shannon Iverson.

In 1524, only three years after the military conquest of central Mexico was complete, twelve Franciscan friars arrived in New Spain to begin an ambitious religious conversion program. The friars arrived in a territory where landscapes, buildings, and everyday objects (such as foodstuffs and ceramic objects) were already “mythologized”—deeply imbued with supernatural connotations. For the Spanish priests, Indigenous worlds were always potential minefields of spiritual pollution. Therefore, though...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sadie Weber. Lauren Santini.

San Bartolo, located in the Petén of Guatemala, boasts the earliest examples of Maya murals and writing known to date in Mesoamerica. Despite the extensive work in the monumental sector of the site, comparatively less work has been carried out on the domestic sectors. Like many Maya sites, chultúns are a common though enigmatic feature. High quantities of charcoal and household refuse recovered during the chultún excavations, including ground stone, animal bones, worked bone, and wood charcoal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Austin. John Arthur. Wendy Edwards. Sharlene O'Donnell. Christina Perry Sampson.

The Weedo(e)n Island site is well-known among archaeologists in the southeastern US as the type site of the Weeden Island culture, a mortuary complex shared by geographically wide-spread cultures ca. AD 200-900. Recent research (survey, excavation, artifact and faunal analysis, radiocarbon dating) by multiple institutions focusing on the domestic sphere have added new details about the site’s history and use during the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Klarich.

The Formative Period in the Lake Titicaca Basin (1500 BC- AD 400) is often characterized as a time when diverse groups were linked through their participation in the Yaya-Mama Religious Tradition (YMRT). Small temple centers—characterized by sunken court temple complexes, stone sculpture, ritual paraphernalia, and shared iconography—dotted the Middle Formative landscape across the Basin (800-200 BC). In this framework, the temple centers formed a ceremonial network, providing access to non-local...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emilia Tifental. Anna Marie Prentiss. Meradeth Snow.

Excavations at the Bridge River site have been on-going since 2003, increasing our understanding of the communities that inhabited the Middle Fraser Canyon, British Columbia, over 1,000 years ago. The most recent excavation at Housepit 54 in the summer of 2014 supplied further data regarding relationships between people and their dogs. Dogs are well documented in the Middle Fraser Canyon through both archaeological excavations and traditional knowledge. A household's possession of a dog has been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dana Kollmann.

Archaeological excavations are much like crime scene investigations in that to study them, is to destroy them. Consequently, full-scale documentation, cataloguing, and proper packaging techniques are critical components of archaeological and forensic fieldwork. Archaeologists have the additional benefit to law enforcement of being trained to conduct line and grid searches, interpret soils for evidence of disturbance, and perform exhumations using standardized excavation techniques. Law...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Vincas Steponaitis. Lynne Goldstein. Keith Kintigh. William Lovis.

SAA was heavily involved in NAGPRA's passage, and played a key role in shaping the compromises embodied in this law. The Society's positions with respect to the many repatriation bills considered by Congress were conditioned by SAA's "Statement Concerning the Treatment of Human Remains," a policy adopted in 1986. SAA strongly and actively supported the final bill precisely because it conformed closely, albeit not perfectly, to the principles articulated in this statement. The policy was also...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Yann.

This paper investigates several common assumptions regarding the economic nature of trade interactions in the Midwest during the period from approximately 1760 to 1820. Using a resource dependency theory framework, this research analyzes archaeological and historical sources to demonstrate that these interactions were more nuanced, and more complex, than typically portrayed. It also demonstrates that these economic interactions were strongly intertwined with political decision making. ...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yuqi Li. Xin Wang.

The period from the Bronze Age (2500-900 BCE) to Early Iron Age (900-200 BCE) witnessed the emergence and flourish of some massive pastoralist settlements along the Tian-Shan Mountains in Xinjiang, China. Specifically, these large-scale settlements mainly cluster in three regions known as Balikun, Wenquan and Hejing, located in the eastern, western and middle Tian-Shan Mountains respectively. Recent investigation of pastoralist settlement remains in these three regions offers a wealth of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Rick.

Competition between Andean Formative centers seems to have stimulated rapid rates of innovation in technology, architecture, art, and behaviors such as ritual. This in turn seems to reflect a significant change of the role and nature of religion as a force promoting or resisting change, introducing a motivation for radical transformation within a background of conservative, heavily tradition-based practices. These processes are particularly evident in recent investigations in Chavin de Huantar,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ricardo Antorcha Pedemonte. Lane F. Fargher. Richard E. Blanton. Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza. John K. Millhauser.

During intensive survey and mapping of the Late Postclassic City of Tlaxcallan, we noted that the inhabitants of the ancient city of Tlaxcallan, in Tlaxcala, Mexico, developed a dense settlement pattern and complex urban landscape during the Late Postclassic (A.D. 1250-1521). Specifically, massive terraces and open and accessible plazas dominated this landscape. In this paper, we present the initial results of excavations on a series of terraces located at the northern edge of the city. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ivan Ghezzi. Alan Hogg. Rodolfo Rodriguez. Antonio Mabres. Gretel Boswijk.

We present preliminary results from our project to create dendrochronological sequences for the coast of Peru, from the earliest monumental constructions to the present. Our first results come from Chankillo (400-200 BC), in coastal Ancash, which has numerous in situ lintels made from algarrobo wood. Our study of living algarrobos shows high correlation between ring-widths and climate records of the past century. The principle of uniformitarianism dictates the same was true at the time of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa DeLance. Jaime Awe.

Nearly every excavation at the site of Cahal Pech has recovered ceramic figurines. The ubiquitous nature of these figurines in a multitude of stratigraphic levels illustrate the importance of a figurine industry during the Formative Period. A comparative analysis of figurine attributes in this collection, in addition to collections found at neighboring sites in the Belize River Valley, reveals a unique style of figurine representation not found in any other regional figurine style in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexis Jackson.

The monastery of Saint Fortunatus in Charlieu, France, was built and rebuilt several times from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. In the twentieth century, the monastery was excavated by American archaeologist and art historian Elizabeth Sunderland, who relied heavily on its relationship to mega-monastery Cluny to reconstruct the smaller abbey’s chronology. However, re-examining Charlieu’s timing and phasing with attention to material and labor costs over time exposes an alternative chronology...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Spenard.

This presentation offers an analysis of the architectural modifications made to the limestone karst landscape in the Classic period Maya polity of Pacbitun in the Cayo District, Belize. The Maya concepts ch’een (hole in the ground for communication with the supernatural world), and k’aax (wilderness) provide the overall framework for this paper. Through two case studies, I explore the range of karst features the Pacbitun Maya used as ch’een, the variety of ways the landmarks were modified for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Hadden. Sarah Bergh.

Mollusc shell is often the most conspicuous component of coastal archaeological sites in southeastern North America. The shear abundance and bulk of the material presents logistical challenges during all stages of investigation, from excavation and recovery to analysis and curation. These challenges, combined with the assumption that molluscs were low-ranked resources, result in the tendency for zooarchaeological analyses of the coastal Southeast to focus on vertebrate remains, and to exclude...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Philip Arnold. Lourdes Budar.

Discussions of Classic Period (ca. AD 300-900) architecture in southern Veracruz, Mexico generally emphasize patterning in mound-plaza arrangements, with an array of configurations vying for preeminence across the coastal lowlands. Often lacking from these analyses, however, is a more nuanced consideration of the built environment's ideological implications. This paper examines palaces as important reflections of power's materialization in southern Veracruz. Specifically, we consider the palace...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandre Tokovinine.

This presentation addresses a set of references to “sticks” in Classic Maya inscriptions, which have been traditionally interpreted as weapons. The available contexts, however, indicate that “sticks” were involved in tribute payment transactions. Although there is no archaeological evidence of these presumably perishable wooden items, the author highlights some visual and material data that support the use of tallies by the Maya. The discussion then centers on less straightforward textual...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian Pawn.

Many aspects of St. Johns lifeways have been studied, but kinship, the most fundamental unit of human organization, has rarely been addressed beyond identifying vaguely defined "lineages" or "kin groups". Some have argued that burial mounds represent kin groups, and this paper investigates St. Johns period kinship systems using the biological affinity of individuals from Ross Hammock Mound, a burial mound at Canaveral National Seashore in Florida. Biological distances between individuals are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Keitlyn Alcantara. Lane F. Fargher. Aurelio Lopez Corral. John K. Millhauser. Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza.

The Late Postclassic state of Tlaxcallan represents a void in Aztec hegemony that is still poorly understood. Ethnohistoric studies, extensive archaeological survey and limited excavation suggest that the social and political organization of this group diverged from the empire’s policies of rule, allowing for much local authority and cooperative governance. Fargher et al. (2010) argue that a unique form of social organization may have contributed to the state’s ability to remain autonomous from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Schurr. Erica Ausel. Della Cook.

The Angel site is a Middle Mississippian civic-ceremonial center that sat on the northeastern periphery of the Mississippian world. Excavations at the site, especially during the WPA era and a series of archaeological field schools just after World War II, created a collection representing several hundred human burials. Previous studies of this collection have emphasized relatively intact burials, either primary fleshed inhumations or easily identified secondary burials of single individuals....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Naomi Ripp.

Are there changes in burial practices of the Teuchitlán Tradition over time, and can any of these potential changes be identified? The data used in this analysis of burial practice was gathered from the 45 Teuchitlán Tradition burials housed at the Centro Interpretativo Guachimontones in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, Mexico. The osteology collection spans from the Late Formative Tequila II phase (350 B.C – 100 A.D) through the Late Postclassic Atemajac II phase (1400-1600). The analysis of the burials...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Pestle.

The 1970s Tibes excavations of the Sociedad Guaynía unearthed the remains of well over one hundred individuals from various portions of what is currently understood to be the earliest ceremonial center in the Caribbean. Despite attempts to avoid burials, more recent (and ongoing) excavations by the Proyecto Arqueológico del Centro Ceremonial Indígena de Tibes have increased this number to a modest degree. Taken together, the resulting corpus of bioarchaeological material represents one of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margaret MacMinn-Barton.

The Arizona Museum of Natural History (AzMNH) has previously unexplored perishable materials, including fifteen textile fragments of Peruvian, Mexican, and Southwestern origin. I present the results of a technological analysis and description of the manufacture of these fragmentary remains. Although this is a small sample for statistical research, it is sufficient for descriptive purposes. As these textiles have not received prior exposure, they should be described and presented. Taken together...