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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stacy Drake. Dorothy Ann Riegert.

As of the summer of 2015, approximately 135 burials have been recovered and investigated through the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (PfBAP) in Northwest Belize. Within the 270,000 acres of land on which the PfBAP operates, approximately 60 archaeological sites have been recorded and investigated. As the number of burials increases with new site identification and investigation, a need for data consolidation and accessibility has arisen. We aim to make this data more attainable...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Julian Richards. Franco Niccolucci.

This is a pdf copy of the PPT slides used for this presentation in the SAA symposium. In Europe, as in North America, there has been little attention to the long term issues of digital data curation, with consequent risks of catastrophic data loss. In recent years, however, there has been mounting pressure on government agencies and universities to ensure that the research they fund, and the underlying data, are properly managed, and are available ‘Open Access’. Consequently, several European...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Katherine Harrington. Eve Dewan.

University-based educational outreach programs face various challenges in sustainability from year to year. As student leaders graduate and professors or museum professionals change positions, programs can lose momentum. Similarly, programs designed without clear input from the communities they serve are less likely to succeed. Here we present some of the strategies for sustainability explored by the "Think Like an Archaeologist" program, a collaboration between the Joukowsky Institute and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Williams. Nancy Gonlin. Leah McCurdy.

When teaching archaeology, professors are tasked with the difficult undertaking of conveying the essence of a hands-on field that often must be taught within the confines of the classroom. This restriction can make creating effective classroom activities and all-inclusive syllabi a challenge. Adding to the difficulty is the emphasis that research receives at conferences. Latest findings from the field are the focus rather than innovative pedagogy. The SAA’s Principles of Archaeological Ethics...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edward Gonzalez-Tennant.

In feminist technoscience, feminist technologies are those which are good for the oppressed. Cyberfeminists view online worlds as one such technology; although many question how they can support social transformation. The answer to this dilemma for many cyberfeminists requires that we resist embedding new technologies with entrenched hierarchies of power. After a brief review of how hierarchical thinking is embedded in some familiar technologies, I examine the possibilities virtual technologies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Molly Proue.

Obtaining adequate water for mining operations has always been a problem in Livengood, Alaska. To make mining feasible on small creeks in the area, ditches were excavated from the earliest days of the strike in 1915. As the character of mining evolved throughout the first half of the 20th century, corporate interests formed to create even larger water conveyance systems, most notably the Hess Creek Dam, a sizable earthen dam built on permafrost. This poster presents an overview of the water...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin Welker. Jonathan Burns. Jennifer Haney. Sarah McClure.

Planned military provisioning recorded in historic documents likely decreased variability in soldiers’ diets and resulted in widespread use of domestic livestock. However, faunal remains from Fort Shirley, a French and Indian War fortification in Western Pennsylvania, indicate a heavy reliance on wild resources, particularly deer. Comparisons with other fortifications examined archaeologically reveals a breadth of functional and dietary differences between sites. First, the term "fort" describes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Glascock.

The earliest ceramics in South America were made by the indigenous peoples at least 7500 years BP. Ceramics were used for a variety of purposes, including cooking and storage vessels, funerary urns, toys, ceremonial items, sculptures and other art forms. Over the past 25 years, the Archaeometry Laboratory at the University of Missouri Research Reactor has performed neutron activation analysis on more than 7,000 ceramics and clays from locations throughout South America to establish a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Olguin. Carola Flores. Sandra Rebolledo. Diego Salazar.

Fishing tools made on marine shells are an important aspect in the economy of prehistoric fishing groups around the world. The oldest shell fishhook along the Pacific Coast of the American Continent dates around 10000 years BP and comes from Baja California, Mexico. On the northern coast of Chile, fishhooks on mussel shell (Choromytilus chorus) have been recovered from the archaeological site of Morro Colorado with dates between 8500 and 6500 cal BP. The appearance of this technology marks the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Colleen Hanratty.

Twenty-four years of investigations conducted by the Maya Research Program at numerous Maya archaeological sites in northwestern Belize offers special opportunities for the investigation of the social and political dynamics at the end of the Classic period in this region. In this paper, we discuss the Late Classic time period, including rapidly increasing populations, political reorganization, declining soil quality, and expansion of agricultural systems. We discuss the specific responses that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rowan Flad. Pochan Chen. Yitzchak Jaffe. Andrew Womack. Jing Zhou.

In May and June 2015, archaeologists from the Gansu Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Harvard University, Peking University, Yale University, and National Taiwan University, conducted archaeological and geophysical survey at two important sites in the Tao River drainage: Dayatou and Siwashan. Whereas Siwashan is the type site of the Siwa Culture, and has long been known as an important archaeological site, Dayatou has previously not undergone any published systematic research. Furthermore,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alden Yepez. Irmela Herzog.

Estudios neo- evolucionistas desarrollados en las últimas décadas, muchos inspirados en las investigaciones arqueológicas desarrolladas en el Valle de la Plata, Colombia, plantean como un elemento fundamental la identificación de unidades políticas cacicales a partir de la dispersión de material cultural en la superficie de las áreas prospectadas. Investigaciones recientes llevadas adelante por nosotros en el Valle de los ríos Cosanga y Quijos, en la Ceja de Montaña Oriental de los Andes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Kwoka. Alyce de Carteret.

El Zotz is an ancient Maya site located in the contemporary Department of El Petén, Guatemala. Its influence on Classic Lowland geopolitics and the political fortunes of its elites are attested by inscriptions at home and abroad. Dwarfed by funerary temples and palace complexes, multiple small household groups dot the site’s periphery. This paper shifts the focus of analysis to populations located toward the opposite end of the sociopolitical spectrum through an analysis of lithic data recovered...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Golden. Andrew Scherer. Whittaker Schroder. Clive Vella.

Many reconstructions of Precolumbian Maya economies are based on a centralized model of exchange, in which major capitals acted as import and export hubs and centers of production, while royal courts provided some form of management for long-distance trade networks. Research in the Western Maya Lowlands, and particularly the Usumacinta River Valley, suggests that although during the Classic period (AD 250 – 810) powerful dynastic centers like Piedras Negras, Yaxchilan and their neighbors...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Gleason. Adam Watson.

Recent research in the pre-Columbian Pueblo Southwest has demonstrated the importance of understanding trends in bone industries that closely track other, related economic sectors such as perishable craft production. A vital next step in this line of inquiry is the identification the specific types of production activities in which bone tools are employed and variation across time and space. As illustrated by the results of this pilot study, texture analysis methods, developed within the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Linderholm. Ardern Hulme-Beaman. Allowen Evin. Keith Dobney. Greger Larson.

Research into animal domestication has now broadly established the geographic and temporal origins of the major livestock species, but has failed to do so for dogs. We will apply ancient DNA (aDNA) and geometric morphometric (GM) techniques to archaeological canid remains, of which we have examined ~4000 specimens across the globe through multiple time periods. Using this multifaceted approach, we expect population level distinctions revealed by aDNA analyses to be mirrored by GM analyses. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claire Novotny.

In the Maya region, sometimes communities are not consulted about access to archaeological sites, research programs, or the management of local heritage once research is completed. Consequently, one source of inequality between archaeologists and local communities is access to decision-making as a form of cultural capital. By positioning ourselves as primary decision-makers, archaeologists can inhibit access to knowledge about the past. The Aguacate Community Archaeology Project, conducted in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angus Mol.

The last decade has seen a rise in archaeological studies addressing network concepts, models and dynamics. These studies cover a range of archaeological approaches and subdisciplines, from the conceptual, like Actor Network Theory (ANT) to the formalized, like Agent Based Modelling (ABM), as well as frameworks that have connected archaeological theory and network methods, like Knappett’s Archaeology of Interaction and Hodder’s Entanglement. What all of these studies have in common is an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Warren. Robert Church. Robert Westrick. Melanie Damour. Leila Hamden.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused substantial perturbations within the coastal and marine environments. In 2013, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and other partners initiated a multidisciplinary study to examine the effects of the spill on deepwater shipwrecks. This poster presents an overview of the ongoing research into the microbial biodiversity and corrosion processes at wooden and metal-hulled shipwrecks within and outside the spill area. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Stitt.

In fall of 2013 preparations began for a limited study of the Boynton Mounds (8PB100) archaeological site. This group of earthwork lies nestled between the Okeechobee basin and East Okeechobee areas in central Palm Beach County Florida. Investigations aim to reveal similarities and dissimilarities between the two areas, which, in turn, may lead to a better understanding of regional variation in South Florida. The primary objective of this study is to identify which culture region Boynton Mounds...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julio Amador.

Based on landscape archaeology, achaeoastronomy, the analysis of rock art iconography, ethnohistoric and ethnographic documents, this paper proposes to define the factors that determine the sacredness of rock art sites in the Sonoran Desert. Well characterized common patterns can be found in most of the rock art sites that will be described, facts that confirm with certainty we can speak of shared cultural traits within the region.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Burham. Danielle Phelps.

While residential zones in many Mesoamerican cities were perceptibly defined by physical boundaries, the spatial division of Maya urban centers is not very clear. Following empirical urban theories outlined by Michael Smith (2010; 2011), we employ generative planning theory as a framework for defining residential zones in the peripheries of Ceibal, Guatemala. We believe that physical zones likewise represent social boundaries, in this case local communities that comprised the larger Ceibal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katina Lillios. Joel D. Irish. Anna J. Waterman. Ana Maria Silva.

The cultural dynamics of the Late Neolithic-Copper Age of the Portuguese Estremadura have traditionally been viewed in purely socio-economic terms, involving an increase in social differentiation and economic intensification. In this study, by using analyses of dental morphology and stable and radiogenic isotopes from collective burial populations in the region, we contribute additional lines of evidence to this historical trajectory. In particular we use this biological evidence to elucidate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Paine.

Since John Bongaarts introduced it in 1978, demographers have used the concept of proximate and ultimate causality to understand fertility, mortality, and other demographic events. Bongaarts distinguished between proximate causes of fertility, like contraceptive use or age at marriage, and ultimate causes like socioeconomic class or education, which affect fertility through those proximate causes. The proximate-ultimate framework could provide Mayanists with a more sophisticated, and ultimately...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Edwards. Anastasia Poulos.

I examined the dental health of Delmarva Adena-Hopewell Native Americans from a mortuary ossuary pit at the Pig Point Site in Lothian, Maryland, dating to the Middle Woodland Period (300 BC-AD 900). The Pig Point Site is a site of impressive ritual mortuary features, five distinct secondary burial ossuary pits, indicating that this was an area of significance to local prehistoric populations. Douglas Owsley carefully examined the dental remains of the first burial ossuary pit and I compared...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Miriam Belmaker.

Microwear is based on the correlation between function, form, and behavior. 3D Dental Microwear Texture Analysis (3D-DMTA) combines the use of high-resolution white light scanning confocal microscope (Sensofar) with the analysis of the data using scale-sensitive fractal analysis (Sfrax, Surfract, www.surfract.com) for a new analytical tool to study dental microwear texture patterns. This method allows for statistical characterization of dental microwear features and resulted in the reduction of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mara Smith.

This thesis research is a small part of the greater potential study of the interactions between people in prehistory and the animals they relied upon for food and ritual items. Analysis will compare the prevalence of osteological changes and abnormalities in the remains of wild animals and domestic turkeys at Salmon Ruin, New Mexico. Domestic turkeys, being influenced by the hand of humans, are unique cases of paleopathology that could potentially provide insight into the domestication and care...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steve Markofsky. Steven Markofsky.

The inland alluvial fans commonly found across the deserts of Central Asia constitute regions of environmental and geomorphological transition as well as social liminality. Straddling the line between fertile, sustainable environments and adverse regions often incapable of sustaining significant human occupation, these dynamic and evolving regions are excellent case studies through which to study the dynamic processes that have characterized human/environmental relationships throughout the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Adler.

Past archaeological interpretations of site destruction and the elimination of associated food resources, namely through burning, focus largely on conflict-based models of village warfare. This paper considers the role that food-related issues, particularly food-related toxins, might also have played in the destruction of food resources and relocation of village populations during the late pre-contact (AD 1200-1540) period in the Northern Rio Grande region.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Matney. Sarah E Travaly. Linda R Barrett. David S Perry.

Geophysical prospection is now a common field technique employed by archaeologists across the globe. Likewise, chemical analyses of soils, residues, and other samples in laboratory settings have been part of archaeological research for decades. This paper examines a new technique, still in an experimental phase, which allows archaeologists to refine the results of geophysical surveys by conducting chemical characterizations of deposits in situ using shallow subsurface spectroscopy. A near...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zuzana Chovanec. Sean Rafferty.

This paper presents an experimental research program that assesses the possibility of distinguishing olive oil from other oils derived from Mediterranean plants based on fatty acid profiles. Due to the olive’s prolific use in the region, its oil is often presumed rather than demonstrated to be present in ancient residues. Other residue studies have suggested that different organic products may be differentiated based on specific ratios of fatty acid pairs. To evaluate this approach, a sample of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only S. Maezumi. Jose Iriarte.

Amazonia is a major reservoir of biodiversity that has been influenced by anthropogenic activities for millennia. However, the temporal and spatial scale of pre-Columbian land use and its modern legacy on Amazonian landscapes are among the most debated topics in New World archaeology, paleoecology and conservation. This research investigates pre-Columbian (3000-1492 AD) land-use on Amazonian landscapes near the confluence of the Tapajós and Amazon rivers, a region once occupied by the capital of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeanne Binning.

The mechanics of successful biface reduction dictates the size and morphology of the generated flakes. Given these constraints, the ensuing flakes can be used to determine the size of the original biface. Using experimental data, an algorithm was developed that allows the estimation of biface size from reduction debitage.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Piscitelli.

During the Late Archaic Period, dramatic cultural transformations took place along the north central coast of Peru in a region known as the Norte Chico. These changes included a transition from hunting-gathering-fishing to farming, more intense social interaction, new kinds of power relationships between leaders and respondent populations, and the construction of monumental ceremonial architecture—all hallmarks of emergent social complexity. This paper moves beyond questions of why people built...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caius Chickanis. Monica Briseno.

Quarts and calcite crystals are used by shamans throughout Mesoamerica for divination. Ethnographic accounts mention shamans who, lacking actual crystals, use pieces of broken glass. This suggests that crystals may not occur in all areas so that crystals could have been actively traded in Pre-Columbian times. Testing this hypothesis requires developing a methodology for sourcing quarts and calcite crystals using trace elements incorporated into the crystal matrix during growth. So far as we...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Scott Rivas.

In conjunction with multi-scalar integrative faunal research on the use of aquatic resources by Archaic period hunter-gatherers, the EAFWG has been required to focus on both environmental and demographic reconstructions for both specific locales and larger regions within the interior of the North American Eastern Woodlands. Although the importance of social and ethnic factors has increasingly been recognized, both environmental change and variability and human population growth and aggregation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Felix Riede. Erick Robinson.

Over the last decade our knowledge of human-environment interaction in prehistory has been radically transformed. It has become increasingly apparent that prehistoric humans had to cope with a vast range of different environmental changes that had their own particular temporal and spatial dynamics. These changes ranged from millennial- and continental-scale ecosystem turnover and sea-level rise, to centennial- and hemispheric-scale abrupt climate change events, to extreme events such as tsunamis...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Kelly Brown. Barbara Winter. Chen Shen. Dongya Yang.

Ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis has revolutionized the field of archaeology with its ability to provide unique and otherwise unattainable information about the past. However, due to the destructive nature of current aDNA techniques many museum curators are hesitant to subject their collections to this kind of analysis. This poster presents a new sampling strategy for obtaining adequate amounts of bone powder from bone artifacts for aDNA extraction, while minimizing the damage done to the valuable...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eleanor Scerri. Richard Jennings.

Similarities between stone tools in northeast Africa and Southwest Asia are considered to reflect either one or more of a number of processes including technological convergence in similar ecological zones, demic dispersal and cultural transfer/cultural diffusion. However, determining the likelihood of these effects is contingent upon accurate estimates of population size – a variable that is rarely discussed explicitly. In this paper, upper and lower bounds for population sizes in the northeast...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hans Barnard. Ran Boytner.

Textiles have always had great social significance in the Andes. They were used to expressed identity and power as well as position and function within society. Intensive investment in textile technologies yielded some of the best such artifacts of the ancient world. While spinning and weaving produced fine garments, it was colors—achieved primarily through the use of brilliant organic dyes—that constituted the major visual qualities of Andean textiles. A limited number of studies exist that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Véronique Bélisle.

The Andean and Amazonian regions are home to numerous plants that can be prepared to induce altered states of consciousness. During the pre-Inka period in the Cusco area, evidence from the village of Ak'awillay indicates the consumption of alcohol, coca, and hallucinogens in public ceremonies. Some of the rituals involving entheogens could have corresponded to healing sessions, but the paraphernalia uncovered at the site suggests that most hallucinogens were consumed to communicate with the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Takeshi Inomata.

It has long been known in the Andean region that the communal projects of temple constructions and public rituals played an important role in social formation during the pre-ceramic period. Recent archaeological investigations in Mesoamerica are revealing comparable processes. Various ceremonial centers in Mesoamerica appear to have developed before the establishment of maize agriculture and fully sedentary communities. At the lowland Maya center of Ceibal, Guatemala, a formal ceremonial complex...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cassandra Casteel. Christine VanPool.

Mesoamerican and Southwestern researchers debate the origins, meanings, and influence of the feathered serpent. Some believe that the Southwestern horned serpent is derived from the Mesoamerican feathered serpent, while others believe the Southwestern serpent tradition developed largely independently from other regional traditions. Those contending that Southwestern and Mesoamerican serpents are connected rely on similar meanings of the serpents, such as its association with rain and fertility,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kuei-chen Lin. Pochan Chen.

This paper offers an overview of the development of typology in Chinese archaeology. In particular, we focus on how it has influenced and yet distinguished itself from typologies developed in western disciplines—and especially on how Chinese archeologists have relied largely on objects’ appearances to define types. In this manner, they have eagerly used typology in dating and defining archaeological cultures. The philosophy of classification, by which such typologies have been established, has...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Karen Smith. Brandy Joy.

Recent work on SC DNR’s Fort Frederick Heritage Preserve, once part of the J. Joyner Smith Plantation in Beaufort County, South Carolina, offers an opportunity to study changes in ceramic consumption through time. Utilizing archaeological samples from several distinct occupations on this Sea Island cotton plantation, we chart changes in colonoware abundance, in particular, and relate them to larger socio-economic changes taking place across the region during the early 19th c. In addition to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Marquardt.

It has been my privilege to call Carole Crumley a friend for 44 years. Our experiences working together in Burgundy, France in the 1970s and 1980s were formative to my research perspective in historical ecology, a perspective to which Carole herself has been a major contributor. Historical ecology is the multiscalar and multitemporal study of the dynamic relations between people and their environment. But “environment” is more than the sum total of one’s physical surroundings. As perceived by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Becker.

The city of Tiwanaku (AD 500-1100) in the Bolivian altiplano was comprised of multiethnic neighborhoods, with some of these barrios being home to "guild-like" specialists laboring at differing jobs. Ch’iji Jawira, one site within this community, is often described in the archaeological record as containing both a manufacturing center for pottery and a residential area home to these ceramic manufacturers. Prior bioarchaeological research has also shown that the people who were buried at the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Guderjan.

The archaeological study of land tenure in non-literate societies is methodologically complex. However, by examining situations before, during and after transitions, insight can be gained. The end of the Maya Classic period, complexes of field walls were built, especially in coastal locations. These appear to not have water control or land management functions but instead delineate space similarly to house lots in contemporary, but traditional, Maya villages. Land tenure at the center of Blue...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Isabel Casar. Jose Ramon Gallego. Jose Concepcion Jimenez. Edith Cienfuegos. Pedro Morales.

The transition between the diet of the hunter-gatherers and the full-time farmers is described on an individual level based on evidence from three ancient caves in Tehuacan, Puebla. The populations studied occupied the caves for almost 8000 years from 6800 BC to AD 1520. The reconstruction of their diet was done on the basis of stable isotopic values of δ13C and δ15N of the bone collagen as well as the δ13C and δ18O from bone-bioapatite and from a series of slices from molars, alternating on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elise Naumann.

Viking Age Norway was a society structured by clear social differences. Archaeological finds from burials and settlements show a hierarchical distribution of material goods among the Norse, although the distribution of food has traditionally been difficult to trace. In the last few decades, advances in isotope analyses of human remains have made possible a discussion of these aspects, providing information on individual dietary variation. Considering the harsh climate of Scandinavia, the control...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hayley Mickleburgh. Jaime Pagán-Jiménez.

This paper addresses temporal changes in dietary practices in the Ceramic Age (500BC – AD1500) Caribbean. Evidence from human dental wear and pathology has indicated a broad shift in dietary practices from the Early Ceramic Age (500BC – AD600/800) to the Late Ceramic Age (AD600/800 – AD1500). Comparisons between the two periods revealed significant differences in the rate of dental wear and pathology, suggesting a growing focus on refined, cariogenic foods, most likely horticultural produce....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Kennedy. Parker VanValkenburgh. Katherine L. Chiou.

Late 16th century Peru was a dynamic period associated with emerging Spanish colonial polices - forced resettlement and tribute extraction – coupled with general demographic decline. Spanish officials and indigenous communities alike had to make difficult choices on how they provided for their households and put food on the table. We examine the effects of this tumultuous period on Spanish and indigenous foodways at the reducción site of Carrizales, located in the lower Zaña Valley on the North...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dane Magoon. Dale Hutchinson. John Krigbaum.

According to early historic accounts that depict coastal Virginia and North Carolina, maize was a component of Native American diet by the late 16th and early 17th centuries. There remain questions, however, regarding the introduction of maize into the region and how it was incorporated into local subsistence regimes, especially within a coastal setting. Previous stable isotope studies have focused upon the presence or absence of maize as a component of diet at the population level. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Valerie Feathers. Heather McKillop. E. Cory Sills. Rachel Watson.

During the 2013 field season, an inundated shell midden was excavated at the underwater ancient Maya salt production site of Eleanor Betty, one of the Paynes Creek Salt Works. Excavations revealed that the midden was located 16-30 cm below the sea-floor and extended both inside and outside of an underwater wooden structure. During the spring of 2015, analyses were performed to identify the shell species, assess the nature of the midden (cultural or natural), and evaluate dietary implications of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel King. Michael Searcy. Kyle Waller.

As part of a larger multinational project, we gathered and analyzed 112 samples of dental calculus (fossilized plaque) from human remains discovered at Paquimé and other sites in the Casas Grandes river valley to identify various microfossils still present in the silica matrix. Once identified, we used the prehistoric plant remains to reconstruct human/plant relationships present during the Viejo and Medio periods in and around Paquimé. Our data suggest that maize was used throughout both time...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Courtney McConnan Borstad. Jane Kelley. M. Anne Katzenberg.

Paquimé (Casas Grandes), located in northern Mexico, is well known for its Medio period (AD 1200-1450) monumental architecture and the variation apparent in its mortuary practices. While previous bioarcheological studies have addressed a wide range of questions, dietary practices at Paquimé still remain largely unexplored. Stable isotope analysis of bone collagen is one technique that can directly reconstruct diets at Paquimé and identify differences between individuals, time periods, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Schwartz. Ben Nelson. David Abbott.

Material evidence of interaction between people of the U.S. Southwest and Mesoamerica is detected as early as ca. 2000 BCE. Markers of long-distance interaction increase in diversity and abundance over time, growing to include copper bells, iron pyrite mirrors, and other objects and symbols. These markers moved up to 2000 km by social actions and exchange mechanisms that remain obscure. Although the Hohokam had stronger ties to Mesoamerica than any region in the U.S. Southwest, more could be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Camila Figueiredo.

The goal of this presentation is to contribute to the ongoing debate in Amazonian studies to which human societies impacted and reshaped the landscapes. Landscapes are the results of a human action and environmental changes over time, providing a fundamental dataset for understanding social practices in a historically particular manner (Ingold 1993). Ultimately, this presentation sheds light on the formation and significance of settlement patterns within sites located in the Flona-Tapajós and...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Michael Ashley. Ruth Tringham. Meg Conkey. Cinzia Perlingieri.

This is a pdf copy of the PPT slides used for this presentation in the SAA symposium. In July, 2015, the number of federally recognized tribes increased to 567 with the inclusion of the Pamunkey tribe in Virginia. Among other benefits, Tribal Nations have the right to self govern, and as such, the right to determine how best to curate and manage their own heritage and histories. To put this number into perspective, there are currently only 193 member states (countries) in the United Nations,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Halling. Ryan Seidemann.

The Smith Creek Site (22WK526), located in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, is principally a Coles Creek Period site (AD 700-1400). Human remains were recovered from this site in the 1960s by avocational archaeologists. Although the Smith Creek human remains are fragmentary and commingled, and the records related to their collection are nonexistent, these remains still present a significant data source for this region and time period. Of particular interest is an isolated adult mandible that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Ahlrichs.

Avocational collectors in Wisconsin have collected thousands of copper artifacts over the last century and half. This copper has gone largely unexamined by the professional archaeological community. The archaeological literature is therefore silent on basic facts such as size ranges and changes in use of the raw material from society to society. Copper entered the economic systems of these Archaic Wisconsin societies as an innovative, but ultimately redundant raw material given the existence of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Zaleski. Nicholas Herrmann.

The 1956-8 National Geographic funded and Smithsonian sponsored excavations within Russell Cave and the nearby stone mound uncovered six cave and twelve mound burials, respectively. During the 2011 osteological inventory, two burials comprised of maxillary and mandibular fragments were found labeled "A" and "B" with neither cave nor mound context identification. This study employs elemental analysis of soil associated with individual burials as well as dental comparisons to identify the contexts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Morgan Beyer.

Wind Cave National Park, just north of Hot Springs, South Dakota, became a National Park in 1903. Because of its location in the heart of the Black Hills, the land now protected by the National Park System has been a hotbed of human activity for thousands of years and is the location of many archaeological sites, both prehistoric and historic. However, some of the most intriguing sites that can be found within the park’s boundaries are those of indeterminate origin. Sites with both historic (ie....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adrianne Daggett. Erica Dziedzic.

Over the 2013-2014 academic year, Michigan State University’s Campus Archaeology Program facilitated a series of public archaeology workshops called “Dig the Past: A Hands-on Introduction to Archaeology.” Targeting both children and adults in the Greater Lansing community, these workshops aimed to disburse fundamental information about the real practice of archaeology in lay-friendly language as well as to provide archaeology students with opportunities to practice public engagement. The “Dig...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maureen Malloy. Crystal Alegria. Robert Connolly. Giovanna Peebles.

Since 2014 the SAA has collaborated with the National Geographic Channel to evaluate episodes of the cable television program Diggers,and to recommend changes to help ensure a more ethical and accurate portrayal of archaeology.Our paper will examine the history of the collaboration, guidelines developed for reviewing episodes,and a suggested framework for crafting accurate and ethical portrayals of archaeology in the context of a reality television show. Lastly, we will evaluate the outcomes of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meagan Dennison. Mark Freeman. Jeffrey Navel.

Integrating large amounts of data into streamlined, coherent datasets is a popular trend among archaeologists today, as these large datasets allow for the recognition and analysis of regional temporal and spatial trends. This paper presents an overview of a large dog burial dataset for the Southeastern US, where dog burials have been encountered on archaeological sites dating from about 8,000 years ago through the historic period. The information recorded includes contextual information...

DOCUMENT Full-Text W. Fredrick Limp.

This is a pdf copy of the PPT slides used for this presentation in the SAA symposium. The first principle of the SAA’s Ethics states “The archaeological record …[including]... archaeological collections, records and reports, is irreplaceable. It is the responsibility of all archaeologists to work for the long-term conservation and protection of the archaeological record...” As a profession, we’ve been reasonably responsible as stewards of archaeological sites, but considerably less responsible...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Joshua Wells. Eric Kansa. Sarah Kansa. David Anderson. Stephen Yerka.

This is a pdf copy of the PPT slides used for this presentation at the SAA symposium. The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) has a massive compilation of archaeological site data. This paper presents recent findings from development of DINAA’s site database, efforts to link DINAA with mined references from digital literature, and efforts to prepare DINAA for future crowd-sourced professional data citations. The continental United States spans eight million square kilometers,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Manuel Perales.

Recent studies have shown the importance of commensal politics in the consolidation of Inca power and ideology, highlighting the leading role played by the pots as political tools. Following this perspective, this paper proposes a reassessment of the nature of the activities carried out at the Inca site of Hatun Xauxa in the central highlands of Peru, based on functional and distributional analysis of the state and local pottery recovered during excavations made in 2014 by the Proyecto Qhapaq...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Mattson.

This paper explores the relationship between utility ware vessel construction and widely shared elements of cosmology in the Chaco interaction sphere through an examination of corrugated gray ware ceramics from Pueblo Bonito. The direction of coiling, which is inversely related to the angle of corrugation or pinching, appears to be a conservative element of ceramic technological style and is typically consistent within regions. As these differences cannot be accounted for by handedness alone, it...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Parkinson. Anastasia Papathanasiou. Michael Galaty. Daniel Pullen. Giorgos Papathanassopoulos.

This paper summarizes the results of multidisplinary research conducted by The Diros Project in Diros Bay on the western Mani Peninsula of the southern Peloponnesos. The project centers around Aleptorypa Cave, a massive cave that was used for burials and other ritual and domestic activities throughout the entire Neolithic period (ca. 6,000-4,000 BC). Under the direction of Dr. Giorgos Papathanassopoulos (Honorary Ephor of Antiquities), The Diros Project was established by a team of international...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriel Wrobel. Amy Michael.

The caves of Central Belize were used extensively by the Maya, primarily during the Late Preclassic and Classic periods (approx. 300 BC to AD 900). Archaeological investigations of human bone deposits in these caves typically seek to identify specific mortuary rituals, often based on analogy with ethnohistoric, epigraphic, and artistic sources, and to interpret these behaviors within broader sociopolitical and environmental contexts. However, because of the long history of cave use in the area...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Diaz. Danielle Kurin.

Archaeological scholarship in the Andahuaylas region of south-central highland Peru has documented the presence of three critical cultural occupations: Wari, Chanka, and Inka (ca. AD 700-1400). Previous investigations claim that environmental change may have influenced collapse and played a decisive role in resettlement patterns. Using spatial data from 86 surveyed sites, this study investigates how state collapse, reorganization, and environmental transformations influenced settlement patterns...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katie Kirakosian.

Who has claimed and who can claim to hold knowledge about the ancient past has shifted greatly over time in the United States. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, groups like the Archaeological Institute of America and smaller state-level archaeological societies were founded throughout the United States, which largely formed from local and growing interest in the ancient past. In just the past century, associations, societies and other groups like the American Anthropological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Surface-Evans.

Haunting is a way to conceptualize and recognize traumatic events of the past. In some cases, past trauma becomes so well hidden that it produces specters whose origin and source may not be readily identified or acknowledged, yet still have the power to do harm. This metaphor of haunting is especially apt when considering the United States Federal Indian Boarding School era. The cultural genocide attempted by Federal Indian boarding schools is still felt in American Indian communities as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rosie Ireland.

The Cape Creek site has been an area of continuous archaeological focus since the inception of the Croatoan Archaeological Project in 2009. This paper will discuss the zooarchaeological methodologies implemented to study Native American use of their immediate landscape and the natural resources of the area during the period before European contact and subsequent consumption adaptations. This will focus on the exploration and analysis of faunal data recovered during the 2012-2015 excavation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aisling Tierney.

In 2015, University of Bristol students elected to join a sustainability education pilot project run in conjunction with the Croatoan Archaeology Society. The project was embedded into existing excavations at the early contact Native American site on Hatteras Island, Outer Banks, North Carolina. It focused on the larger environment, culture and ecosystems of the region and how they were affected by cultural exchange and the introduction of new technologies from the seventeenth century. Students...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charlotte Goudge.

Excavations at the early contact Native American site on Hatteras Island, Outer Banks, North Carolina has yielded an incredibly varied material culture that displays all aspects of early Native/European contact in the area. Our collection of newly discovered early European expansion period artefacts, found at the Cape Creek site, a major Croatoan town and trade hub, hints at intense contact between the natives and the first European settlers. This paper is the first academic release of results...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Crystal Ptacek. Beatrix Arendt. John Jones. Derek Wheeler. Fraser Neiman.

Pollen analysis can advance our understanding of change and spatial variation in the landscape of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation from its initial settlement in the 18th century to the present. In this poster, we present and evaluate data from an intensive, multi-year campaign of stratigraphic sampling conducted in the largely ornamental mountaintop landscape immediately surrounding Jefferson's mansion. Comparing these data to stratigraphic samples not from Monticello Mountain allows us...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Weeks. Edward Jolie.

The Tennessee State Museum has several collections of perishable artifacts from dry rock shelters and caves on the Cumberland Plateau containing varieties of cordage, basketry, textiles, footwear, worked hide, wood, feathers and other items that appear to date between the Archaic and Mississippian periods. Preliminary analyses explore the origin, distribution, and fusion of styles that became the enduring traditions of the indigenous peoples of the American Southeast. Ethnographic and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Bamforth.

The myth of Paleoindian big-game specialization has deep roots in our field. None of these roots run deeper than for the Clovis Period, where the vision of humans armed with stone-tipped spears attacking animals the size of extinct elephants has enchanted the public and professional imaginations almost equally. But issues of differential site discovery and investigation run equally deep, and this is especially so for Clovis archaeology. Ancient archaeological sites left by mobile hunters can be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shannon Murphy.

Multiunit housing for enslaved populations was introduced to estates in the West Indies at the dawn of the nineteenth century during the broader British movement to improve habitations of both free and unfree rural laborers. Planters attempted to counter abolitionist criticism by installing housing that incorporated new layouts and more durable materials. Material culture studies of plantations in the Bahamian archipelago, however, have long recognized an absence of row house architecture. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenichiro Tsukamoto.

The identification of elite titles through epigraphic studies has raised new questions about the relationship between elite office and economic status. The present study focuses on a social group referred to by the title lakam, which was detected in the inscriptions of a hieroglyphic stairway at the El Palmar archaeological site. Our epigraphic studies revealed the involvement of lakam officials as emissaries in political alliances between El Palmar, Calakmul, and Copán, suggesting that they...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gypsy Price.

This paper demonstrates how integrating isotopic analyses and more traditional zooarchaeological methods can help to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Isotopic ratios from species known to have been purposefully managed establish inter- and intra-taxonomic variation from which management practices may be inferred. These management practices reflect decision making processes enacted by producers and consumers responsible for procuring fauna for occasions of consumption. This paper...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Nystrom. Christina Hodge.

In the nineteenth-century United States, the number of medical schools increased significantly, which in turn spurred efforts to ensure a steady supply of bodies for gross anatomy courses. Supply was largely derived from marginalized groups such as African Americans and almshouse inmates. Based on available archaeological and skeletal evidence this paper approaches dissection as a multivalent process that transformed participants in radically different ways. For the medical student, the process...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Duffy. Ann Laffey.

A reconstructed pottery cooking vessel dating to the Late Preclassic period from the ancient Maya site of Cerro Maya, Belize was sampled for absorbed organic residues. Samples were taken from multiple locations to look for differences in their distribution. Three interior regions –rim, mid-body and base—were sampled along with one from an exterior basal location as a control to evaluate for possible contaminants. Samples were processed using a high pressure liquid extraction technique for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Clara Otaola. Fernado F. Franchetti. Miguel A. Giardina.

We present a random sampling design for the Diamante Valley, Mendoza, Argentina. We selected 3 areas located in the highlands, the piedmont and the lowlands. The aim is to test differences and variability in the use of the space. Each of the areas is constituted by 100 Km2 and was divided by GIS in 10000 sampling units of 10000 m2. 122 units have been selected randomly in each of the areas. From data available of neighboring areas we generated expectations of material densities and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Allen. China Shelton.

Since 2008, we have been investigating botanical evidence for subsistence practices, economic organization, and environmental change at the Bronze Age site of Iklaina in southwestern Greece. The spatially intensive sampling strategy we have adopted—the first of its kind to be applied to a Mycenaean administrative center—promotes a high spatial resolution for the archaeobotanical dataset. As such, in addition to providing insights concerning changes in subsistence and land use during the Mycenaen...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katelyn Schoenike. Olivia Navarro-Farr. Fox Georgia.

Betty’s Hope Plantation, on the island of Antigua has been excavated by California State University, Chico, since 2007. The site incorporates a wide-range of diverse use-areas including the Great House, a rum distillery, and slave quarters. Excavations have revealed that every area of the plantation represents a unique community with distinct material culture. In the 2014 season, researchers discovered a midden that appears to have been utilized by two of these diverse plantation communities....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carlo Serrano.

En Pablo Sexto, Amazonía Sur del Ecuador, se ha descubierto una variabilidad, en cuanto a modos de vida de sus pobladores, a través de los años (2.000 a.C. – 1.700 d.C.). El estudio llevado a cabo en esta zona, fue financiado por SENESCYT e INPC, para la obtención de datos paleobotánicos. Dentro de este contexto, la posición teórica adoptada fue la Ecología Histórica, entendiendo a la cultura material: cerámica, lítica y suelos, como productos tecnológicos, culturales, económicos y políticos,...

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

To study the Classic Maya is to at once recognize the shared material representations and practices that give coherence to this cultural category as a unit of analysis, as well as to critically examine the diversity and idiosyncrasy of specific cultural traits. Maya hieroglyphic writing, in particular the tradition of inscribing texts and images on carved stone monuments, offers evidence for widespread and mutually intelligible cultural practices that were neither unchanging nor uniform in their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Baquedano. Tessa Robinson.

Teotihuacan was the painted city. A key iconographic motif in the murals of residential compounds, such as Tetitla, is the Great Goddess, often shown in the act of hand-scattering. A variety of substances such as grain, liquids, and precious, green stones are pictured falling from the Goddess' open palm. The extensive corpus of representations of the goddess' hand-scattering identifies the hand, and in particular the female hand, as a locus for divinity. The suggestion that the agency of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Lemke. John O'Shea.

While many paleoenvironmental methods have achieved extraordinary resolution, regional reconstructions based on these methods are rarely as accurate or as refined as often assumed. Data points are typically few and far between, and are interpolated over a heterogeneous landscape; concealing significant variability. These problems are particularly acute in the Great Lakes region, where fluctuating lake levels and environmental changes during the early Holocene were diverse and punctuated. Recent...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Abigail Bouwman. Michael Habicht. Thomas Krämer. Karl Link. Frank Rühli.

Whilst ancient Egyptian mummies have been the main focus of research for centuries, ancient Egyptian canopic jars, and their intestinal contents, have been widely neglected. The aim of the Canopic Jar Project is to establish novel research procedures and to examine a larger series of ancient Egyptian human soft tissues samples with a range of medical, genetic, chemical and Egyptological techniques. In the pilot phase of the project, canopics from different time periods were studied...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arturo Pascual Soto.

Los resultados derivados de nuestras investigaciones en el conjunto arquitectónico del Edificio de las Columnas, el emplazamiento por excelencia de las actividades de la elite en el Epiclásico local, han sido de enorme valor para enfocar de mejor manera el estudio de las características culturales del último florecimiento de la civilización de El Tajín. La ponencia muestra una serie de hallazgos efectuados en el curso de nuestras más recientes excavaciones en un intento por explorar la ideología...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Porter. Stephanie Brown. Katie Simon. Andrew Wilson. Christine Markussen.

Located in southwest Jordan, Busayra has long been suspected of being the capital of the Iron Age polity of Edom. British excavations in the 1970s revealed monumental buildings, fortifications, and domestic residences on Busayra’s acropolis that confirms the settlement’s stature as an administrative center. Despite this impressive evidence, little else is known about the town’s design. In order to further investigate Busayra’s sub-surface features, the authors conducted a geophysical survey...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Marcoux.

Past research has outlined the profound effects of the Carolina Indian deerskin and slave trade on the cultural landscape of the Southeast during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This work has identified a number of historical processes (e.g., population movements, disease, endemic violence, and economic transformation) stemming from the interaction of southeastern Indian and European Colonial worlds. Together, these processes forged a dynamic, even chaotic, landscape. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marieka Arksey.

Over the past three years, investigations of over fifty ritual cave sites across the country of Belize by the Las Cuevas Archaeological Reconnaissance Project and the Belize Cave Research Project have yielded surprising findings: at least nine of the caves have modifications or construction directly outside of the entrances. These modifications took place for the first and only time during the Late Classic, a centuries-long period characterized by droughts, overpopulation, the failure of Maya...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chrissina Burke. Joshua Nowakowski.

Since the initial domestication of the dog, humans and their canid companions have maintained a close connection. Dogs have been employed as hunters, beasts of burden, mousers, refuse disposers, ritual guardians, and emotional support. Also, given their physical size and profile, dogs have often been considered an animal underfoot. Despite dogs’ myriad working conditions, zooarchaeological research illustrates a non-random pattern of cranial lesions to prehistoric domesticated dogs from many...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandi Bethke.

This paper will examine the extent to which the adoption of the horse created a transition in Blackfoot modes of production from hunting and gathering to incipient nomadic pastoralism by tracing the horse’s effect on Blackfoot settlement patterns and landscape uses during the protohistoric and historic periods in the northwestern Plains. While the socio-economic consequences of the horse’s introduction have been studied from a historical perspective, the archaeology of this transition remains...