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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aaron Wright. Will Russell.

During the pre-Classic era (ca. AD 400-1150), pithouses and houses-in-pits were the preferred modes of residential architecture among Hohokam communities. When excavated, these wood-framed domiciles often show signs of burning, which effectively closed the structures’ lifecycles as dwellings. Among affiliated and descendant communities such as the O’odham and some Yuman-speaking groups, a person’s death could prompt the burning of their home in order to combat any pollution, sickness, or...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paulette McFadden.

Pre-Columbian settlement practices in coastal settings were influenced by both environmental and sociocultural factors, but determining the role of each is often hindered by a lack of paleoenvironmental data that is applicable to particular coastal areas. In Horseshoe Cove, on the northern Gulf coast of Florida, settlement practices varied between the Deptford/Swift Creek periods and the Weeden Island period, but were these practices driven by environmental change or were they linked to social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Whalen.

The area known as Ulster is one region where complex colonial and ethnic relationships are evident in the past, as well as in the present. This study looks specifically at the trade of ceramics in Post-Medieval Ulster, to see if coarse earthenware ceramics are being imported from elsewhere along with English refined earthenwares or if they are being produced locally in Ireland. Through the use of portable X-ray florescence (pXRF), the multi-elemental makeup of 1342 sherd will be examine to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Wright.

In Mesoamerican belief systems, deity impersonation rituals temporarily transformed human agents into divine beings. While donning the accoutrements of specific deities during ritual activity, they merged with and became literal embodiments of those gods, essentially becoming both functionally and ontologically divine for the duration of the ritual. In rituals of human sacrifice, both victim and executioner were typically bedecked in the costuming of specific gods, indicating that these were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Pilles.

Honanki is a 13th century, ca. 60 room cliff dwelling in the scenic Red Rock country near Sedona, Arizona.. It has been a popular attraction to scientists and tourists ever since it was first reported by Jesse Walter Fewkes in 1895. Over the years, time and people had caused considerable disturbance to the site and damage was accelerating as Sedona became an ever-more popular recreational destination. To deal with these problems, the Coconino National Forest applied for a grant from the newly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Friedrich Lueth.

Sites and monuments of the Hopewell Culture are of high significance and outstanding universal value; embedded into the landscape they have been intensively researched during the past years adding and applying geophysical surveys. New technology with multi-channel, vehicle towed magnetometers allow large scale operations of the landscape and it becomes affordable to go beyond the known monuments into the landscape. This presentation introduction will show some possibilities and discuss the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margaret Robinson.

The Hopewell culture was a unique explosion of cultural practices characterized by monumental earthwork construction, elaborate funerary practices and extensive exchange networks of exotic materials. The presence of these monumental burial mounds and earthwork structures on the Midwest landscape captured the interest of the earliest American archaeologists resulting in extensive archaeological excavations in the late 19th and early 20th century. The vast legacy collections that resulted from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Walter Crist.

Egypt has long been the focus of research on ancient board games, as it provides the longest history and greatest variety of games in the ancient world. Despite this, limitations on archaeological interpretation exist because of the unprovenanced nature of the material, as well as a focus on games from tombs of the nobility and pharaohs. Increasingly, evidence from within Egypt in the form of graffiti games on monuments and on ostraca, as well as Egyptian games found in the Levant where...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alison Carter. Cristina Castillo. Rachna Chhay. Tegan McGillivray. Yijie Zhuang.

This paper presents the results from the 2015 excavation of a house mound within the Angkor Wat enclosure. Although household archaeology is well established in other tropical locations, notably Mesoamerica, few households have been closely examined in Southeast Asia. In this paper, we discuss some of the preliminary findings from our excavation of an Angkorian house mound, as well as research on the use of space around the mound and the potential for household gardens. A comparison with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Epstein.

Intrasite spatial analysis reveals zooarchaeological remains indicative of Great Basin hunter-gatherer household behaviors. Results indicate the presence and spatial distribution of activity types. Analytical techniques facilitated evaluation of ethnographic models to find the best match to the zooarchaeological situation. Households associated with disparate climatic regimes, while contextually equivalent, exhibit variable zooarchaeological signatures for subsistence, social, and spiritual...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rani Alexander. Héctor Hernández Álvarez.

In this paper, we examine the changes in household ecology that resulted from the introduction of European domesticates to Yucatán after the Spanish invasion. New animals and plants were not adopted wholesale as a Euroagrarian suite in the sixteenth century. Instead, heterogeneous practices took root in highly altered demographic and environmental settings. Ecosystems were re-engineered as animals moved into new anthropogenic niches. We compare archaeological and ethnoarchaeological evidence of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ellen Moriarty. Matthew Moriarty.

In this paper we present a detailed view of ancient Maya domestic economy from the perspective of household midden ceramic assemblages at two sites along the north shore of Lake Petén Itzá: Trinidad de Nosotros and Xilil. A highly successful method of midden prospecting was employed over the course of three field seasons, resulting in the excavation of more than 20 middens in 15 Late Classic residential groups across the two sites. Analyses of ceramics from these middens, including type-variety,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peiyu Chen.

This research attempts to understand daily household practice in Huaca Negra, a coastal site that was occupied from 5,000 to 3,000 B.P. in the Viru Valley, to answer two interrelated research questions: (1) Were there signs of institutionalized social inequality represented at the household level in Huaca Negra during its occupation? (2) If so, through what kinds of daily household practices did potential leaders in this particular community differentiate themselves from others? Alternatively,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Crandall.

For the Chachapoya of the eastern Andes, the household was a primary social space of production and community life. In order to examine the maintenance of such social spaces, this paper analyses the material continuity of household spatial production in the upper Amazonian community of Purunllacta de Soloco occupied between A.D. 400-1583. Many Chachapoya houses were continually inhabited and were refashioned according to a schema indicated by a particular material assemblage. I identify...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Johnson. Patrick Mullins. Brian Billman.

The Chimú Empire controlled much of the Peruvian North Coast during the Late Intermediate Period (1000-1476 AD), including the hinterland site of Cerro la Virgen (CLV). Previous research suggests that CLV could be viewed as a facet of the Chimú plan for the organization of rural areas, a plan that included controlled access to water, the restriction of rural settlement, and agricultural management through rural administrative centers. This model for local rule ultimately suggests that resources...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam King.

Etowah was the home of Mississippian period communities for 550 years. During that time, three distinct communities were created: an initial founding followed by two reoccupations after periods of abandonment. Because abandonment creates points in the life of a community where local traditions can be questioned and modified, they can lead to novel ways of casting identity, social relations, and history. With each new community created at Etowah, households and the larger built environment were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica MacLellan. Takeshi Inomata.

Payson Sheets’ work at Ceren has greatly influenced investigations of ancient Maya households at both Aguateca and Ceibal. Here we focus on recent excavations at the Karinel Group, a residential area at Ceibal. Due to its early foundation, Ceibal presents an opportunity to investigate multiple aspects of the origins of ancient Maya society. We discuss the development of the patio group, the typical Maya arrangement of stone house platforms around an open space, often rebuilt and reoccupied for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Terrah Jones. Jennifer Larios. Rudi Vanzin. Brittany Jackson. Jacob Bongers.

This poster presents the results of the preliminary excavation work done at sector A of the site Casa Grande (PV57-42) in the Chincha Valley, Peru. Initial field work focused on determining both the construction technique used to build these extensive terraces and identifying how these spaces were used by the mid-valley Chincha inhabitants. Excavation and preliminary laboratory processing focused on the ceramics and botanical remains recovered during the active field season, with further...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christian Williamson. Douglas Armstrong.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the enslaved represented sixty-two percent of the urban population on the island of St Thomas in the Danish West Indies. While St. Thomas never held slave populations comparable to the other colonial empires in the Caribbean, it was an extremely important transshipment hub for the Caribbean and beyond. Slavery within the urban port setting of Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas differed radically from the rural plantations, presenting the enslaved within the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael E. Smith.

Housing at Teotihuacan took several forms, including apartment compounds, nonroyal palaces, residential quarters within civic structures, and perishable houses. I describe several approaches and methods that have been, or could be, applied to the analysis Teotihuacan housing. These include quantitative measures of wealth inequality using the Gini index; typological analysis of the forms of rooms, spaces, and compounds; measures of architectural standardization; distributions of surface artifacts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Dennehy. Jacqueline Fox. Michael E. Smith.

We calculate Gini indices for house size in two samples of premodern cities. The first sample consists of several cities included in the transdisciplinary comparative project on spatial inequality called “Service Access in Premodern Cities.” That project examined the relationship between inequality and a set of systematically coded contextual variables – such as economic development and governance mode – in a sample of ancient and historical cities. The current study uses only those cities that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hayden Bassett.

The “slave village” occupies an important place in Caribbean archaeology, though one in which the internal variation and dynamics of a village have yet to be thoroughly addressed. This has resulted in an essentialized picture of the "enslaved community” as a single entity. However, recent excavations at Good Hope estate, an 18th/19th-century sugar plantation in Jamaica, have demonstrated greater internal variation of experience, revealing that the plantation's enslaved community was divided...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shereen Lerner. Rachel Most.

Don Henson (2012) wrote "What archaeology has to offer is a powerful contribution to the quality of life of people." He states that quality of life has three critical threads: social inclusion (people), environmental protection (place), sustainable development (future). Despite its popularity, we believe archaeology may be one of the most misunderstood disciplines. It is not about dinosaurs and skeletons or glorifying past achievements. It is an essential scientific discipline because it can...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fraser Neiman.

Early-modern slave village sites in the eastern Caribbean are littered with both locally-made "Afro-Caribbean" and imported European ceramics. Archaeologists have focused on the former as an expression of identity, while ignoring copious variation in time and space in both classes of ceramics and the causal mechanisms that might be responsible for it. This paper embeds evolutionary models of costly signaling and markets in a larger multi-level selection framework to offer a tentative explanation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hugo Ikehara.

In this paper I assess the impact of the end of the Cupisnique-Chavín Religious Complex (CCRC) in local leadership. Using the case of the Nepeña Middle Valley, I evaluate how authority was built during the Late Formative and how the disintegration of the CCRC around 500 B.C. had profound impacts in the way power was constituted and negotiated during the next centuries.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Madelynn Von Baeyer.

This paper presents archaeobotanical data from the Late Chalcolithic (LC) archaeobotanical assemblage at Çadır Höyük, a mounded site on the north central Anatolian plateau with almost continuous occupation from the Middle Chalcolithic through the Byzantine period. Architectural and metallurgical evidence indicate that during the LC, Çadır was developing as a regional rural center, which makes it an ideal site to study the role that households occupied during in emerging systems of social...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Dean Arnold.

Changes in pottery through time and their organizational correlates are fundamental to archaeological inference. Such correlates rely upon theory based upon distilling various ethnographic cases filtered through a series of socio-economic and socio-political assumptions about the relationship of production to the society at large. This paper summarizes some of the results of a diachronic study of pottery production units in Ticul, Yucatán, from 1965 to 2008. The data show that the kin structure...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cheryl Frankum.

Can XRF accurately detect the chemical composition of ceramics using non-destructive sample preparation techniques? This study looks at the reliability of the Innov-X Delta XRF unit in detecting the chemical composition of earthenware ceramics through three different sample preparation methods. While there are growing interests in using XRF analysis for various ceramic studies, this research question examines whether different testing strategies will produce different results. This experiment...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Lamkin. Kayleigh Mrasek. Luke Edwards.

This poster demonstrates how to build an input file to calculate Binford’s environmental and hunter-gatherer frames of reference using available global data standards and GIS technology. Required input values include latitude, longitude, elevation, distance to the nearest coast in km, soil type, vegetation type, and mean monthly values of temperature and rainfall. All of these data are freely available in global standard data sets (WORLDCLIM: Hijmans et al 2005, World Wildlife Foundation Habitat...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jerod Roberts. Victoria Muñoz. Carolyn Boyd.

Digital photography provides increasingly sophisticated applications that are invaluable to rock art researchers. Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center relies heavily on many of these applications to document, preserve, and analyze rock art—such as 3D modeling through Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry, multi-focal stacking, color management, and digital field microscopy for stratigraphic analyses. Depending on which applications are used, there are important considerations...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Yesner.

Peopling of the New World involved a dispersal process across Beringia that included both humans and animals. The archaeological record from eastern Beringia suggests a multiple-stage process of both pre- and post-Younger Dryas (YD) colonization from different regions of Northeast Asia, with the pre-YD colonization subdivisible into multiple waves. These archaeological manifestations can in turn be related to waves of terminal Pleistocene opportunistic entry into NE Asia itself, but can only be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fernando Franchetti. Clara Otaola. Miguel Giardina.

The archaeology from the Diamante River Valley, located in Mendoza, Argentina, has been carried out since the beginning of the seventies. The information generated along these years was oriented in several study programs and was motivated by diverse research questions. Different kinds of surveys were done and very few data was published. Most of the archaeological information we have nowadays from this Valley comes from excavations using old techniques, some modern excavations and from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Lapp.

The mounds of Conchal in Nicaragua were originally thought to be domestic refuse mounds, filled mostly with crushed shells and broken ceramics. Only upon excavation was it discovered that there were multiple individuals buried in the mounds. What did this mean to the inhabitants who lived here? Why were these individuals buried with refuse? Using an analogy from across the pond, it is believed that the individuals were not necessarily buried here purposefully. The individuals were possibly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ben Fitzhugh. George Hambrecht. Michael Etnier. Catherine West.

The subarctic islands of the North Atlantic and North Pacific share a number of ecological characteristics, related to common latitudes and similar oceanographic and atmospheric conditions. Both regions were occupied in pre-modern times by subsistence harvesters with varying degrees of dependence on the marine environments for survival, and both areas became incorporated into capitalist, commercial fishing and hunting markets in the past several centuries. We compare the historical ecology of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia Giblin. Anastasia Epitropou.

This study measures strontium (87Sr/86Sr), oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) isotope ratios in human and domesticated animal teeth from Alepotrypa Cave, a cave that was used for both shelter and burial of the dead from the Early to the Final Neolithic period (6000 – 3200 BC) in southern Greece. Previous radiogenic isotope research on archaeological material in Greece indicates that there are significant differences in 87Sr/86Sr ranges in the Aegean due to the complex geology (Nafplioti 2011;...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Haws.

During the Last Glacial Maximum, abrupt climate changes created highly variable paleoenvironments inhabited by human populations across the Iberian Peninsula. Pollen and sedimentary analyses from deep-sea cores off Portugal provide records of regional-scale paleoenvironmental responses to the climate shifts that punctuated the LGM. Archaeological assemblages from caves and rockshelters offer a more local-scale understanding of human-environment interactions during this period. One site in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nora Franco. Víctor Durán. Valeria Cortegoso. Gustavo Lucero.

Storage of artifacts is a common behavior among hunter-gatherers. Archaeologically, caches have been identified in different places. In this paper, we focus on the discussion of the role of caches recovered in two different environments in southern Patagonia: the southern end of the Deseado Massif and the upper Santa Cruz river basin. In the first case, two caches, attributed to the colonization of this environment have been identified, while in the second case, the cache recovered would...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adolfo Gil. Gustavo Neme. Amber Johnson. David Zeanah. Robert Elston.

Early / Middle Holocene human strategies are an archaeological topic of debate in arid Central Western Argentina. Among the controversies are whether population decreased and what were human responses to increased aridity. In this presentation, we use Binford’s environmental frames of reference to model regional Early and Middle Holocene subsistence. Radiocarbon trends are used as paleodemography proxy, archaeofaunal, archaeobotanical, lithic assemblages and isotopes on human bone are used to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Zeanah. Robert Elston. Adolfo Gil. Gustavo Neme. Amber Johnson.

At the transition from Early to Middle Holocene, the Great Basin witnessed higher effective temperatures and reduced aquatic resource zones. Intensified use of terrestrial plants, reflected by the Middle Holocene appearance of milling equipment, is an archaeological signature of the transition, but the relative importance of terrestrial fauna and aquatic resources under either climatic regime remains unclear. Here we use Binford’s environmental frames of reference to model regional Early and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Philippe Crombé.

Besides the climatic deterioration, both the Younger Dryas (starting with the IACP or GI-1b) and the 9.3 ka event severely affected hunter-gatherer’s environment. Along the southern North Sea basin (northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands) both climatic events are connected with increased and repeated forest fires of large stands of pine forests and major drops of the water level in rivers, lakes and ponds. In this paper we will investigate how this changed environment conditioned...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Keith Jordan.

Since the mid-twentieth century, it has been a staple of the archaeological and art historical literature on Tula, echoed in popular coverage of the site, that its art is dominated by themes of human sacrifice, and that Toltec involvement in this practice exceeded that of prior Mesoamerican cultures in scope and intensity. In fact, there are no direct representations of human sacrifice in Tula’s art. Although the eclectic Tula art tradition drew on many sources, it rejected the graphic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only LuAnn Wandsnider. Matthew Douglass.

The Sand Hills of northcentral Nebraska (Central Plains, North America) were transgressively devegetated and revegetated during the Medieval Warm Period yet also may have hosted several oases. We rely on Binford’s hunter-gatherer frames of reference to model a series of expectations for human occupation here in terms of innovation, resource management systems organization, social network scale and character, and place development as the Medieval Warm Period waxed and waned. Extant archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victor Thompson. John Turck.

This paper synthesizes and evaluates settlement and subsistence patterns in relation to landscape change for the entire prehistoric period on the Georgia coast. The dynamic coastal processes of the region have altered the topography and distribution of resources, including those important to humans. These processes were neither uniform in space nor time, with variations leading to the creation of micro-habitats. We assess these habitats individually and as part of a complex whole, to better...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dennis Blanton.

Smoking ritual was highly elaborated among late prehistoric Mississippian societies in the southeastern United States. Their smoking pipes were embellished with particular kinds of symbolism, not least among them avian themes. During one interval hummingbird imagery was prominent and this presentation will outline an explanation for it ultimately based on the symbiotic plant-pollinator relationship of tobacco and hummingbirds. The archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ecological bases for the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robyn Dodge.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stance Hurst.

One of the hallmarks of Eileen Johnson's career was the establishment of long-term field research projects. Outcomes of this work include high quality datasets, and the development and fermentation of research ideas that can only occur from returning to the same localities year after year. The Lubbock Lake Landmark's regional research at the San Jon site (LA 6437) is an example of one of these projects. The San Jon site is located along the northwestern margin of the Southern High Plains of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Holyoke. Susan Blair. M. Gabriel Hrynick.

For many hunter-gatherers, watercraft are crucial technologies for the transportation of humans and things, and may have had great social import. In this paper, we discuss ways in which hunter-gatherer watercraft may have been a key way by which people constituted, and in turn were constituted by, their interactions with interior waterways in present-day New Brunswick. We suggest that watercraft in this region may be one way to approach the complex question of pre-European identity on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Ames. Kisha Supernant. Andrew Martindale. Susan Marsden. Corey Cookson.

Urbanism is almost exclusively associated with agriculture, although hunter-gatherers sometimes have seasonal aggregations numbering in the thousands. This paper considers the evidence for an urban-like settlement on the northern Northwest Coast. By AD 1787, the villages of nine tribes of the Northern Tsimshian were concentrated a small area in Prince Rupert Harbour (PRH), British Columbia and had been so for centuries. Prior to ca. 1500 cal BP the Northern Tsimshian lived in villages of varying...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juan Belardi. Flavia Carballo Marina. Gustavo Barrientos. Patricia Campan.

The Viedma lake basin -connected to the Patagonian Southern Ice Field- has been recently incorporated to the discussion about the human occupation of southern Patagonia. The distribution of artifacts in different sectors of steppe: 1) plateaus (950-1000 masl), 2) plateaus basis (750 masl), 3) intermediate pampas (300-700 masl)-, large open spaces formed by glacial deposits- and 4) the north coast of the lake (255-300 masl) has been surveyed. The study was complemented with technological artifact...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Moore. Kurt Rademaker.

Mountain regions above 4000 m have been considered marginal because of low temperatures and low primary productivity compounded by the physical stress of hypoxia. Yet, the archaeological record of the puna (grasslands above 3800 m) of the Andes demonstrates widespread, persistent occupations by hunter-gatherers. The intensity and seasonality of these occupations offer insights into these regions of Peru and of the entry of people into South America more generally. New excavations at the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Corey Bowen. John W. Janusek.

The conceptual division of urban and rural, like the parallel division of society and nature, consistently dogs attempts to understand the significance of cities in the highland Andes. Critical approaches to this divide, in fields from geography to literature, have had little impact in reformulating assumptions about the character of urbanism in this world region. This paper examines the Middle Horizon city of Tiwanaku, located in the southern Lake Titicaca basin of the south-central Andes. It...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mario Castillo.

Oral history is the process of audio-recording first person accounts of experiences, stories and memory from living witnesses. Oral history has proven to be a valuable resource for archaeologists. It is argued that oral history research is an important for foregrounding subsequent archaeological research. In the summer of 2015, 10 hours of audio-recorded personal narratives were recorded from five Hñähño/Spanish speakers in the colonial of El Bothe, San Ildefonso, Queretaro, Mexico. Hñähño...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jameson Yong.

After the finding of many different shaped and worked carved stones from Panquilma’s excavations, in this paper, I compare the lithic artwork and artifacts from both the Ychsma and Inca cultures and I noticed many different types of Inca stone art and artifacts, by comparison with these. The stones that were carved in a particular shape from Panquilma can be related to either the Inca or the Ychsma. In this presentation, I explore the significance of the carved stones in order to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Teresa Raczek.

Scholars who conduct engaged and collaborative research and heritage projects often warn against treating participants as homogeneous communities who speak with a unified voice. Gender provides a useful lens to combat this tendency and to create a reflexive, action-oriented archaeology. This paper will discuss the role of gender, intersectionality, and intersubjectivity in method and intention in archaeological practices. Current projects in Georgia, USA and Rajasthan, India will be used to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Mitchell.

The ‘Columbian exchange’ set in motion by Europe’s fifteenth- to nineteenth-century expansion overseas has produced some of the most far-reaching biological and cultural changes of the entire Anthropocene epoch. One of the most widespread aspects of its exchanges was the introduction of the horse to parts of the world where it had previously been absent. Alongside the internationally well-known Plains of North America, these regions included several southern hemisphere arid zones: Patagonia; the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Zavodny. Brendan J. Culleton. Sarah B. McClure. Douglas J. Kennett. Jacqueline Balen.

In this paper, we report results from ongoing research on the Iapodian culture, a distinct group centered in the Lika region of modern-day Croatia. Despite excavations in the area since the late 1880s, the scope of Iapodian involvement in regional interaction spheres, larger trade networks, and the general Iron Age world is unclear, and has yet to be systematically analyzed with modern methods. Preliminary isotopic results from Iapodian samples demonstrate an increase in millet consumption,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Seltzer.

The mission period of the American Southwest during the late 1500s and early 1600s, is defined by the adoption of Spanish Catholicism by the Pueblo people. Missionaries gradually introduced the Pueblo people to Catholicism in order to obliterate and replace the Pueblo peoples’ traditional religion. The result of the Pueblo people resisting the Spanish, created a form of religious syncretism in which Pueblo people were forced to blend Christianity with their traditional religion in order to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rex Koontz.

The hacha has long served as a key element in the yoke/hacha/palma complex of portable sculpture known chiefly for Classic Veracruz (c. 100-1000 CE) and closely related to the Mesoamerican ball game. Scholars have rightly associated hacha iconography with a specific decapitation sacrifice and related that sacrifice to rites surrounding rubber ball game. While this iconographical analysis is sound, it does little to explain the appearance of the hacha as a new category of material object, as well...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Krista McGrath. Keri Rowsell. Christian Gates St-Pierre. Matthew Collins.

The Identification of Archaeological Bone through Non-Destructive ZooMS: The Example of Iroquoian Bone Projectile Points Krista McGrath; Keri Rowsell; Christian Gates St-Pierre; Matthew Collins ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) is a technique for the identification of archaeological bone. In this study, we apply a refined ZooMS method to worked bone points. The traditional ZooMS technique requires destructive analysis of a specimen, which is obviously problematic when dealing with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christian Gates St-Pierre. Krista McGrath. Keri Rowsell. Matthew Collins.

ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) is a well-established technique for the identification of archaeological bone. In this study, we apply a refined ZooMS method to worked bone points in order to analyse them in a completely non-destructive fashion. The traditional ZooMS technique requires destructive analysis of a specimen, which is obviously problematic when dealing with intact rare artefacts. The bone points are part of large assemblages of bone tools and manufacturing debris...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mario Zimmermann. Jade D'Alpoim Guedes. Mark Altenderfer.

Textile remains have been recovered from burials at the highland site of Samdzong, northwestern Nepal. The fabrics are desiccated exhibiting and high degree of preservation which is shown by the presence of cellular tissue pertaining to bast bundles. In this paper, we discuss methodological approaches towards the study of plant fibers and their surrounding tissues focusing on different techniques of microscopy. We will address advantages and limitations for transmitted and polarized light, as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robin Allaby. Oliver Smith. Vincent Gaffney.

The Anthropocene is defined as the global modification of ecosystems by anthropogenic activity and is evidenced by traces in the geological record. Debate is ongoing regarding the onset of the Anthropocene, with some regarding the first traces of human activity as a starting point, while others point to later intensification and clearer anthropogenic signatures as more suitable. An early geological signature of human activity is recorded in the DNA laid down and sealed in marine sediments...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Burtt. Alex Badillo. Lindsey Kitchell. Gary Motz.

In this paper, we evaluate the efficacy of two methods, namely photogrammetry and 3-D laser scanning, for the purpose of identifying cultural modification of bone, specifically canid teeth. Instances of dogs with altered canine and carnassial teeth have been observed in Plains Native American archaeological assemblages as well as in the ethnographic record of the Late Prehistoric era. The identification of this type of cultural modification will help interpret ways in which animal and human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Hlubik. Francesco Berna. Russel Cutts. David Braun. JWK Harris.

Fire use by human ancestors may explain changes seen in Homo erectus and be responsible for the development of later human species. Anthropogenic fire claims in the Early Stone Age (ESA) are disputed because many of these sites are in secondary deposits and contain no association between human behavior and fire evidence. Careful excavation producing high-resolution spatial data, detailed micromorphological analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), and high-resolution spatial...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Misha Miller-Sisson.

The nuances of identity theory can be a helpful in determining social stratification within a site and determining intrasite political processes. Archaeology is specially suited for identity studies due to the nature of material culture as an integral part in social practices. While individual identities are difficult to parse out under the best circumstances, analysis of artifact distribution across a site can yield insight into group identities and the practices that follow them. Designation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sofia Pacheco-Fores. Christopher Morehart.

The practice of human sacrifice has a remarkable time depth within Mesoamerica. However, it is often misunderstood as a social practice. In this project, I investigate an Epiclassic (600-900 CE) shrine site in the northern Basin of Mexico, where over 150 male, human crania showing evidence of decapitation were unearthed. The Epiclassic period in the Basin of Mexico was a period of political fragmentation, migration, and warfare. I explore the identities of the individuals using a combination of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meghan Strong.

When discussing light in Ancient Egypt, the vast majority of scholarly attention is placed on the sun, a physical constant of the landscape and the primary source of illumination. The development of ideas on the significance of natural light in Ancient Egyptian culture is abundant, particularly in religious sources. Studies on artificial light, however, stand in stark contrast to the number of academic publications on natural light. This emphasis forms a uni-dimensional view of lighting in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francisco Garrido.

Despite the interest of the Inca empire in promoting their ideology and establishing a strong political economy in their provinces, the actual result of that process was full set of “trade-offs” that involved the empowerment of local elites, and the independent development of parallel economies of sumptuary goods and household provisioning. This proposition challenges current and dominant “top-down” approaches to the Inca empire, where all economic and political transformations are seen as a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Flynn. Dianna Doucette.

The Halls Swamp Site represents an Archaic and Woodland Period multi-component Native American occupation in Kingston, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Excavation of just two percent of the Halls Swamp Site yielded over 24,000 artifacts and 78 cultural features, including evidence of an Archaic Period house structure. Archaic Period dwellings have largely gone unnoticed in southern New England due to poor preservation conditions and the ephemeral nature of these features. However, a concentration...

DOCUMENT Citation Only C. L. Kieffer.

Lawrence Straus’ life work has focused primarily upon European cave archaeology, with most of his time spent in Spain. However his research within cave archaeology has in many ways aided the field of cave archaeology in Central America. Straus has both passively and actively helped in the advancement of Maya cave studies from his many roles in academia. As editor in chief for the Journal of Anthropological Research he aided in the publication of numerous seminal works that contributed to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carlos Angiorama. Constanza Taboada.

In this presentation we discuss the particular situation of a set of archaeological sites located in a small area of Santiago del Estero’s lowland (central Argentina), outside the territory traditionally included in the Collasuyu. The area concentrates several sites where Inca and Andean artefacts were found at the beginning of the 20th century, along with Inca features incorporated to the archaeological pottery and to ethnographic textiles. Moreover, there are certain kind of archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jean Hudson.

Intrasite spatial analysis is nothing new, however, its application to zooarchaeological remains continues to be relatively rare. A critical aspect of any archaeological analysis is an understanding of where our samples come from in terms of human behavioral contexts. Animal remains end up in many places – where daily meals are prepared and eaten, where trash is dumped, where tools and ornaments are made and used, where special events bring people together, where sacrifices and offerings are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ani St. Amand. Dan Sandweiss. Alice Kelley.

Coastal communities in the United States, as well as other portions of the world, are contending with challenges posed by sea level rise. As coastal areas are inundated and subjected to coastal processes, action is generally limited to mitigation of sites with great local significance experiencing immediate threat, while the destruction of archaeological sites by the resettlement of affected communities has been given little attention. This secondary impact of climate change threatens cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Pozorski. Shelia Pozorski.

Research over the past 50 years has demonstrated the importance of the Initial Period (2100-1000 B.C.) societies that thrived along the Peruvian coast over 3000 years ago. The Initial Period, once viewed as a mere continuation of the subsistence-oriented Late Preceramic Period (3500-2100 B.C.) with the addition of pottery, is now widely considered to be a time of dynamic cultural change, witnessing the development and maturation of many of the social, political, and economic institutions that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eli Dollarhide.

This paper explores one prominent material correlate of an interconnected ancient Near Eastern world: a category of ceramic vessels termed incised greywares. Archaeological excavations have revealed a significant corpus of incised greyware vessels from across the mid-third millennium BC Near East; they are found in contexts as diverse as the ancient city of Susa to small, communal tombs across the Omani peninsula. The primary focus of this paper lies in investigating an assemblage of this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Burnett. Erik Otarola-Castillo. Lawrence Todd.

Site prediction models continue to contribute useful information to the management of archaeological resources. For example, since 2009 we have developed several probability models for the Shoshone National Forest. The first model was used to guide inventory of areas burned in wildland fires to rapidly appraise archaeologically sensitive areas. The model was overhauled in 2015 to cover the entire Shoshone National Forest. Until now, we have used stepwise logistic regression to identify...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Garrett Leitermann.

Public archaeology is the means by which we as archaeologists demonstrate the value of our findings and research to our primary benefactors and supporters, the public. Public archaeology has been an increasingly important field within the realm of archaeology in recent decades with a constant desire and need for establishing new and effective ways of engaging the public and sharing with them the benefits of archaeological work. Recent efforts to improve the outreach programs at the University...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsay Bloch. Erik Bolling.

Lead glazing was a significant technological innovation to pottery production, increasing the strength and imperviousness of earthenwares. These ceramics are common components of archaeological assemblages in many parts of the world. They are known to have traveled long distances, thus determining their provenience has great interpretive potential. While studies analyzing archaeological ceramics with non-destructive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) have multiplied rapidly in recent years,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carmen Sarjeant.

Contact and communication between communities in the past can be identified through the comparison of material culture. Systematic studies of ceramic technological components including morphology, fabric and decoration have indicated that certain sites were exposed to networks of interaction more consistently than others. In a comparison between An Son and Rach Nui, both located in southern Vietnam with dates and evidence of occupation during the Neolithic period, from approximately 4000-3000...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Harris.

The acceptance of statistical modeling as common practice in archaeological studies is highly varied across applications and methodological focus. As a field, we lack a unified body of model building theory, best practices, and examples that demonstrate the successes and failures of various techniques applied specifically to archaeological data. The literature on archaeological predictive modeling (APM) provides a notable example in the form of the "Inductive" vs. "Deductive" debate. This false...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Geoffrey McCafferty. Shaelyn Rice.

Plain, utilitiarian pottery has typically been considered the 'red headed stepchild' of ceramic studies. This is especially the case in Pacific Nicaragua, where beautifully decorated polychromes have attracted the most attention. However, more theoretically engaged studies consider utilitarian pottery as a key to understanding foodways, and therefore offer important insights into alternative dimensions of social practice. This paper will consider plainware cooking and storage vessels from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Harriet 'Rae' Beaubien.

During excavations at Cerén in the summer of 1989, a flattened expanse of paint – roughly the size of a book, with several colors visible and possibly multiple layers – was found on the floor of a niche located at the base of a bench within one of the domestic buildings (Structure 2). The archaeologists' response was both elation at the prospect that these constituted the remains of a codex (painted bark paper or animal skin "book," depicted on elite Maya ceramics, with only a very few examples...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susannah Fishman.

Imperial borderlands are drawn into the orbit of their powerful neighbors through a combination of economic interests, cultural affiliations, and martial threat. The site of Oğlanqala, Azerbaijan, has long been positioned at the periphery of empires, making it an excellent case study for dynamics of incorporation and resistance. This research uses ceramic petrography to compare patterns of ceramic production and exchange in the Middle Iron Age (MIA, 800-600 B.C.E.) to the Roman Period (100...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eleanora Reber. Raghda el-Behaedi.

Lipids in a variety of large shells were extracted using both destructive and non-destructive techniques and analyzed with GC/MS. In pottery residue analysis, lipids found in extracted residues can be assumed to derive from human usage because natural geolipids are removed from the clay during firing. Shell cups do not undergo firing at temperatures high enough to result in lipid removal. As a result, it is important to understand the natural lipids present in large shells before attempting...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Warren.

The region of Pulquina Arriba represented a geographically distant and loosely incorporated territory in the final decades of the Inka Empire. Located in the modern department of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Pulquina Arriba was a relatively small Inka administrative site strategically constructed along a preexisting indigenous road network that ran adjacent to a rich agricultural valley. As such, it was involved in the oversight of local agricultural operations by populations native to the area, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Bates. Mary Farrell.

Located in the southern region of the Virginia Piedmont, the Late Woodland Randy K. Wade site (44CH62) was initially identified as a community influenced by Tidewater culture groups. In recent years, the discovery and analysis of a boundary ditch feature, fence line, and three large central post features have impacted the interpretation of the site. It is now believed that the Wade Site exhibits characteristics influenced by Mississippian culture groups in addition to a Tidewater influence....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lucy Salazar. Richard Burger. Michael Glascock.

This paper presents the results of INAA analysis of pottery recovered at Machu Picchu by the 1912 Yale Peruvian Scientific Expedition directed by Hiram Bingham III. Samples of ceramics representing the full range of forms and from a diversity of sectors at the site were studied in the Archaeometry Lab at the Universty of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR) and compared with coeval Inca pottery from other sites in the Urubamba Valley and from the Cuzco Basin. The study considers whether the Machu...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wugan Luo. Qihuang Yang. William D. Gilstrap. Michael D. Glascock.

The Yangshao Culture (ca. 5000-7000 BP) is renowned in the archaeology of prehistoric China for its large quantities of high quality painted pottery. Although the provinces of Shaanxi and Shanxi are rich in Yangshao material culture, scientific analysis has not often taken place in studies of the pottery until now. Bulk chemical analysis by INAA indicates production of painted vessels occurred at multiple sites in both Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces. Moreover, it is now apparent that several...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebekah DeAngelo. Robert Gal.

James Louis Giddings was not only a pioneer in Arctic archaeology but he also contributed significantly to the protection of areas of archaeological importance, enabling the continued research of subsequent generations. I explore his direct and indirect roles in establishing federal protection for Alaskan archaeological sites and related lands during and after his life. His research and writings contributed to the establishment of four National Historic Landmarks (NHL), one National Monument,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ancira Emily Baca Marroquin. Clorinda Orbegoso.

Empires establish large scale interregional interaction networks with their provinces. Along with these large scale networks, pre-imperial small scale local economic interaction networks may continue (endure), diminish (decrease) or intensify (increase). Within this context, Imperial and local economic networks create a more complex web of interactions capable of been examined at the household level. In the Chinchaysuyo, the Inca conquered several coastal groups and established a range of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julieta Lynch. Marco Antonio Giovannetti.

This paper will introduce the problem of Inca settlements and their relation with local populations in the midwestern sector of Catamarca, specifically in the Hualfín and Quimivil valleys. This area has an early agricultural-ceramics occupation as seen in several archaeological sites with local patterns. When the Inca arrived during the first half of the 15th century several previous elements of landscape were transformed and others were incorporated. However, the local population, with an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeannine Pedersen-Guzman.

A large scale data recovery investigation took place in the early 1990s at CA-ORA-662, Pelican Hill in Orange County, CA. The excavation revealed an array of Late Prehistoric artifact types including 124 incised stones, grooved stones and tablets. Among these are 41 stones incised with distinctive patterns, the majority of which have a simple cross hatch or diamond pattern. Three of the stones have more complex designs suggesting a non-utilitarian use. The collection of artifacts recovered...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rahul Oka.

There have been multiple advances in recent approaches to modeling within archaeology. The power of advanced computational techniques including agent-based modeling, Bayesian approaches, etc., have enabled archaeologists to hypothesize and describe complex multi-scalar processes affecting past societies, while paying heed to multiplicity of variable factors. However, while anthropological archaeologists reject models within economics and political science as "data-poor," recent archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Sutter.

Nascent state formation is often purported involved the incorporation of nonlocal peoples, this question still remains unresolved for the southern Moche (AD 200 – 900) polity thought to be centered at the Pyramids at Moche site. Some archaeologists (Castillo and Uceda 2010) that the southern Moche state's expansion began following the incorporation of the Cao Viejo polity within the Chicama Valley to the north. Further, a recently published reevaluation of radiocarbon dates for Moche ceramics...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Adderley. James Woollett. Guðrún Gísladóttir. Uggi Ævarsson.

Climate change has commonly been invoked as the most major force in determining land-use in the Norse settlement of Iceland. Recently, climate studies in the North Atlantic have focused on regional-scale shifts in temperature, ice-cover, and storminess. In contrast, the post-settlement period is increasingly understood from excavation and analyses of the material culture associated with farming practices, as well as literature-based and geomorphological perspectives. While climate evidence...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Glenn Farris.

Although the Indian converts resident at Mission San Juan Bautista numbered as high as 1248 (in 1823), the available adobe housing for families could only accommodate perhaps a fifth of this number. Archaeological testing on the Indian family housing site for this mission was combined with Spanish sacramental records, annual reports, and other documents to suggest individuals and their families most likely to have been allotted this scarce housing. The aim of this study is to attempt to bring...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yajaira Gómez García.

En las excavaciones realizadas en el 2011-2012 de las unidades habitacionales del periodo Formativo en la terraza VII el Proyecto Arqueológico El hombre y sus recursos en el Valle Puebla-Tlaxcala registraron 42 formaciones circulares, 9 hornos y 3 concentraciones de materiales diversos en un área de 802 m². En esta ponencia se van a exponer el análisis de los materiales encontrados en el área y en el interior de dichas formaciones para explicar sus funciones y su relación con los hornos. Con el...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Lozada.

Bioarchaeological research in the Andes has shed important light on Andean lifestyles in the past. From identifying diseases such as tuberculosis and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, to analyzing migrations, dietary patterns and interpersonal violence, bioarchaeology has demonstrated a unique capacity to evaluate certain categories of human behavior not accessible through other forms of analysis. For the purposes of interpreting the past, bioarchaeologists broadly view the body as a complex...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jamie Arjona.

Archaeological representations of modernity can inadvertently bind Indigenous history to a political past. Native origin myths, archaeological exhibits, and racist mascots cement the prior-ness of Indigenous communities. In order to challenge settlement in the present, Indigenous bodies must disrupt a settler state that fossilizes Native sovereignty. The case studies presented in this article consider moments when haunting intimacies with Indigenous presences queered the tense of settlement....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Willison. Kevin McBride.

One of the most iconic moments of the Pequot War was the massacre at Mystic Fort, an event which occurred on May 26, 1637 and took the lives of hundreds of Pequot men, women, and children. Immediately following the massacre, the English retreated back to their ships and were followed by returning Pequot warriors. This paper will examine the native cuprous and ferrous objects recovered along various points of engagement on the English retreat route and analyze them in relation to metallic objects...