Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Neil Norman. Madeline Gunter. Bruce Larson. Hayden Bassett.

Today, the Afar Region of East Africa is known for barren landscapes and some of the hottest average temperatures in the world. However, archaeological and climatological evidence suggests that over the last 3 million years the region has also exhibited temperate Savanna climes. This paper presents new archaeological data that chronicles the Oldowan through Islamic periods at the eastern edge of the Rift Valley. It begins the project of describing how deep historical processes intersected...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Craig Cipolla. James Quinn. Jay Levy.

There is no doubt that indigenous, collaborative, and community-based projects have made great strides in reshaping the ways in which archaeological research is conducted and carried out in North America. Comparatively speaking, however, reporting on collaborative projects often place less emphasis on the ways in which indigenous and hybridized versions of archaeology influence our interpretations of the past and penetrate archaeology at the level of theory. In this paper we attempt to fill this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Knisley.

The earth sciences have periodically contributed to shifts in archaeologists’ theoretical and methodological approaches to space and time ("deep" time and sociocultural evolution, stratigraphic laws and contextual interpretation). The Anthropocene seems to herald another such shift, but the category/concept remains controversial given its bridging, by design, of science and politics. This paper argues that archaeologists can clarify our discipline’s engagement with these debates by comparing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scotti Norman.

Investigations into Early Colonial Period status and identity of New World indigenous people have focused on assemblages of Spanish and indigenous goods in domestic and public contexts (Deagan 2003, Rice 2012). These studies have investigated how access to new goods and foodways may have reflected status among indigenous people, or how use of these imports in specific contexts were markers of changing identities. This paper presents excavation results at Iglesiachayoq (Ayacucho, Peru), an Inka...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Lane.

Territory boundaries can often be difficult to identify archaeologically despite their importance in understanding the larger population process of competition between groups in the past. This analysis tests our ability to define archaeological territories on islands based on geospatial relationships between resources and fortifications. Territories are the result of historical processes of competition between groups. Testing of this method is conducted for the island of Rapa, Austral Islands,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Erlandson. Todd Braje. Kristina Gill. Torben Rick.

California's Northern Channel Islands provide some of the most detailed and well-preserved records of human occupation of dynamic island landscapes in the world. Here, archaeological and historical ecological research over the past 20 years has produced a variety of data about human eco-dynamics in both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, spanning nearly 13,000 years. We summarize current knowledge of cultural and ecological changes from Paleoindian to historic times, focusing on what...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cayla Colclasure. Martin Walker. David Anderson.

During the summers of 2015 and 2016, University of Tennessee, Knoxville field schools conducted excavations on the hillside at the Topper Site (38AL23), in Allendale, South Carolina. This work represents a shifting focus away from the Paleoindian period toward the dense Mississippian and Woodland assemblages present at the site. Maps constructed utilizing QGIS document the distribution of artifacts and the arrangement of identified features in the two excavation blocks and dispersed 1x1 m...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacob Fisher.

Decreased human population densities associated with European exploration and colonialism in western North America may explain the historic observations of bountiful game that contrasts so drastically with the archaeological record on resource intensification. At Kathy’s Rockshelter in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills, California, there is a clear prehistoric trend towards resource depression of artiodactyls and increased dependence on small mammals, freshwater mussels, geophytes, and other...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paulo Medina.

This investigation’s working hypothesis is that chultunes, manmade subterranean features, served as ritual spaces in the southern Maya lowlands. The hypothesis is an outgrowth of my grounding in cave archaeology. Ethnographically, even subterranean features used for utilitarian activities, such as mining, come to have sacred meaning and this phenomenon can be documented in ethnohistoric sources. However, my hypothesis has not been tested. Dennis Puleston argued for a utilitarian function of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Strezewski. Darrin Rubino.

While dendrochronology has been used successfully to date standing historic period structures in the Midwest, its application in archaeological contexts has been limited. Recently, a large Native American structure was partially excavated from a village area adjacent to Fort Ouiatenon, in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. The wigwam-like structure was circular and 6.2 meters in diameter. Though Native American occupation of the Fort Ouiatenon vicinity is known from ca. 1709 through 1791, very few...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Virginia Arieta Baizabal. Ann Cyphers.

En los últimos años, los análisis de densidad poblacional y distribución espacial conforman un tema medular en torno al desarrollo de las sociedades, ya que la forma en que se distribuye una población humana en el espacio conlleva determinantes efectos en la estructura interna de la sociedad y, viceversa, la interrelación de los factores económicos, administrativos, políticos y culturales en la sociedad son el reflejo de la organización espacial. El presente cartel muestra los resultados de un...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Braun. Jonathan Reeves. Matthew Douglass.

The discovery and excavation of dense patches of lithic artifacts has spurred discussion about how such features form. Interpretations are often based around the assumption that these reflect locations of targeted hominin use. Despite their assumed significance, there remains the possibility that high density scatters may reflect the vagaries of the formation processes of the Early Pleistocene archaeological record. Here we use a neutral model of the formation of the archaeological record to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tao Han. Wenxin Zhang. Xingyu Man Man. Anqi Wang. Xiaofang Gao.

Dental microwear analysis (DMA) focuses on the microscopic scratches and pits that formed on a tooth's surface as the result of chewing which is a useful approach to reconstruct the diets of animal species and human ancestors. The aim of this study is to use this new method to reconstruct the diets of the Dacaozi ancient population, whom lived in the ancient interactive region of agricultural and nomadic economy in Qinghai Province, northwest China. Different micro-wear patterns of scratches on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Smith.

This paper will explore intersections among international trade, domestic economy, and identity in Iceland from the time of its settlement shortly before AD 870 until its quest for post-colonial, independent nation status in the late-19th century. Focusing primarily on three periods—the Viking Age: AD 870-1050, the medieval/Sturlung period: ca. AD 1150-1300, and the Early Modern era, ca. 1500-1800—this presentation will integrate archaeological data gleaned from a range of recent projects with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Dillon.

Subsurface features are a basic unit of archaeological analysis, yet there is surprising little standardization in their identification, classification and analysis. In the Northeastern region of the United States most archaeologists rely on simplistic pit feature typologies. I argue that studying features by deposit rather than as whole units allows for a clearer understanding of separate cultural depositions as indexes of specific past practices. The pit feature assemblage at Area D (19FR415),...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yoko Sugiura.

En Santa Cruz Atizapan, donde nace el río Lerma en la antigua ciénaga de Chgnahuapan, Estado de México, se inician las construcciones de montículos habitacionales hace 1500 años aproximadamente, al tiempo que se estaba desarrollando el centro regional en la margen oriental de la antigua zona lacustre, denominado La Campana-Tepozoco. La distribución de dichos montículos sugiere que la antigua población de dicho sitio ya tenía una noción clara acerca de la obra hidráulica que se emprendería hacia...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Crystal Alegria. Jeanne Moe.

Archaeological excavations at the Absaroka Agency, a Crow Indian Agency located near present-day Absaroka, Montana, provided an opportunity to develop educational materials using authentic archaeological data. Staff from Project Archaeology, a national archaeology education program, designed and developed curriculum materials for upper elementary students using the archaeological evidence from the excavations at the agency site. These materials use archaeology to teach students historical and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Bruhns.

The fine art of creating new or composite styles of (supposed) antiquities has a long and ignoble history, beginning, as far as we know for the Americas, in the 16th century. It appeared again, full steam ahead, with "Tlatelolco Ware" in the late 19th century. Today, with increasing legal controls of antiquities importation and vending, this art has arisen again. Pieces claiming to be one thing while actually being entirely new stylistic creations, given the names of popular, but little known...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Heller. Anastasia Kotsoglou.

Located in northwestern Belize, the ancient Maya site of Tzak Naab lay at the intersection of an urban polity and vital agricultural space during the Terminal Classic, a period of considerable ecological and economic stress. The monumental architecture of the site strays from regional grammars with an atypical spatial syntax that emphasizes a connection to an adjacent bajo, a seasonally inundated wetland significant to the regional political economy. Attention to site planning and experiential...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Harvey.

Habitat distribution theory has been applied to a variety of archaeological research programs. The success of the framework has been largely demonstrated through the use of the ideal free distribution (IFD) model to elucidate the nature of colonization and settlement of insular environments. However, territorial maintenance, especially in the face of resource competition, may require the occupation of less suitable habitats as a means of controlling access to resources and land. This paper...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Enrico Crema. Stephen Shennan.

The increasing availability of large radiocarbon databases encompassing continental geographic scales (e.g. CARD, EUROEVOL, AustArch, etc.) is now opening new possibilities for evaluating spatial variation in prehistoric population. We have, for the first time, the opportunity to determine whether and when different geographic regions experienced distinct demographic patterns using an absolute chronological framework. This line of research is however hindered by spatially uneven sample sizes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maxime Lamoureux St-Hilaire. Marcello A. Canuto. Tomás Barrientos. Clarissa Cagnato.

Classic Maya regal palaces were political institutions with many functions, ranging from domestic and ceremonial to administrative. This paper presents the results of the multi-facetted study of three adjoining patios of the palace at the Classic Maya Center of La Corona, Guatemala. Research suggests that these patios, dating to final phases of occupation in the Late Classic (8th and 9th centuries AD), were open spaces dedicated to activities relating to the preparation of food, the manufacture...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Reginald Auger. Adelphine Bonneau. Zocha Houle-Wierzbicki. Geneviève Treyvaud.

Our paper discusses the approach used to determine the location of burials in an equatorial environment where organic preservation is nil. Before using the space of the plantation cemetery to preserve the memory of the enslaved who lived at the plantation we had to demonstrate the extant of the cemetery using soil analyses. Memory of that period is a fleeting souvenir among local residents and we want to use archaeology to address issues with which they are confronted in order for them to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hong Chen. Jiying Liu. Ya-Mei Hou. Huiru Lian.

Use-wear analysis has become an essential method for functional study of archaeological lithic artifacts. Quartzite is one of the main raw materials for lithic tools during Paleolithic period in many sites in the world. However, use-wear studies on quartzite tools are poorly developed due to its poor quality and rough surface. In this paper, the objective is to provide some reference data of determination of use-wear evidence, including both of the experimental and archaeological studies. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nadine Kanik. Yadira Chinique de Armas. Mirjana Roksandic. William Buhay.

The atmosphere constantly produces radiocarbon, 14C, which dissolves in the oceans as carbon dioxide. Theoretically, radiocarbon concentrations are equilibrated between the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. However, in some regions old seawater at the bottom of the oceans returns significantly older radiocarbon dates as water sinks down the water column, causing the isotopic decay of 14C to increase with depth. This creates a delay of ~200-500 years for the atmospheric carbon to be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fabian Toro. Chantel White. Joyce White.

Legacy ethnobotanical collections have untapped potential to elucidate human-plant relationships through time and space. This paper examines a subset of a comprehensive ethnobotanical collection undertaken in 1979-1981 in northeast Thailand. The subset comprises 43 traditional rice cultivars and wild forms, each collected along with detailed information about cultivar-specific uses and growing conditions. Our study includes morphometric examination of grains and spikelet bases with the objective...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aviva Finkelstein. Wayne Point. Ben Jun.

As stated in the SAA’s Principles of Archaeological Ethics, "Responsible archaeological research [requires a commitment to] consult actively with affected group(s), with the goal of establishing a working relationship that can be beneficial to all parties involved". In the context of professional consulting archaeology, meaningful consultation with descendant communities is often held as a primary goal. However, CRM archaeologists are faced developers’ timelines and budgets, which can preclude...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aksel Casson.

Slippery Rock University (SRU) maintains the historic Old Stone House as a museum in Slippery Rock, PA (Butler County). In addition to living history and educational events held on site, an active archaeological excavation is being conducted on an external structure, hypothesized to be a summer kitchen. Preliminary excavations have been a joint venture between SRU students and faculty and members of the local community – including amateur archaeologists. This presentation will discuss efforts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victoria Pagano.

The Sayles Adobe terrace site (41VV2239) rests within Eagle Nest Canyon 300 meters upstream from the Rio Grande confluence. The site name comes from E.B. Sayles’ 1932 sketch map of the canyon which notes an area of "sandy adobe" below Skiles Shelter. ASWT research began at Sayles Adobe this past spring with excavations focused on investigating natural terrace formation and cultural deposits buried within. Using a combination of old and new archaeological techniques, Sayles was quickly found to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ruby Kerwin. Sarah Klassen.

Over 1,400 temples have been identified surrounding Angkor, the capital of the medieval Khmer Empire (9th-15th centuries CE) in present day Cambodia. Some of these temples contain inscriptions and are easily dated, though many temples are lacking inscriptions and the associated chronological information. In this poster, we inventory and develop typologies for four types of temple features: pedestals, lintels, colonettes, and door frames. We use these diagnostic features to identify relationships...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Seeber.

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last four years Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park (HMFP), the site of the first Free Black Town in America (est. 1861), has begun a plan to develop the area into a heritage destination. HMFP aims to reconstruct some of the original buildings, develop educational programs, and have a walking and guided tour, among other things....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Keith Prufer.

The original goals of Uxbenká Archaeological Project were to understand the geopolitical history of the polity in the context of wider regional developments during the Classic Period. Long suspected to be the earliest complex polity in southern Belize had intrigued archaeologists for decades based on its prominent locations between the Petén and the Caribbean Sea as well as its long history of descendant communities farming lands around the archaeological ruins. From 2008-2015 the Human Social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dmitri Beliaev. Philipp Galeev. Sergei Vepretskii. Camilo Luin. Alejandro Garay.

Itzimte (municipio La Libertad, Department of Peten, Guatemala) is a medium-sized Maya site in the savanna region in Central Peten. It was first described by Theobert Maler in 1908 and later visited by Sylvanus Morley in 1915 and 1921. In 2002 it was studied by Atlas Arqueologico de Guatemala team leaded by Hector Mejia. Itzimte consists of 6 principal plazas and 16 dispersed patio groups occupying about 50 ha. Monumental corpus of the site included 20 stelae (10 carved) and 12 altars (4...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Peterson.

The pre-Aksumite period in Eastern Tigrai witnessed social and economic changes that have been traditionally attributed to the impacts ofexternal influences, in particular the Sabaeans. Recent studies are exploring internal or indigenous factors influencing the development of economies and early social inequality/complexity in the northern Horn. One such factor may have been the local development of craft specialists to cope with increasing demands for certain goods, such as hides. The export...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rintaro Ono. Harry Oktavianus Sofian. Adhi Agus Oktaviana. Sri Wigati. Nasullah Aziz.

The Austronesian expansion both in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania after the Neolithic times is one of the famous cases of human maritime colonization and adaptation in the world. This paper explores the evidence of Neolithic to Early Metal-aged maritime networks and maritime adaptation in East Indonesia or northern part of Wallacea based on our recent excavations in Northern Maluku and Central Sulawesi as well as some other latest archaeological outcomes in Island Southeast Asia. We summarize...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marc Zender.

This paper reviews archaeological, iconographic, epigraphic, and linguistic evidence for Maya foodways, documenting both the remarkable stability of some traditions and the equally significant changes in others, mostly due to cultural contact, civilizational rupture, and generational shift during some two millennia of Maya history. Although hardly a frequent topic of Maya monumentality, with a few notable exceptions, numerous ceramic vessels, murals, and graffiti depict and/or hieroglyphically...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Hawkins. Suzanne Needs-Howarth.

Research by us and others has demonstrated that the taxonomic identification of fish bones from archaeological sites varies between analysts. While rarely acknowledged, this variation may be significant enough to result in different interpretations of site function and seasonality. The level of specificity of identifications and the elements considered identifiable are two important sources of variation. Other factors include the nature of the reference collection used and the experience of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ralph Koziarski.

Data have been found to suggest increased consumption of bear meat at Eastern Wisconsin sites during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While bear remains are rare at these sites, they occur at generally higher densities than at Late Prehistoric Late Woodland and Oneota sites in the same region. Ethnohistoric evidence, supported by zooarchaeological data from the eighteenth century Meskwaki Grand Village (Bell Site) indicate that ritualized disposal behaviors may have impacted the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Byrd. Adrian Whitaker.

Some of the earliest archaeological applications of human behavioral ecology were Central California studies of faunal resource depression by Jack Broughton including a detailed study of the massive Emeryville Shellmound, located on the east shore of San Francisco Bay. An intriguing pattern identified by Broughton was a significant increase in the relative abundance of deer in the later occupational strata at Emeryville. Broughton attributed this shift to the initiation of distant-patch hunting...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Madonna Moss.

In recent years, zooarchaeological studies have been designed to address a variety of issues in conservation biology, but rarely has zooarchaeology been used to document cultural practices that are currently under public scrutiny. Use of sea otters is part of Tlingit and Haida cultural heritage. Conducted with Sealaska Heritage Institute, this project attempts to show how laboratory analysis of archaeological collections can document butchery and processing practices that have direct...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sophia Haller Von Hallerstein. Dorothée Drucker. Katerina Harvati. Kurt Rademaker.

We present the results of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses made on well-preserved collagen of four Early and one Middle Holocene adult humans together with coeval faunal remains of Cuncaicha rockshelter in the Peruvian puna to determine paleodiet. In addition, we reconstruct important aspects of the ecology of the Pucuncho Basin, in which Cuncaicha is located, using new as well as already available and secured values for stable carbon and nitrogen of archaeological and modern fauna...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Monique DePace. Kathleen McSweeney.

Dental health and dietary habits from the Bulgarian town of Mesambria have never been investigated for the medieval period. The town has its roots in Mediterranean culture, however, in the Early Byzantine and Medieval periods in Bulgaria, the Slavic Bulgars were vying for power and territory, and Mesambria became caught between the dying Byzantine Empire and the new Bulgarian state. The Bulgars brought with them a different diet, with a preference for millet, meat, and cheeses over the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gina Buckley. Rebecca Storey. Scott Hynek. Kenneth G. Hirth. Douglas J. Kennett.

Thirty years ago, the apartment compound known as Tlajinga 33 (33:S3W1) in the southern district of Teotihuacan was extensively excavated, resulting in the recovery of over 100 individuals. A paleodemographic study of these individuals indicated that chronic morbidity was a serious health issue among residents. Additionally, previous geochemical analysis from 25 of these individuals suggested that at least 29% of residents grew up outside of Teotihuacan. Due to chronic health issues, the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacklyn Rumberger. Sarah Barber. Arthur Joyce. Tosha Dupras. Stacie King.

This study reports on diet and mobility among people living in the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico, during the Late Classic (AD 500-800) and Early Postclassic (AD 800-1200) periods, specifically focusing on how political and social collapse affected subsistence practices, diet, and human migration. Archaeological evidence suggests that Río Viejo, the region’s largest urban center before AD 800, experienced multiple periods of political fragmentation and instability during its long...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Wong. Martin Steskal. Elise Naumann. Johann Rasmus Brandt. Michael Richards.

Isotope analyses (C, N, Sr) have been conducted on human skeletal remains (n=150) from the Roman and Byzantine periods (ca. 133 BC – ca. 1453) from the sites of Hierapolis and Ephesos (Turkey) to characterize and compare their diet and mobility. In addition we undertook a large-scale strontium isotope-mapping project in the region, modern plant and snail samples are also used to characterize the local bioavailable strontium values in southwestern Turkey. Hierapolis and Ephesos were both major...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alejandra Diaz. Anna Marie Prentiss. Rebecca Macdonald. Olaf Nehlich. Michael Richards.

This study reports on carbon, nitrogen, and sulphur isotope analyses of dog remains and other fauna from the Bridge River site in the Mid-Fraser region of the Canadian Plateau. We discuss these results in relation to dietary variability and resource mobility through time and in the relationships between dogs and humans. While dogs are not a direct proxy for humans in dietary isotope studies, their diets are influenced by human dietary practices, and therefore indicative of human subsistence...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Beth K. Scaffidi. Natasha P. Vang. Tiffiny A. Tung.

Excavations at Uraca, a cemetery in the Majes Valley, Arequipa, Peru, uncovered incomplete human skeletons (MNI = 157) and associated grave goods dating to the Early Intermediate Period and the early Middle Horizon. Interpersonal violence was omnipresent at Uraca: 67 of 100 adults suffered cranial wounds (7 were insults received around the time of death), and 20 individuals were violently decapitated and/or defleshed after death. AMS dates show the individuals buried at Uraca lived from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Witt. Julie M. Allen. Steven R. Kuehn. Mary L. Simon. Ripan S. Malhi.

Traditional methods for assessing diet of animal coprolite samples include targeted PCR and sequencing of specific genes. While useful for species identification, focusing on a single gene region disregards the plant and animal DNA fragments that are from other parts of the genome. Here we used next-generation sequencing methods to sequence DNA from coprolite samples from Terminal Late Woodland and Mississippian dogs from the Janey B. Goode site in Southern Illinois. BLAST searches were used to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia Prince-Buitenhuys.

Previous research into 19th century dietary variation within the United States has found significant variation based on social class, ancestry, and region. However, research to date has not systematically examined the specific social, cultural, and economic factors that contribute to dietary variation found throughout the United States during the 19th century. This study examines stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen to examine the relationship between ethnic preferences, regional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Catherine G. Cooper. Angela Perri. Jessica L. Burns. Jeremy M. Koster. Michael P. Richards.

Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis of modern human hair from Nicaragua was used to explore what constitutes significant differences in gross diet between and among demographic groups within the same population. Our results show that the absolute differences between isotopic central tendencies of demographic groups are small, but some are significant. Socioeconomic categories that were found to have significantly different isotopic signatures between or among groups included age groups...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Spriggs.

As discussed elsewhere (Spriggs 2008) the ‘islands as laboratories’ trope can be overblown, and factors beyond size, circumscription and vulnerability have to be taken into consideration. Indeed none of these are concerns uniquely limited to islands. In this paper I stress too that colonisation on its own may be too limited a concern. We need to examine longer archaeological sequences for a truly comparative archaeology, where what happens after initial colonisation is also key to understanding....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Bright. Joseph Hefner.

From 2012-2014 excavations at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC) Historic cemetery (circa 1875-1935) resulted in the exhumation of 1,004 individuals. The cemetery, which served as one of several county burial grounds for the indigent and unknown individuals of the area, provides a glimpse into the growth and development of Santa Clara County, California. To date no cemetery records have been located, leaving the identity of these individuals a mystery. To better understand this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Silvia Tomaskova. Muzi Msimanga.

Our 2017 fieldwork in the Northern Cape, South Africa presented us with a dilemma: how do methods of rock art research aimed at studying image making help us understand petroglyphs that may not be "images". The site Wildebeest Kuil near Kimberley, Northern Cape has two discrete areas of engravings: an area covered with distinct images of animals, humans, "geometric patterns" (80% of engravings), and a second adjacent area covered with peckings and stone modifications that do not easily translate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Campeau. Tracy Prowse. Tristan Carter.

The ability to differentiate commingled skeletal remains is critical in the analysis of mass burials, archaeological sites and mass fatality events in forensic cases. The potential application of EDXRF (Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence) to aid in differentiating commingled remains is being explored at the MAX Lab (McMaster Archaeological XRF Lab), expanding the lab’s research focus from solely obsidian sourcing to include bio-archaeological applications. There are numerous factors affecting...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meg Berry.

Murujuga comprises one of the most complex rock art provinces in the world.The iron red boulders of this ancient landscape host petroglyphs which communicate a myriad of sociocultural dynamics of groups utilizing changing landscapes over millennia.These petroglyphs are situated within a landscape marked by complex and diverse archaeological signatures including stone arrangements,lithic scatters,quarries,middens and hut structures.Currently our archaeological understanding of the prehistoric...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey White.

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Community engagement in anthropology and archaeology is extremely important in this day and age, just as it has been in the past; through community engagement, we have the ability to pass along the importance of conserving and preserving our shared (?) archaeological heritage as well as pointing out the importance of every human being's ethnicity,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margaret Bruchac.

During the salvage anthropology era, more than 400 wampum belts (woven with whelk and quahog shell beads) were removed from the hands of Native North American keepers and accessioned into museum collections. Despite the existence of a complex system of wampum diplomacy and ritual, museums often represented these belts as almost indecipherable colonial relics. The "Wampum Trail" research team (with assistance from Native knowledge-bearers and ethnographic curators) seeks to reconnect these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Hiscock.

Over the last half century film makers have created hundreds of movies about archaeologists. Many of these films present narratives that are located in supernatural worlds and explicitly religious in character. Within these supernatural and extraterrestrial stories, archaeologists are positioned as mage or priest, the individuals with the knowledge to release magic into the world or to prevent release. These fictional representations of archaeologists as active participants in supernatural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only R. Carl DeMuth. Timothy Goddard. Joshua Wells. Eric Kansa. Kelsey Noack Myers.

This paper presents case studies in developing information literacy about archaeological methods and heritage resources, involving use of the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) in graduate and undergraduate programs at Adams State University and Indiana University. DINAA is a linked open data hub which uses archaeological site definitions as a core from which to explore further information, including excavation and collections data, scholarly publications, and related...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leigh Anne Ellison.

Despite a growing awareness of the need to properly care for digital information generated through past and current archaeological research, many archaeologists remain uncertain of ‘best practices’ in digital curation. As a result, it is not uncommon to leave consideration for the long term care of digital information to the very last step in a project. At that point, proper care can seem overwhelming. In this poster we outline simple steps for preparing (and budgeting) for digital archiving...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Spenard. Michael Mirro. Jennifer Weber. Terry Powis.

Ritual karstscape archaeological research at the pre-Hispanic Maya site of Pacbitun, Belize, by the Pacbitun Regional Archaeological Project (PRAP) has included experimentation with a range of digital recording technologies. The overall goal of these experiments has been to better document ritual landmarks and the archaeological materials within them than has been possible with traditional recordation methods such as hand-drawn maps, photographs, and written descriptions. Our efforts have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brett Houk.

In 2012, the Chan Chich Archaeological Project transitioned from paper field forms to a relational database on iPads in the field and an iMac in the laboratory. Since then, the database has evolved each season, becoming more powerful and more useful with each modification. The project has also adopted Structure from Motion as a standard method for documenting excavations over the past three seasons. The digital revolution has not been without its difficulties, but the evolution of the database...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffany Earley-Spadoni.

Geospatial technologies are revolutionizing the practice of the Digital Humanities, and these developments have direct relevance to the practice of archaeology. The most recent "spatial turn" among digital humanists can be attributed to the emergence of tools like ArcGIS that facilitate such investigations as well as an interdisciplinary convergence upon theoretical models that conceive of socially-constructed space. This paper will briefly review the current state-of-the-art in the sub-field...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Petr Kvetina. Jiri Unger.

The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the possibility of broad spectrum of digital methods for presentation of archaeological sites. This approach is extremely valuable in locations where there is neither any preserved construction, nor any relic of the original appearance of the past structures and landscape. Such sites usually meet with indifference both from the public and from institutions involved in preservation of historical monuments. The possibility of creating virtual and augmented...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Pereira.

Tektaş Burnu is a Classical Greek shipwreck from the 5th century BCE which sank off the coast of Tektaş Burnu, Turkey. Excavated between 1999 and 2001, this ship was found to carry a cargo of, pine tar, pottery, kitchen tools and wine in over 200 potentially Erythraen amphorae. The ship itself was consumed by shipworms so the size was determined by the location of the cargo, a pair of marble opthalmoi and lead-filled anchor stocks. This project has taken the findings from this excavation – the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Silvia Valenzuela-Lamas. Ariadna Nieto-Espinet.

One of the most intriguing questions in many archaeological sites is to elucidate where the livestock was kept, and which and how many animals were herded. This is particularly compelling in Late Prehistory, when many sites were heavily fortified, and all the space intramuros seemed to be occupied by domestic buildings. Some disciplines, such as micromorphology and palynology, help to answer some of these questions. In this paper, we will provide a perspective from zooarchaeology, which is one...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cam Walker.

Excavations at Shishan Marsh 1 (SM-1) have provided evidence of a unique ecosystem, along with faunal remains and over 10,000 artifacts made from local flint dating to approximately 250,000 years ago. Forty-six of these artifacts were selected for residue analysis from stratified, in-situ deposits. Extractions from these lithic tools were tested for possible protein residues using the technique of cross-over immunoelectrophoresis (CIEP). The SM-1 artifact extractions were run against eight...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rafael Segura Llanos.

Cajamarquilla es uno de los centros urbanos preincas más grandes de la costa peruana (160 ha). Localizado en el valle del Rímac, el sitio fue uno de los centros dominantes de la cultura Lima entre los siglos VII y IX d.C. Si bien otros grandes centros Lima coexistieron durante esta época, solo Cajamarquilla se localiza tierra adentro y en un entorno geológico altamente inestable al pie de la cordillera andina. Ya que este fue un periodo caracterizado por notables alteraciones medioambientales,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Nolan. Mark Seeman. Mark Hill. Eric Olson.

We evaluate the sensitivity of handheld X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) analysis in reliable identification of geological sources of copper artifacts with varying levels of corrosion. As part of a larger project, we analyzed 52 copper artifacts and dozens of copper samples from known geological sources with Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) (Hill et al. 2016), and analysis of the same source samples with pXRF. In both of these previous analyses, we have achieved...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lois Martin.

Despite the paucity of actual archeological textiles in Mesoamerica, alternative sources provide a picture of pre-Columbian textile technologies. These include: Colonial-era depictions and descriptions, tools, and especially continuities to ethnographic practice. Together, these reveal the centrality of textiles to these societies, and even hint at how textiles conceptually embodied and reflected indigenous cultural norms and notions. I argue that these sources suggest some hitherto...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Storozum. Yifei Zhang. Ren Xiaolin.

Anthropogenic disturbance of alluvial systems is increasingly influential through time, but the interplay of climatic systems and basin hydrology complicate attempts to fingerprint how humans influence these systems. We evaluate the importance of climate change, fluvial dynamics, and anthropogenic environmental modification in forming the Holocene sedimentary record of the Luoyang Basin, a tributary of the Yellow River, located in western Henan Province, China. Our fieldwork indicates that an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Doolittle.

Regional specialists spend most of their time studying many topics in one area. Indeed, it would be next to impossible to be an authority on a region and its complexities if one did otherwise. Topical specialists, travel widely and study numerous variations on a single theme. Each of these specializations has its pros and cons. Neither is superior to the other. They are complementary. This presentation focuses on ancient irrigation in the American Southwest and present-day parallels from other...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Neal Ackerly.

This paper explores the unintended consequences of recycling and solid waste disposal practices, both informal and programmatic, on nineteenth and twentieth century historic sites in the American West. Recycling or re-use of items of material culture has been around since time immemorial. However, it was not until World War I that recycling emerged on an industrial scale with the establishment of the Waste-Reclamation Service. Similarly, efforts to establish protocols for garbage (solid waste)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Rosenthal. Kerry Button.

On August 23, 2011, an earthquake centered in Louisa County, Virginia affected the nation’s capital in Washington, D.C. Measured at a magnitude of 5.8, this was the strongest quake in the area since 1944, reaching as many as 12 states and felt as far away as Canada. The quake caused damage to a number of national landmarks including the Washington Monument, the National Cathedral, and several Smithsonian buildings. The Smithsonian Institution’s Museum Support Center (MSC) in Suitland, MD, home...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Steelman. Victoria Muñoz. Jeremy Freeman. Carolyn Boyd.

Exploring new applications of portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to the study of rock art, we report the determination of paint layer stratigraphy based upon measured elemental levels. In Lower Pecos rock art, we were able to discern when red and yellow paints superimpose black paints based on elevated levels of manganese. This ability to see underneath paint layers with "X-ray vision" shows great promise in answering stratigraphic ambiguities, complimenting Dino-Lite digital microscopy....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Aitchison.

SAA has developed a plan to investigate the demographics of the archaeological profession in the Americas, looking to bring together knowledge and advice on how the profession of archaeology (in Cultural Resource Management, academic, government, museum, self-employed, and other contexts) is structured throughout North, South, Central America, and the Caribbean. This proposed Discovering the Archaeologists of the Americas Initiative intends to conduct a series of linked surveys that will gather,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nora Flegenheimer. Roxana Cattaneo.

The early peopling of South America is related to great environmental and material variability. Discussions must deal with early archaeological records including a variety of lithic assemblages in tropical lands, the Pacific coast, the Andes and the extensive southern plains and plateaus. In this context, fishtails are the most widespread point type exhibiting a dispersed pattern throughout most of South America during terminal Pleistocene times. They are therefore useful to think about with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Brown.

Ecological and biodemographic perspectives on human population history emphasize changes in health and disease as key drivers of macrodemographic change. However, the approaches that demographers and archaeologists have taken to modeling the epidemiologic and demographic sequelae of food insecurity on one hand and infectious disease on the other differ in several noteworthy respects: Models addressing subsistence sufficiency and stress have tended to accommodate frequent changes in food...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Hill. Sarah Trabert. Margaret Beck.

Great Plains Apachean groups have a strong documentary presence between the mid-1500s to the early 1700s, but the archaeological record of these groups is poorly understood. Early researchers such as James Gunnerson and Waldo Wedel argued strongly that Dismal River sites represented the earliest expression for Apachean groups in the Central Great Plains. These claims are still widely accepted, in part because there is little recent work to contradict them. The exciting research on early Navajo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shaina Molano. Kimberly Munro.

This study is part of a larger research project, which looks at displays of social identity and the effects of influence from outside contemporaneous groups in pre-Columbian Peru. In studying past communities, we look beyond our own interpretations of "who" we perceived people to be and begin asking questions that reveal who they thought they were and how they chose to advertise that to those deemed "other." The nature of this research requires working closely with contemporary local...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meghan Johnson. Marci Monaco.

Experimental replication of the fourteen bifacial blanks recovered from the Dittman cache, site (35MA375) located near Salem, Oregon, provided information that will help answer numerous technological questions as research on the site continues. This study attempts to determine if the bifaces were prepared at the Dittman site or transported there in their current state of reduction. Our primary goal is to demonstrate what debitage would be present if the bifaces were manufactured at the site....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shannon Tushingham. Robert Bettinger.

At contact, property rights systems in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon were complex and diverse, and applied to a wide range of sacred places and items as well as use rights to foods and materials associated with a highly productive (yet very patchy) resource base. Use rights and possession extended from property that was commonly owned (e.g., game, line fishing locations) to individually owned property (e.g., productive salmon weir locations and acorn groves, dance rights,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Della Scott-Ireton. Nicole Grinnan.

Florida’s historic shipwrecks are a natural draw for divers from all over the United States and the world. Many are located in warm, clear water, and all are home to an amazing variety of aquatic life. Capitalizing on the popularity of shipwrecks with sport divers, the Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research developed the Florida Underwater Archaeological Preserve program of interpreting historic shipwrecks for divers and snorkelers. Now numbering twelve shipwrecks, these "museums in the sea"...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Frankie West. Stephen Yerka. Joshua Wells. Eric Kansa. Sarah W. Kansa.

Genetic data, especially from ancient samples, is frequently incorporated into modern archaeological analyses. Concurrently, sequence data from genetic/genomic research in the U.S. is increasingly available through open source context from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). However, in spite of the accessibility of recently published genetic data, there currently is no comprehensive database exclusively for North American ancient DNA samples, nor is there comprehensive...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Allison Mann. Kirsten Ziesemer. Krithivasan Sankaranarayanan. Corinne Hofman. Christina Warinner.

Ancient DNA provides unique insights into past human behavior, health, and evolution. Skeletal tissues (bone and dentine) and microbiome remains (dental calculus and paleofeces) can be rich sources of ancient biomolecules; however, inconsistent DNA preservation and variable environmental contamination pose major challenges in recovering authentic ancient DNA. Recent studies have suggested that dental calculus may provide a better preservation environment for ancient DNA than other skeletal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erika Ruhl. Sarah E. Hoffman. Christopher B. Troskosky. Torill Christine Lindstrøm. Ezra B.W. Zubrow.

PILOST is an archaeological survey of southwestern parts of the Island of Osterøy, Norway, focusing on the changes in landscape enclosure (ideologies?) practices as well as settlement and burial patterns from the Neolithic through the Historic Periods in Southwestern Norway. This project examines a unique form of human landscape manipulation through time, taking different forms than those observed elsewhere in Scandinavia. The first field season of PILOST (Summer 2016) initiated extensive field...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zurisadai Hernández Morales. Michael L. Loughlin.

En 1965 Michael Coe opinó que el sur de Veracruz constituía una de las zonas arqueológicas más ricas del mundo, en donde se podía manejar por 11 km en el camino entre Ángel R. Cabada y Lerdo de Tejada "y nunca dejar de ver montículos." A partir de 2014 el proyecto RRATZ ha documentado numerosos asentamientos y elementos arquitectónicos en esta región, La configuración actual de los asentamientos, incluyendo aquellas cuestiones específicas como dimensiones, orientación, número y disposición de...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Esther Jacobson-Tepfer.

This paper describes the complex process of documenting two huge rock art complexes and a third very old complex, in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia. Previous to our work in this region at the Mongolian border with Russia and China, all three complexes were virtually unknown except to local herding populations. Our project began with a survey of a broad region in Bayan Ölgiy aimag and the identification of the complexes on which we wished to concentrate our efforts. This initial phase was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Radoslaw Palonka.

Thirteenth century A.D. in the central Mesa Verde region was a time of socio-cultural transformations, climatic changes, and increasing conflicts and violence that took place shortly before the final depopulation of the region. Since 2011 the Sand Canyon-Castle Rock Community Archaeological Project is being conducted and it focuses on the analysis and reconstruction of the settlement and social structure in a community of forty Ancient Pueblo sites dated to the thirteenth century. The project...

DOCUMENT Citation Only R. P. Stephen Davis Jr..

Photography has long been one of the best tools archaeologists have for creating a visual record of excavations and contexts in the field. In recent years a variety of new techniques, from laser scanning to photogrammetry, have been developed and employed throughout the world that now allow archaeologists to create a three-dimensional photographic record. This paper explores one such technique—structure from motion—that has been used for mapping and to document excavated contexts at the late...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Damien Marken. David Freidel.

Hidden by the dense forest canopy of the Petén, the size, shape and form of Classic Maya cities have remained difficult for archaeologists to document in their entirety. In recent years, however, the application of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technologies have enabled the rapid acquisition of topographic data for large swaths of the Maya lowlands. These previous investigations, primarily in Belize, Mexico, and Honduras, demonstrate, however, that the quality and required steps in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Taylor MacDonald. Natasha P. Vang. Tiffiny A. Tung.

This study examines the diets of 32 individuals who were deposited in the Vegachayoq Moqo sector at the site of Huari, the capital of the Wari Empire. The commingled skeletal remains date to the second half of the Late Intermediate Period (LIP), long after the empire’s collapse circa 1100 CE. This was also a time of an extended drought. The diets, reconstructed from carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from bone collagen, are compared among the individuals and to those of earlier Wari populations...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffiny A. Tung. George Kamenov. Kristina Lee. John Krigbaum.

The Grassmere Plantation in Nashville, Tennessee was established in 1810, and documents show that unnamed, enslaved peoples labored there throughout the decades until emancipation. Our research investigates whether enslaved laborers were born and raised on the plantation or were forcibly moved there later in their lives. To address that question, we analyzed strontium and lead isotope ratios from tooth enamel. Twenty burials were recovered from Grassmere, and we obtained strontium and lead...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steve Kosiba.

Advances in archaeological science are throwing new light on old concerns about representations of the past. Methods such as GIS allow archaeologists systematically to analyze multiple variables at once and rapidly to view data from various vantage points. Critics argue that such methods lose sight of the experiential aspects of history—the cultural differences that influenced how different people participated in social life and told stories about their past. This paper argues that this critique...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Monica Smith. Rabindra Kumar Mohanty.

The site-size hierarchy concept was born of a marriage between a long-standing interest in the emergence of the state and the mid-twentieth-century development of systematic regional survey projects. The assumption of equivalence between sites and territorial complexity facilitated an intellectual investment in survey data beyond a mere tally of sites towards an analysis of the way in which political administrations functioned at the landscape scale. The resultant easy equivalence of four-tiered...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Evan Giomi. Leslie Aragon. Ben Bellorado. Barbara Mills. Matt Peeples.

Dogoszhi-style ceramics are prevalent throughout the Ancestral Puebloan world during the 11th-13th centuries, and have been suggested as a marker of elite status within the Chacoan World. The replication of the style across different wares and media, occurrence on special forms, and in some cases highly skilled painting, suggests a shared social significance at the regional scale. We investigate this proposition by examining the distribution of the style across the Chacoan World using the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Roosevelt. Christopher Davis.

Rock painting flourished in several parts of the world, including eastern South America. Traditions that can be important evidence not only of development of art, society, and religion but also of science and technology. Techniques for direct dating are in active development these days, but archaeological stratigraphy and radiometric dating can give an important baseline to compare with other methods. We present an example of this strategy and its results at Monte Alegre, Brazil and briefly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremias Pink. Ronald K. Faulseit. Carlos Rojas Ortíz.

Mold-made ceramic figurines and whistles are a common component of Late Classic assemblages in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, yet little is known about their ceremonial significance or context of use. Our excavation of an elite residential complex at the site of Dainzú-Macuilxóchitl yielded nearly 5,000 fragments of these ritual objects, the majority from midden deposits associated with an open stone platform that likely served as a ceremonial space for the residents. A small ceramic kiln located...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandi Bethke.

Despite functioning as pack animals, guards, religious figures, and even companions, dogs were never as integral to Blackfoot culture as the horse became. To date, researchers have most often characterized the relationship of Blackfoot people and their horses by framing the horse as an "upgraded model"—a "new and improved" dog. While prior experience with domesticated dogs did facilitate the incorporation of horses into the daily lives of Blackfoot people, this paper argues that the fundamental...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily McClung De Tapia.

Huauhtzontli, a cultivated chenopod widely distributed in the central highlands of Mexico, is generally believed to have been domesticated in prehispanic times. However, neither the timing nor the area of domestication have been clearly established. Morphometric analyses of modern fruits of the central Mexican subspecies of Chenopodium berlandieri and revision of archaeological specimens recovered from various excavations in the region suggest that domesticated fruits were not predominant,...