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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cherra Wyllie.

The relief-carved fine paste wares, figurines, and ceramic sculptures of south-central Veracruz exhibit stylistic similarities often attributed to mass production. Yet, there are few molds in the archaeological record, suggesting that replication hinges on the artist’s understanding of materials, techniques and canons of representation. Looking beyond the southern Gulf lowlands we see certain affinities between Classic Veracruz ceramic art and that of its Mesoamerican neighbors. Barbara Stark...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Mills. Matthew Peeples. Jeffery Clark. Leslie Aragon. Thomas Windes.

Migration plays an important role in archaeologists’ reconstructions of the origins and development of Chaco society. Scenarios include migration from the northern San Juan to Chaco Canyon and other southern San Juan settlements in the 9th-10th centuries; from Chaco to the central San Juan in the 11th-12th centuries; and from the central San Juan to Chaco Canyon in the 12th century. To evaluate possible migration pathways we compiled a database of 1.8 million ceramics from 340 Chacoan great...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Herbert. Sean P. Connaughton.

This paper discusses recent results from an anthropological research program within a large archaeological consulting firm, highlighting some key ideological differences between consulting archaeologists and Indigenous archaeologists. Using interviews with a cross-section of archaeologists, the study combines results with previous research to illuminate the gap between these two groups with a focus on goals, practises and concerns. We attempt to shed light on areas for improvement and we...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wen Yin Cheng. Chen Shen.

In order to understand how bronze vessels were produced and the knowledge involved we cannot limit our study to simply the bronze vessels themselves. Thus, the analysis on bronze mold production plays a key role to our understanding of bronze vessel production. The focus in this study will be on the 155 mold fragments currently housed at the Royal Ontario Museum, originally from Anyang dated to the Shang dynasty. Petrographic analysis was utilized for this research on raw materials and how the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francisco Rivera. Rodrigo Lorca. Paula González. Wilfredo Faundes. Karol González.

In Chile, the process of modernization, expressed by the expansion of capitalism and industrialization, had many economic and social impacts. Based on sulphur mining camps located in Ollagüe, a commune of the Antofagasta region, we show the importance of modern materiality associated with the development of mining industries in northern Chile during the 20th century. We consider that the modernization process, the industrial ruins and the materiality of the recent past, have generated memory...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samuël Delefortrie. Philippe De Smedt. Mark Gillings. Martin Green. Joshua Pollard.

Identified by aerial photography, the presence of a presumed prehistoric long-barrow and ring ditch called for detailed investigation by targeted excavation. Located in Dorset (UK), the features are presumed part of a larger ritual environment of which the ‘Knowlton Circles’, a complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments, are best known. To aid in planning excavations and add to subsequent interpretation, detailed geophysical prospection, in the form of multi-receiver electromagnetic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Gosner.

The Iberian Peninsula was a rich source of metals in antiquity, and indigenous people practiced mining in many areas from at least 4000 BCE. Following Roman conquest of the region in the late 3rd century BCE, the scale of mining increased dramatically to accommodate the growing needs of the Roman Empire from the production of coins to the creation of urban water infrastructure. This growth catalyzed episodes of migration of people and movement of materials in ways that stimulated both regional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Evans. Marie Louise Sorensen.

This paper considers the early Portuguese settlement on Santiago Island, Cape Verde. Particularly focussing upon the towns of Cidade Velha and Alcatrazes, their immediate topographic settings clearly contributed to the long-term success of the former and the failure of the latter. Nonetheless, the results of a decade of excavation at Cidade Velha demonstrates how long it took for the colonisers to actually understand the landscape’s environmental dynamics, especially the impact of seasonal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremy Hayne.

The late Bronze and early Iron Age were periods of population movement and change and recent scholarship has highlighted the multi-directional interactions and networks involving the various communities across the whole of the west Mediterranean, as opposed to more static core-periphery models. In Sardinia, for example, this has emphasised the binary relationships between Phoenicians and the local Nuragic communities. With a greater awareness of local networks and connections the regional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sharon Moses.

In Fall 2012, I was contacted by a county sheriff's department in South Carolina and their Coroner as well as by the family members of a missing person, to request my assistance as a forensic archaeologist in a body recovery. A 54 year old male had been missing for nearly two years until a timber worker stumbled upon a human bone in the course of marking trees for harvest. What followed was a body recovery wherein I witnessed growing tensions between family members towards law enforcement...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Wingert. Khori Newlander.

For decades, archaeologists have used replicative studies to develop a better understanding of prehistoric technology. Many replicative studies have focused on the manufacture and use of stone projectiles, resulting in a detailed understanding of the design of hunting weapons in relation to various features of the environment and, in turn, elegant explanations for technological change over time. Yet if ethnographic accounts are any indication, lithic technology was only one (perhaps minor) part...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Nelson.

Late Mississippi period (AD 1350-1541) archaeological sites in the northern Yazoo Basin typically consist of one or more earthen platform mounds adjacent to a large plaza surrounded by multiple residential areas. Sites are closely spaced throughout the region and evidence for smaller non-mound settlements is lacking. These observations suggest a distinctive Mississippian settlement pattern for the northern Yazoo, but they only partially address questions about past communities and the people who...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tasha Benyshek. Paul Webb.

Recent large-scale excavations at the Ravensford and Iotla sites, and elsewhere in western North Carolina’s Cherokee "heartland", have documented Mississippian components that include architectural remains as well as artifact assemblages. But while Late Mississippian occupations have been found on many sites, Early and Middle Mississippian households and settlements have been difficult to isolate. Increased numbers of systematic surveys and excavations in recent years have uncovered evidence of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Schubert.

Three Mississippian villages from the Pisgah period (AD 1200 – 1600) in western North Carolina are reviewed and discussed – the Cane River Site (31Yc91), the Warren Wilson Site (31Bn29), and the mound and village at the Garden Creek Site (31Hw1). The elements of each community’s built environment, household architecture and domestic practices are evaluated and considered along with new radiocarbon dates from each site. These three Pisgah communities are situated in an unusual mountain...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Donald Booth.

In the Spring of 2015, SCI Engineering, Inc. was contracted to conduct archaeological investigations ahead of the expansion of the Cedar Creek Lumberyard situated in the northeast portion of the Mitchell site (11MS30) in Madison County, Illinois. These investigations resulted in the delineation of multiple wall trench structures of varying size and shape. Most of what is known of this important Mississippian mound center comes from James W. Porter’s dissertation on his 1960s salvage excavations...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Vibeke Vandrup Martens. Michel Vorenhout. Ove Bergersen. Paula Utigard Sandvik. Jørgen Hollesen.

How fast do archaeological deposits, soil features and artefacts degrade? Is it possible to preserve archaeological remains in situ without significant loss of information potential? Climate change causing higher temperatures, increased and more concentrated precipitation events, changes from snow to rain, may lead to an irrevocable loss of information. Even small changes in the conditions of deposition, as caused by the global environmental development or local structural changes, may...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Hess.

The mission of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) Regulatory Program is to protect the Nation's aquatic resources while allowing reasonable development through fair and balanced permit decisions. The Corps consults with permit applicants and other consulting parties, in a collaborative effort, to develop appropriate mitigation measures when adverse effects to historic properties cannot be avoided. A new development was proposed that would adversely affect the National Register of Historic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Millhauser. Lisa Overholtzer.

Archaeological and ethnohistoric investigations of Aztec textile production have shown how women’s labor and domestic economies were interwoven with the imperial political economy. However, remarkably little attention has been paid to the people involved in affiliated industries—like cotton growers, dyers, and spindle-whorl-makers. Material evidence of these people is often ephemeral or isolated, but it is available. In this paper, we draw on theories of commodity chains and commodity circuits...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marc Levine.

Gold jewelry and ornaments produced in Late Postclassic Oaxaca were among the finest ever made in Mesoamerica. Yet the paucity of archaeological evidence for metallurgical production in Oaxaca has frustrated efforts to better understand these spectacular objects and their role in Postclassic society. This paper presents the results of an analysis of 42 ceramic molds from the Late Postclassic (1100-1522 CE) Mixtec Capital of Tututepec. I argue that the molds were utilized to cast internal cores,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Döbereiner Chala-Aldana. Hervé Bocherens. Christopher Miller. Kurt Rademaker.

Cuncaicha rock shelter (4480 masl) is one of the highest hunter-gatherer occupation sites found so far in the Americas; it brings new insights about human adaptation to extreme living conditions and subsistence strategies within the Peruvian puna. This research intends to define the possible type of occupation and mobility patterns at the site during the Early and Middle Holocene through Sr and O isotopic analyses in dental enamel of the human individuals and faunal remains found buried in this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only François Lanoë. Joshua Reuther. Charles Holmes.

The colonization of Beringia during the Late Glacial period (about 14,500-11,700 cal. B.P.) represents the first permanent settlement of the subarctic and provided a pathway to the colonization of North America. The Shaw Creek Flats and nearby middle Tanana river, in central Alaska, constitute the densest area of identified Late Glacial sites; these are generally characterized by low-density occupations and diverse technological complexes. Recent research suggests some of these sites were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Reinaldo Moralejo. Diego Gobbo.

The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) allows analyzing the space as an integral part of any social phenomenon and produce interdisciplinary explanatory models with quantifiable basis. As it is known, the spatial organization of the incas was scheduled under certain political and religious principles materialized in the landscape through various features such as rocks, water bodies, mountains, celestial bodies, plazas, ushnus, roads and kanchas, among other. In the case of the inca site...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tawnya Waggle.

Research and excavations conducted at the Blackwater Draw Site have largely contributed to our understanding of Paleoindian era life. This study focuses on the lithic artifacts recovered from the South Bank portion of the Blackwater Draw Site to understand the mobility of Folsom and Late Paleoindian occupations. Although there has been extensive fieldwork conducted at the South Bank, the lithic artifacts from these excavations have not been studied as one cohesive assemblage. The entirety of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jasmine Kidwell.

Blackwater Locality No. 1 (the Clovis-type site) served as a catchment for spring-fed streams during the late Last Glacial Maximum (~19,150-12,900 cal yr BP), providing a water source for the Paleoindian occupants of the Southern High Plains. During episodes of high effective moisture, water flowed out of the basin via an outlet channel into Blackwater Draw proper. Coinciding with the changing climate of the early Younger Dryas (~12,900-11,500 cal yr BP), the flowing waters of the outlet channel...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Auerbach. Angela Mallard.

Gene flow between ancient human groups is difficult to detect. In a closed deme, variance in a morphological trait should decrease over short time periods due to genetic drift. Previous studies have thus regarded increases in within-site trait variance over time as a possible indicator for new genetic variation through flow or the physical movement of individuals. This interpretation depends on archaeological context, as diachronic changes in population variance may also arise from selection,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandi Copeland. Amanda White. Samuel Loftin. Leslie Hansen. Benjamin Sutter.

The greatest climate change related threat to archaeological sites in the American Southwest is soil erosion brought on by hotter temperatures, increasingly intense wildfires, bark beetle infestations, and other subsequent changes in habitats. At Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico, we manage 38 square miles of canyons and mesas that contain more than 1700 archaeological sites, most of which are affiliated with Ancestral Pueblo cultures. In order to identify and protect the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexis Hartford. Sarah Loomis.

In A.D. 756, Ruler 15 of Copán, Honduras—a Classic Maya settlement—erected Stela M in front of the Hieroglyphic Staircase as a permanent marker of a calendrical event – the 9.16.5.0.0 Period Ending. As part of the ritual ceremony conducted at the time of the stela’s dedication, offerings were placed under the stela to activate or ensoul the monument. In a recent study of the ceramics from this offering conducted at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Kay. Jed Kaplan.

The African Iron Age transition is characterized by a shift from nomadic hunting and gathering societies to food-production, ferrous metallurgy, and centralized states and empires across most of the continent. Because of the magnitude and persistence of the change, understanding the African Iron Age is critical for assessing the present state and potential future of Africa’s ecosystems. Because the transition occurred episodically and at different times in different regions, and because large...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Jarriel.

In this paper, I model maritime connections in the central Cyclades (Greece) to better understand small world network interactions during the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3100-2000 BCE). Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), I create a cost raster of local and seasonal wind and wave patterns in the Aegean. Based on this, I generate an anisotropic model of the time it takes to sail outward from various settlements. When compared with ethnographic and archaeological evidence about travel times for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stefani Crabtree. Tim Kohler.

In this paper we present research on the development of village-spanning polities in the central Mesa Verde region. First, we explore the dynamics of modeling not only households, but also groups of households, and how the interaction between them influences the development of social strategies. Second, we examine how territoriality shapes group development; we allow our agents to track lineage, and for lineages to own land, which, when populations increase, creates conflicts over the most...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Talcott. Jelmer Eerkens. Eric Bartelink.

Isotopic studies allow for a more refined look at variation in diet and mobility among individuals. These studies have been used in California as a proxy for analyzing human behavioral adaptations. In this study we use stable isotope analyses of human bone collagen and apatite to evaluate diet of individuals from sites within the Sacramento River basin over time. Ethnographic accounts from this area emphasize the importance of mass salmon procurement and describe high levels of social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jade D'Alpoim Guedes. Kyle R Bocinsky.

Understanding the routes and the timing of the spread of western Eurasia domesticates to Asia and of Asian domesticates to Europe and the Near East has become an increasing focus of research. To date, however, we have had little understanding of the types of constraints that farmers may have faced as they moved these domesticates into the challenging environments of Central Asia. The spread of many of these domesticates also took place during a time of marked climatic change. Although it has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emma Slayton. Jan Athenstädt. Jan Hildenbrand.

This paper focuses on modeling hypothetical sea routes between islands within the Caribbean Sea to try and redraw the map of social mobility and material exchange that existed during the Late Ceramic Age (A.D. 1250–1400). With the emphasis for modeling canoe pathways more focused on uncovering possible colonization routes, this map has yet to be thoroughly explored. However, analyzing the back and forth of travel between two sites known to be occupied during the same period can open up ideas on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Carlson. Angelina Perrotti. Michael Waters. Jessi Halligan.

Stone tools and mastodon bones occur in an undisturbed geological context at the Page-Ladson site, Florida. Age models were created for excavation unit 50N/23E and core PLAD-AUC14-4A to estimate age ranges and sedimentation rates. The models were constructed using Bayesian models as implemented in OxCal to calibrate ages, combine equivalent age estimates, exclude outliers, and estimate deposition rates. The models were used to provide age estimates for artifacts recovered from the site,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Lancelotti. Abel Ruiz Giralt. Jonas Alcaina Mateos. Juan José García-Granero. Alessandra Pecci.

The concept of Anthropic Activity Markers as ethnography-derived models to interpret archaeological activities has seen a remarkable development in recent years. In this talk we present the results of MoMArq (Modelización de Marcadores de Actividades Antrópicas: de lo etnográfico a o arqueológico), a multidisciplinary project that combined cross-cultural studies with analyses of phytoliths, starch, multi-element geochemistry and spot-tests to analyse domestic plant-related activities in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mu-Chun Wu.

This paper presents the modelling of different communities within two sites, Saqacengalj and Aumagan, which exemplifies the early developments of the Kaushi people. In the light of Ingold’s ‘wayfaring theory’ (Ingold, 2012), this research argues that interpersonal relationships are not entirely based on social identities, and social relations should also be investigated, regardless of their hierarchical status, but through intimate human interaction. Therefore, this research models human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hayley Mickleburgh.

Skeletal disarticulation patterns can be diagnostic of environmental conditions (e.g. water flow), animal behavior (e.g. scavenging) and/or human action (e.g. intentional displacement of bones), aiding the reconstruction of the events that formed a burial feature. In archaeothanatology, a model of the ‘natural’ or ‘common’ sequence of disarticulation of the human skeleton at the joints has served as the basis to distinguish ‘natural’ bone displacement from human intervention. This model is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sam Lin. Shannon McPherron. Luke Premo. Claudio Tennie.

Paleolithic archaeologists are keen to infer the means by which flintknapping knowledge was acquired and transmitted among past toolmakers from lithic assemblages. The inferences generated from recent studies, which tackle this issue with a variety of analytical approaches, are often fraught with equifinality because the same range of lithic variability can be explained by multiple learning scenarios. To help address this issue, we examine the extent to which different knapper decision-making...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Platt.

The city of Charleston, South Carolina is situated on a peninsula in a naturally marshy environment threaded with tidal creeks. Since European settlers first began to develop the city in the late seventeenth century, these wet, low-lying areas were drained and filled in to accommodate expansion of the southern metropolis and combat disease. The result is a landscape, both in shape and relief, that has changed dramatically from one generation to the next. Fires, the threat of war, hurricanes, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander Geurds.

Human-environment relations are a point of interest in the archaeology of indigenous southern Central America, defined here to encompass Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. As such, it does not seem to deviate from other world regions. This focus in past and contemporary research reflects the weight given to the idea of natural surroundings as resource endowments, following the cultural ecology approach. Elsewhere, such emphases on material, and indeed economic, sides of human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Houston.

Since the time of Walter Benjamin, scholarship has posed important questions about replication and meaning: what is an "original," what does this imply for "aura"--the particular resonance of unique productions--and are such concepts and concerns solely applicable to industrial production in capitalist society? This session converses with Benjamin, long after his death, by addressing the meaning of replication in pre-capitalist societies, indeed, outside a Marxian framework altogether. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mallory E. Matsumoto.

This paper examines the implications of mold-made ceramic texts for understanding Maya scribal practice and script ideology. Most studies of hieroglyphs on ancient Maya ceramics have focused on painted and incised vessels whose glyphic and iconographic contents were made by hand on an individual basis and often with a particular consumer in mind. In contrast, the molded texts addressed here consist of pre-formed hieroglyphs that were integrated into the vessel body itself, either by shaping all...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eden Washburn. Lars Fehren-Schmitz.

The archaeological site of La Galgada is located on the eastern bank of the Tablachaca River in the highlands of Northern Peru. The site was dated to both the Preceramic period and Initial period through a combination of detailed archaeological investigation of the site complex, and the use of radiocarbon dating of material collected stratigraphically. Human remains found at the site were also categorized into these two periods based on stratigraphic location. However, recent radiocarbon dating...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriela Roman Buso. Ashley A. Matchett. Juan Carlos Martínez-Cruzado. Edwin Crespo Torres.

Skeletal remains belonging to a Late Saladoid population from Punta Candelero site (AD 640-1200), southeast Puerto Rico were used for the detection of Pathogens. Previous studies have established the presence of trace genetic indicators of molecular disease in skeletal remains, such as syphilis and tuberculosis, with associated history or pathology. In this study, we are investigating the presence of various pathogens associated with pre-Columbian Indigenous populations of Puerto Rico....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroline Solazzo. William Fitzhugh. Susan Kaplan. Charles Potter. Jolon Dyer.

In this paper, we present a methodology to identify organic remains from Arctic and sub-Arctic origin. Peptide mass fingerprinting (based on the characterization of specific peptides from proteins) is a rapid and efficient method for species identification, which requires little material and provide results on processed and degraded material. Recent studies of ancient marine mammals’ remains has used collagen peptides in bones and skins for species identification. Here we demonstrate the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Camilla Speller. Anne Charpentier. Ana Rodrigues. Armelle Gardeisen. Michael Hofreiter.

Several large cetaceans appear on the IUCN Red List, and in most cases their endangered status is considered to be the result of relatively recent industrial overhunting. Archaeological studies, however, suggest that pre-Industrial whaling as well as climatic fluctuations may have had a significant impact on whale behaviour and ecology. Documenting the impact of natural and anthropogenic factors within the archaeological records is difficult because whales are big and their bones are friable....

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Dudgeon. Olivia Franklin. Amy Commendador. Julie Field. Michael Dega.

Molecular and microarchaeological artifacts of human subsistence are recorded in the bones, tissues and residues of the skeleton. These artifacts provide substantial correlative evidence for macroscopic and sedimentary data of dietary plant and animal use in the archaeological record. Within the depositional context however, many factors in the local environment disturb or degrade these signatures, reducing or eliminating their usefulness in diet reconstruction. The islands of the tropical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carly Pope.

The Monagrlon ceramic complex has been identified at myriad archaeological sites around Parita Bay, Panama. These vary widely in geography from costal, to inland, to riverine places. In these different environments, there is disparate and varied evidence of agriculture, indications of hierarchical social structures, and relationships with the creation of pottery at Panamanian sites. I theorize that maritime resources as opposed to cultivation formed the basis of these sedentary or semi-sedentary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Schilling.

Monks Mound stands as the pinnacle of platform mound building at Cahokia and in North America. Built very rapidly near the end of the 11th century AD, it was the largest single public works project undertaken in North America until the 19th century. At first glance, the mound appears as an immutable fixture on the landscape yet a closer examination shows that the mound has several severe structural deficiencies that may eventually lead to collapse. Archaeologists and site managers have long...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erica Camurri.

The site of Monte Bibele, located near Bologna (northern Italy), contains the remains of a settlement on Pianella di Monte Savino and a necropolis on Monte Tamburino, altogether dating from the 5th to the 2nd century BC. According to historical sources, this region was inhabited by Etruscans and other Italic populations, before it witnessed the invasion of Celtic tribes from the 4th century BC onwards. Following these sources, the main consequence of the invasions has to be seen either in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aubrey Steingraber.

In the 1890s, the town of Monte Cristo, located deep within Washington’s Cascade Range, promised to be one of the state’s most profitable mining towns. Gold was first discovered in Glacier Basin in 1889, and Monte Cristo, assisted by a railroad that ran directly from the town to the city of Everett, developed nearby to support local mining endeavors. Unfortunately, the mines were not as profitable as originally hoped. By 1905, mining had mostly seized, and the town was eventually abandoned. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Collins.

Over four consecutive field seasons, the Proyecto de Interaccion Politica del Centro de Yucatan investigated the plaza and several buildings in Yaxuná’s E-group, granting new insight into the site’s origins and development from a modest ceremonial complex into a monumental urban center. Excavations over the east-west centerline of the plaza generated data on several distinct commemorative events spanning 11 floor phases. Nonetheless, each of the observed traditions is fraught with continuities...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Annie Chan.

This paper examines the spatial configuration of stone structures built for ritual and funerary uses in the steppes of Western Tian Shan based on results of survey and excavation in the Bortala and Ili River Valleys in Xinjiang, China. Marked by clusters of structures attributed typologically to different epochs of human activity, these sites evince a recurring architectural expression of ritual and funerary customs spanning upwards of centuries. The additive process by which some of these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Badger. Ryan Schucroft.

Monument preservation is an important part of remembering loved ones. Because of the wide variety of stones and manufacturing techniques, there are many factors that may contribute to monument decay. Each factor should be assessed and measures taken to prevent further degradation. For this project, we attempted to determine what factors could be at play when looking at headstone deterioration at the Emanu-el Jewish cemetery. We considered four hypotheses: first, monuments under tree cover would...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Travis Freeland.

The principal Tongan island of Tongatapu was the epicentre of a hierarchical and geographically integrated society which some archaeologists contend reached the level of archaic state by AD 1300–1400. Dynastic chiefs affirmed their power and rights to land through monumental construction and a dispersed settlement pattern that fully occupied their inherited territories with lower-ranking members of their kin-based corporate groups. Recent archaeological survey, aided by LiDAR, reveals the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Ann Levine.

In 1741, Moravians, a sect of German pietists established a settlement in Pennsylvania which became the principal religious and administrative center for the Moravian Church in North America. Moravian missionaries soon traveled to nearby Native American communities including Otstonwakin, a 18th century multinational village along the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. Madame Montour served as a frontier diplomat and go-between at Otstonwakin and hosted a succession of visitors into her home...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Javier Urcid. Arthur Joyce. Sarah Barber.

The analysis of a dozen recently documented inscribed monuments from the ancient urban center of Rio Viejo, in the Pacific littoral of Oaxaca, provides new insights regarding the historical and political development of the regional capital in the lower drainage of the Rio Verde.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Litteral.

The archaeologist abroad must be held responsible for the fair treatment of his/her locally sourced workers. Fair treatment should go beyond providing a pay check comparable to standards in the United States. Archaeologists should feel ethically obligated to provide a wealth of knowledge to local field-workers. There remains much inconsistency in adherence to SAA principles of ethics. Particularly principles 2 and 4, as they relate to the accountability to local peoples and comment to public...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Wolfhagen.

The faunal remains excavated by the Ҫatalhöyük Research Project are notoriously voluminous, making them the focus of many specialist analyses over the course of the recent project. Stable isotopic data from zooarchaeological remains have long been used to inform paleoecology and past human dietary patterns. Zooarchaeological isotopic data have increasingly been used to revolutionize our understanding of past herding strategies, particularly in early herding contexts like Neolithic Ҫatalhöyük....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Taylor Wiley. Joshua Wells. Eric Kansa. Patrick Finnegan. R. Carl DeMuth.

Archaeological sites in the United States are often associated with alphanumerical identifiers known as Smithsonian trinomial numbers (STNs). Developed in the mid-Twentieth Century, STNs consist of patterned alphanumeric sequences, potentially recognizable in spreadsheets, archival records, and research literature. The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA), a linked open data hub for archaeological site information, is attempting "named entity recognition" (a form of text mining)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thornton Giese. Jamie Hodgkins.

Cut marks on faunal remains are vital for interpreting the tool use and butchering behavior of ancient peoples. To further explore the inferential possibilities of cut mark analysis, and to determine how easily different butchering behaviors can be identified we conducted a series of preliminary experiments to test the hypothesis that the number, and orientation of cut marks left on carcasses that were butchered while hanging differ from those left on a carcasses butchered on the ground....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kaitlyn Fuqua.

The Northern Archaic tradition (6,000-1,500 years BP) represents one of the longest cultural continuities in central and northern Alaska, characterized through continuity in lithic technology, basic settlement, and subsistence patterns. However, this tradition does not have clearly defined characteristics and is commonly used to describe any site in central and northern Alaska with side notched bifaces present in the tool assemblage. Few studies have been performed on the morphological and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karissa Deiter. Sara L. Juengst. Manuel Angel Mamani. Antonio Villaseñor-Marchal.

Mortuary practices at Spanish colonial sites in Latin America varied in terms of burial location, style of burial, and associated grave goods. Understanding burial practices is one way to investigate shifting identities, conversion to Catholicism, and the degree of control over and involvement of priests in daily life at colonial sites. The mortuary practices at the reducción (planned colonial town) of Santa Cruz de Tuti (today known as Mawchu Llacta, Colca Valley, Peru) reveal nuanced insights...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Derek O’Neill.

The ancestral burial practices among the peoples of the northwest coast of British Columbia have been well studied and documented by academics, heritage resource management professionals, and the First Nation Communities. Recent systematic surveys from archaeological impact assessments within the Sunshine Coast have yielded previously unidentified funerary archaeological features including various funerary petroforms atypical to this region. My aim is to revisit and define the types of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brenda Baker.

Fieldwork upstream of the Fourth Cataract in northern Sudan reveals substantial variation in mortuary practices among roughly contemporaneous sites on both local and regional levels. Cemeteries in the Bioarchaeology of Nubia Expedition (BONE) concession on the right (north) bank of the Nile River near el-Qinefab include intervisible clusters of graves from the Kerma period (c. 2500-1500 BC) and into the subsequent period of Egyptian colonization of Nubia. These sites constitute a mortuary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna-Kaisa Salmi.

Animal offerings made at various sacred sites were an integral part of the ethnic religion of the indigenous Sámi people of northern parts of present-day Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia from ca. 800 AD onwards. The offering tradition was interwoven with subsistence patterns and human-animal relationships, as in the Sámi worldview, offerings were a means to communicate with gods and guardian spirits of animals to negotiate things such as success in hunting or reindeer husbandry. In this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ricardo Higelin Ponce De Leon. Stacie King.

In 2011 and 2013, the Nejapa/Tavela Archaeological Project explored a possible Early Colonial period cemetery (A.D. 1550-1650) at the site of Majaltepec. The excavated portion of the cemetery included eight individuals from five burials, wherein four were sub-adults, at least one of which is likely a woman, and four were children. In spite of the overall poor preservation, it is clear that the children and sub-adults were buried together, without accompanying household members of older ages and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabrielle Borenstein.

How do material remains – and the imagery that adorns them – inform our understanding of past landscapes? How does knowledge of landscapes enrich our understanding of the objects produced within them? This paper explores the relationship between iconography and environment in the Early Bronze Age Kura-Araxes (3500-2400 BC) culture. The Kura-Araxes was arguably the most widespread archaeological horizon in the ancient Near East, extending from the Caucasus to the Levant to the Zagros Mountains....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angela Younie. Jack Meyer. Brian Byrd.

Mound sites are a notable characteristic of mid- to late-Holocene occupation throughout the Central California. Most recent archaeological research on the region’s mounds has focused on the their dense clustering along the San Francisco Bay margins; in contrast, much less attention has been focused on the mounds of the adjacent Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Although often grouped together, few systematic studies have been undertaken to evaluate differing site patterning, the structure of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emma Holm.

The temporal distribution of archaeological sites bearing differing microblade technologies in North America suggests that microblade technology spread from what is today central Alaska onto the Alaskan Panhandle and the British Columbia coast before extending across the continent’s western territory. By the end of the early Holocene, microblade technology had reached present-day Southern California. In 2007, excavations at the Buck Lake open-air site in Mount Rainier National Park revealed a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia Jackley. Dana Lepofsky. Nancy J. Turner. Jennifer Carpenter.

The Mountain Top to Ocean Floor Project is a collaborative undertaking by the Heiltsuk First Nation, Simon Fraser University, and the University of Victoria that seeks to document and explore the unique cultural and ecological history of Hauyat, a landscape in Heiltsuk traditional territory on the Central Coast of British Columbia. Over millennia, Hauyat has been transformed by a complex web of relationships among people, plants, animals and ecosystems. The rich and deep history of this place is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margaret Carpio. Patrick Mullins. Brian Billman. Rachael Lew.

This poster reports the results of non-invasive field prospection using aerial drone photogrammetry to map and reconstruct surface architecture at two multi-occupation archaeological sites in the Moche Valley of Peru. Sites MV-42 and MV-49 (Puente Serrano) make up a fortified and possibly ceremonial center complex located in the middle valley. The sites were occupied contiguously during the Salinar, Gallinazo, and Early Moche phases (EIP; 400 B.C.-A.D. 400), with a later re-occupation by the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Damian Garcia. Kurt F. Anschuetz.

Throughout its history, the Pueblo of Acoma has been a community on the move. Even after having located their promised homeland—Haak'u, the "place prepared"—at the conclusion of a journey that began at Shipap, the "place of emergence," Acoma’s people have continued to move. With Sky City at its center, the people have engaged with their landscape in choreographed seasonal, interannual, and multigenerational movements informed by three tenets of Acoma’s traditional stewardship: Rest, Renew,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matt Liebmann.

Based on the results of collaborative research performed in conjunction with the Pueblo of Jemez, this paper uses a pXRF study of 2222 obsidian artifacts from 29 Ancestral Puebloan villages in northern New Mexico to provide insights into Jemez movement between AD 1175-1700. The results reveal clear evidence of migration between these villages and the Valles Caldera. These movements steadily increased in intensity throughout the pre-Colonial period. This pattern was disrupted by Spanish...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maa-ling Chen.

Cultural cognition is figurative, metaphorical, analogical, and participatory in nature. Spatial constructions, presented as figurative patterns, are regarded in this paper as the imagery conceptualization processes. These processes map or encode spatial cognition and relative cultural aspects dwelling in people’s minds onto new lands through daily human activities and physically spatial constitutions when people move. Therefore, analyzing spatial constructions of a social group during...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Butler.

The relationship between cultural interaction and religion as a catalyst for long-term historical change is an underdeveloped line of inquiry in pre-Columbian archaeology. Particularly in North American archaeology, Mississippian cultural expansions and intrusions have been considered primarily in political or economic terms. Missionizing – defined as the intent to convert someone or something to a new idea or religion - in cultural and religious change may have facilitated the spread of a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bruce Bernstein.

Sometimes staying in place requires movement. To stay in their pre-contact villages required that Pueblo people shift loci of cultural practice as well as reorder intellectual and material culture. New styles of pottery, including the adaptation of blackwares, quickly moved from one Rio Grande pueblo to the next. By the close of the 18th century, pottery changed and is adapted in its use for storing, preparing, and serving wheat-based foods such as oven-baked bread. The movement of new pottery...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ben Marwick. Kyaw Khaing. Maria Schaarschmidt. Tony Dosseto. Alastair Cunningham.

For many archaeologists, Myanmar is known as the place where Hallam Movius proposed the Movius Line as a result of his fieldwork in the 1930s. Movius proposed this line as a major cultural boundary of the Palaeolithic era, with bifacial technology present in the west and north, but absent to the south and east. His line continues to have a major influence on contemporary discussions of human evolution in the Eastern Hemisphere. Motivated by debates about the line, and other questions about the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kayeleigh Sharp. Juan Martinez.

Over the past few decades, it has been recognized that craft studies often overlook the social significance of crafts practiced concurrently. How does the selection of certain types of materials inform on the relationship between manufacturers and consumers? Does multi-crafting imply broader social relations? Or does multi-crafting imply locally meaningful social relationships through the various types of crafts produced? This paper explores the multi-craft traditions practiced in coexisting...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra Lausanne. Daryl Fedje. Quentin Mackie. Ian Walker.

Despite increasing support for the first peopling of North America via a coastal route, only a limited number of postglacial (Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene) archaeological sites have been identified on the Northwest Coast. This research aims to identify high potential locations for evidence of the Early Period archaeological record (pre-10,000 cal BP) on Quadra Island, BC. Quadra Island has experienced dramatic sea level regression over the past 14,000 years following the Last Glacial Maximum....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Ames.

The Azraq Marshes Archaeological and Paleoecological Project (AMAPP) aims to understand and evaluate the importance of the Azraq wetlands for Pleistocene hominin populations. Ongoing research since 2009 indicates that the northern wetland, the Druze Marsh, acted as a desert refugium for hominins throughout the Middle and Late Pleistocene. Excavations in the southern marsh—known as the Shishan Marsh—began in 2013 and uncovered a rich assemblage of bifaces, small tools, and flakes, along with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Colleen Zori.

Andean prehistory witnessed the development of numerous regional metallurgical traditions that were harnessed and significantly restructured as the Inka empire (AD 1400-1532) expanded along western South America. Taking the Tarapacá Valley of northern Chile as a case study, I analyze how imperial incorporation altered the production of copper and silver across multiple spatial scales. I begin at the regional level, analyzing how the procurement and transport particularly of silver-bearing ores...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Smith.

A meta-analysis of deliberate violent trauma (i.e., inflicted projectile points, antemortem blunt force cranial trauma, scalping, body element dismemberment and retrieval) in the human skeletal assemblages of twenty late prehistoric sites (N = 1300+ individuals) was undertaken to determine temporal (Dallas phase [1300-1540 C.E.], Mouse Creek phase [1400-1600 C.E.]) and/or regional patterns within the Ridge-and Valley physiographic province of East Tennessee. The site samples were retrieved from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsay Montgomery.

Forming a strategic corridor from the Southwest to the Plains, New Mexico’s northern frontier was an important site of cross-cultural interaction during the colonial period. It was on the fringes of the Spanish Empire that Hispano, Pueblo, Ute, Apache, and Comanche groups converged, generating new cultural identities and materials in the process. While archaeologists have long been interested in the particular ways in which Pueblo groups conceptualized and marked this region, the rich and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Commendador. John Dudgeon. Rebecca Hazard. Julie Field.

Several studies have provided stable isotopic insights into prehistoric Fijian diet via carbon and nitrogen analyses of bone collagen, with recent reports suggesting a diet of predominantly C3 plants though with some individuals exhibiting significant input from lower trophic level marine resources. Here we add to these studies by incorporating both a larger sample size from several sites on Viti Levu and a combined analysis of isotope data obtained from human bone collagen and carbonate. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Hanselka. Amanda M. Castañeda. Christopher Jurgens. Charles W. Koenig. Stephen L. Black.

From its inception, a major objective of the Ancient Southwest Texas (ASWT) project has been to investigate the potential for Paleoindian-age deposits in Eagle Cave. Previously, the oldest dated deposit in the shelter was a zone of dense charcoal and decomposing fiber designated "Lens 14" and dated to about 8500 RCYBP by University of Texas investigations in the 1960s. These excavations terminated beneath Lens 14 at "Zone 6," a stratum described as "sterile yellow cave dust." During the 2016...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kent Johnson.

The Moquegua Valley Tiwanaku colonial enclave was comprised of two Tiwanaku-affiliated populations: camelid agropastoralists who used Omo-style ceramics and maize agricultural specialists associated with Chen Chen-style ceramics. Despite living in close proximity, Chen Chen- and Omo-style communities maintained distinct social and cultural boundaries for several centuries. Goldstein’s dual diaspora model suggests that Omo- and Chen Chen-style Tiwanaku colonists represent two separate but...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroline Funk. Debra Corbett. Brian Hoffman.

The landscape and seascape surrounding tiny Corvie Bay (400m wide) on southern Kiska Island in the western Aleutian Islands were occupied by the Qax̂un for 3,000 years. During their use of the area, they transformed the surrounding seas and lands from narrowly defined water tracks and lightly encamped places to deeply imbued, intensively inhabited, and probably owned sea and land spaces. This same pattern of imbuement, use, and ownership was reenacted throughout the western Aleutians over the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yating Qu. Yaowu Hu. Jianxin Cui.

Influenced by the continual infiltration of surrounding cultures and the extension of agriculture originating in various independent centers, the multi-cultures and diversified economy had been formed in the Guanzhong area, Shaanxi, in the process of the prehistoric culture evolution. In this paper, the comprehensive analyses of stable isotopes (carbon and nitrogen) of humans and animals and the plant and faunal remains from the different periods and sites in the Guanzhong area will be employed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Werner.

Preliminary lithic use-wear evidence from Magubike Rockshelter, Tanzania, suggests a mixed function for an assemblage of Middle Stone Age points, including a possible projectile point role. The development of hafted hunting weapons during the Middle Stone Age is thought to have marked a major juncture in human behavioural evolution. Not only did the emergence of this technology likely have a major impact on the foraging strategies of hunting and gathering populations, many have speculated that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charlotte Arnauld. Mélanie Forné.

A political entity defined mainly on epigraphic evidence, the Hiix Witz kingdom includes at least three head centers, Zapote Bobal, El Pajaral and La Joyanca, all located south of the San Pedro Mártir river. The architecture, sculpture and ceramics of the three sites were subjected to extensive studies from 1999 to 2006, also in 2012, suggesting that this entity consisted of relatively heterogeneous components that must have entertained distinct relations with neighborring regions of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Will Megarry. Gabriel Cooney. Rob Sands.

The Shetland Archipelago at the very north of Scotland contains one of the best preserved Neolithic stone tool quarries in Western Europe. Recent fieldwork by the North Roe Felsite Project (NRFP) has considerably advanced our knowledge of this quarry landscape and the production of polished stone axes and Shetland knives. THe NRFP has explored the landscape dynamics of this activity on a range of scales; from regional geological survey and workshop prediction using multispectral satellite...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leslie J. Amundson. Kevin Grover. Margaret Kennedy. Brian Reeves. Grant Wiseman.

As early adopters of technology, especially for creating accurate maps, archaeologists have been using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to discover and record archaeological features, landscapes and excavations since they became commercially available. This project tested the use of visual (RGB), near-infrared (NIR) and thermal sensors mounted on UAV platforms (fixed wing and multi-rotor) to discover and record archaeological features in their landscape context with georeferenced, high resolution...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sharon Moses.

This paper will discuss firearm materials and related artifacts found in the slave quarter of the historic Hume Plantation, a rice producer in the South Carolina low country from the late eighteenth century until the Civil War. Due to the historical context of violent outbreaks in the region including a murder at a neighboring plantation, it would seem that firearms and materials that could be used for weaponry would be highly prohibited among the enslaved population. Furthermore, according to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Capone.

Increasing combinations of perspectives and epistemologies contribute knowledge and consciousness of practice to the study of technology. Museum archaeology is well situated to study and interpret technology through material culture, archives, and engaging partnerships. Partnerships through museum collections continue to build and contribute to a variety of interests. The interdisciplinary direction of technological studies continues to expand. Projects also increasingly relate to forward...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lia Tarle. George Nicholas. Hugo Cardoso.

Museums display archaeological human remains to educate visitors about past people’s lives, beliefs, and customs, and to encourage reflection. However, over the past fifty years, political changes, including civil rights, decolonization, and repatriation movements, have driven some museum professionals and academics to re-evaluate the authority of museums and their ethics. These developments have inspired discussions about the ethical treatment of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroline Antonelli.

This paper examines shifting environmental paradigms in the Maya realm. Using Mayapan as a case-study, a site long-considered to be located in a "marginal" environment for agricultural productivity, I will evaluate site resilience, sustainability, and self-sufficiency and use these concepts to create a more nuisanced perspective of human-environment interactions. Data from Mayapan will be cross-referenced to other similar sites across the Maya region. I will show that assumptions about the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Piyawit Moonkham.

A thousand-year old narrative of the Naga in northern Thailand relates how the town known as Yonok came to be destroyed (by an earthquake) after its ruler became unrighteous. Regardless of this divine retribution, the people of the town chose to rebuild. Local chronicles and written documents show that people in the region continue to practice and believe in the narrative today. The Naga is seen as the guardian of the land. It is also seen as the creator and protector of rivers, lands, villages,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Lim. Sean Gleason. Lynn Church.

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community Archaeology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the face of a rapidly changing climate, Alaska Native Yup'ik (pl. Yupiit) communities on the Bering Sea are increasingly empowered and motivated to protect their landscape heritage—facilitated in part by collaborative projects with outside institutions like the Quinhagak Archaeological Project (2009–present). In this paper we show how high...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chantel White. Alan Farahani. John Marston.

Naomi F. Miller’s work exemplifies the paleoethnobotanical approach towards understanding human interactions with botanical landscapes in the past using archaeological remains, rooted in theoretical traditions of American anthropological archaeology. On the occasion of her Fryxell Award in Interdisciplinary Research from the SAA, we reflect on her body of published research and active fieldwork to draw out five themes that highlight areas in which Miller has made significant contributions to the...