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

DOCUMENT Citation Only H. Kory Cooper. Robert Speakman. Antonio Simonetti. Matthew Pike. Garett Hunt.

Native copper occurs in the Northwest Coast, western Subarctic, and Central Canadian Arctic and Subarctic. In all three regions there is archaeological evidence for its use by Hunter-Gatherers before the Contact Period. Since 2011, our project has been studying the innovation of native copper metallurgy in these three regions within a Behavioral Archaeology framework using data collected from: experimental archaeology, oral history, lead isotope analysis, research on museum collections using...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Martin.

In the last couple of decades, Native peoples across the world have become more vocal that indigenous rituals are not the result of religious superstition or mechanisms of social control, but the formulae of indigenous sciences. Ceremonies and many myths, they argue, have been mistakenly categorized as religious by anthropologists due to their baroque appearance and our modern separation between nature from culture. Gregory Cajete and Leroy Little Bear have led the movement to re-categorize...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Schollmeyer. S. O. MacDonald.

An important intersection between archaeology and the study of natural history lies in understanding the long-term processes of human-environment interaction that affected local biotas in the past and have shaped contemporary landscapes. This study integrates information from archaeological faunal assemblages and historic and modern data from the major watersheds of southwestern New Mexico—specifically, the upper Gila-San Francisco and Mimbres drainages—to examine changes in the status and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gerald Oetelaar.

Some 7627 calendar years ago, the Plinian eruption of Mount Mazama prompted small, dispersed bison hunting groups to abandon temporarily their traditional homelands and seek refuge among their distant relatives in the east. During their stay, they established new social ties and learned new technologies such as the use of stone boiling to extract nut oils. Returning to their homeland, they adapted this technology to extract bone grease and produce pemmican. As a reliable, storable, portable, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rosicler Silva. Julio Cezar Rubin. Francisco Lorenzo. Daniel Correa.

Studies performed in the South-West of the state of Goiás indicate that natural processes and anthropic action are impacting and jeopardizing the conservation of archaeological sites in the region, namely GO-JA-13 and GO-CP-16, both of which are part of two important archaeological areas in the Brazilian Central Plateau – Serranópolis and Palestina de Goiás respectively. These sites are of high scientific and cultural significance and, together with the intense landscape alterations over the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Dixon. Rachel Egan. Nancy Gonlin.

Water is a life sustaining substance, sought after, fought over, and revered in both the past and present. The relationship between humans and water resources is an essential component of our human history that warrants archaeological focus. Natural springs have been identified as key locations of archaeological remains throughout the Americas – places inherently intermixed with practices of drinking, bathing, cooking, and worship of the divine. In Costa Rica, the documentation of Silencio Phase...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Watt.

Community and identity among Mississippian communities were centered on cultural landscapes; reified by monumentality and complex political economies, regional interaction, and mortuary traditions. The transition at the end of the Mississippian period is marked by regional collapse, migration, diaspora, and ideological shifts. There is also a re-imagining of complex religious and sociopolitical structures, creation of new cultural landscapes, and re-conceptualization of collective traditions....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Christie.

My paper will discuss how the Navajo construct Canyon de Chelly as a quintessential place on the reservation. The canyon has been occupied at least since Basketmaker times in the first centuries A.D.. Archaeological investigations have identified Ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings from roughly 700 to 1300A.D. followed by a brief Hopi presence. Navajo people began to settle Canyon de Chelly in the late 1700s. Unlike the Ancestral Pueblos, the Navajo lived on the canyon bottom and reused some of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli. Aurelio Lopez Corral. Alonso Gabriel Vicencio Castellanos.

As the political landscape changed continuously in central Mexico during the Late Postclassic, polities of the region had to constantly adjust and adapt, forging new alliances and dispensing old ones. Faced with an increasingly expansive state in the Basin of Mexico, polities in the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley likewise had to adjust accordingly. Increasingly isolated, Tlaxcallan found alternate ways to integrate into the greater Mesoamerican market system, while resisting political integration in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Roberto Herrera. Francisco Corrales.

This paper explores the dynamic between local and foreign perceptions towards cultural and environmental exploitation and stewardship, presenting recent reactions to medium to long term initiatives that have been started by national and international institutions in southern Costa Rica. It reviews how researchers are attempting to better integrate themselves with local communities and national organizations in a more sustainable and responsible manner, presenting the current challenges...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Kurnick.

Societal regenerations are common events in world history. Be they in ancient times, the recent past, or the present, such regenerations are instructive and encourage reflection on several critical issues. How, for example, do those exercising political authority negotiate traumatic social memories? And how, if at all, are preexisting built environments modified? To addresses these and other questions, I examine the regeneration of communities and the reestablishment of political authority...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kaoru Ueda. Ellen Hsieh.

The trade networks in 17th- and 18th-century Southeast Asia are often reconstructed by using European historical sources. As a result, Southeast Asia is frequently portrayed as a way station between Europe and China. However, the comparative study presented here between Ayuntamiento the Spanish government site in Manila, the Philippines and indigenous palace sites in Banten, Java, Indonesia under Dutch indirect rule suggests a far more complex picture and challenges the traditional understanding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Chase. Genevieve von Petzinger. Oscar Moro Abadia.

The question of whether Neandertals created art is one that is currently under debate within the field of prehistoric art studies. Originally thought to be brutish and unintelligent, Neandertals have recently come to be acknowledged as complex humans with symbolic capacities, through discoveries of Neandertal-associated modern behaviours including burials, pigment use, and ornament creation. One of the last hold outs separating the symbolic and artistic abilities of Neandertals from those of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Picin.

Prehistoric hunter-gatherers frequently relocated in order to avoid foraging in previously depleted areas, and lakes and rivers played important roles in these movements as fix locations on the landscape where foragers could have access to water and ambush parched animals. The types of human occupations along lakes and rivers could have been various according to the aims of displacements (e.g., logistical, residential) and the activities carried out at the shore (e.g., bivouac, hunting station,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Todd Koetje.

The time frame from 50-30 kya contains evidence for at least three distinct human populations spread across northern and western Eurasia. These groups faced serious environmental challenges, and seem to have existed in widely spread, small populations with perhaps very similar basic cultural adaptations. As indicated by shared genes, these groups were evidently in contact. How are these populations represented in material culture ? To what extent can we begin to see typological and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christian Gates St-Pierre.

Tattoos are embodied experiences, ideas, and meanings expressed by groups and individuals. Many Iroquoian populations of Northeastern North America from the Contact period were known for practicing body transformations of this sort. Moreover, the archaeological litterature abunds with cases of Iroquoian bone objects interpreted as tattooing objects. However, such functional interpretations are often proposed without any clear demonstration. In this paper, we present the results of an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Geuntae Park.

Jeju Island, locating southwest from the mainland of Korea, documents the earliest Neolithic culture in Korea. The Neolithic period in Jeju can be divided into six phases (Incipient, Initial, Early, Middle, Late, Final). The Gosan-ri type pottery of the Incipient phase has been only identified in Jeju. From the Initial to Final phases, the applique, Youngseon-dong type, Bonggye-ri type, and double-rimmed types of pottery have been found in Jeju, parallel to the Neolithic development along the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Apostolos Sarris. Tuna Kalayci. Francois-Xavier Simon.

The Neolithic in Europe is widely considered a key epoch. For the first time, societies got occupied with husbandry and settled for the cultivation of food-crops for sustenance. Thessaly (Central Greece) is of critical importance in this transformation serving as the gateway to what would become the widespread Neolithization of Europe which irreversibly altered the course of human history. In this archaeological setting, enclosures were essential parts of many settlements. Were they built as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jinok Lee.

Cultural trajectory of the Yellow River catchment is characterized as complex and integrated feedback process of environment-landscape-human interactions. Landscape history of the Neolithic site, Liangchengzhen, provides a good example of prehistoric agricultural land-use and its impact on local landscape, as well as how the human-landscape process possibly affected rapidly increasing social complexity during the Longshan period and subsequent hiatus in eastern China. Through a combination of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Harris. Lynn Fisher. Michael Jochim. Corina Knipper. Rainer Schreg.

Landscape archaeology in Central Europe has historically built on a foundation of high-resolution excavations of village structures. In this poster, we combine results of systematic plowzone survey carried out by two research groups to explore and reflect on the contributions of regional survey for understanding Neolithic land use in southern Germany. Surveys were conducted in two areas with contrasting archaeological records and geographic characteristics. On the southeastern Swabian Alb...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Liu Huashi.

In recent years, a large number of Neolithic remains have been found in the middle reaches of the Dadu River in Southwest China, most importantly in the valleys of Hanyuan and Shimian. Excavations conducted at the settlement cluster around Maiping site have led to the discovery of numerous features and object finds displaying strong local characteristics. This paper introduces these finds, highlighting their importance for understanding of local prehistoric developments. The middle Dadu River...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hyunsoo Lee. Gyoung-Ah Lee.

One of the key subjects in island archaeology is how islanders adapted to isolated environments and sustained with local resource. Jeju Island sites reveal Early Holocene Neolithic settlements, dating 2,000 years prior to any of Neolithic sites in the Korean mainland. Accordingly, Jeju Island offers an opportunity to understand any shift in subsistence strategies amid the changing Early Holocene environments. A sudden appearance of arrowheads and grinding slabs in the Early Holocene Jeju has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joaquim Fort. Victor L. de Rioja. Neus Isern. Jose M. Cobo.

There are two mechanisms of Neolithic spread: demic diffusion (dispersal of populations) and cultural diffusion (acculturation of hunter-gathterers). Archaeological data imply that demic diffusion was more important than cultural diffusion in determining the spread rate of the Neolihtic in Europe. But those results are very uncertain. We now use ancient genetic data in addition to archaeological data, and estimate the relative importance of demic and cultural diffusion. We find that demic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Szymanski.

Interpretive challenges involving issues of equifinality and causation can chronically hamper environmental reconstruction efforts, as numerous physical, environmental, or anthropogenic processes may potentially be responsible for creating observed raw data patterns. Nested multi-proxy and multi-scalar analyses offer potential means of approaching these difficult conceptual issues which can plague interpretations reliant on single lines of proxy evidence. A dataset comprised of multiple...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Izumi Shimada.

Different facets and stages of craft production commonly occur in different spatial loci regardless of differences in medium, technology, intensity and/or scale. Locational differences may be relatively minor with different facets or production stages being practiced concurrently, or masters and apprentices occupying different areas of a given room or workshop. While sheet metal preparation and alloying both require constant heat sources, the former requires a clean area protected from winds and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Billie Follensbee.

While considerable research has been conducted on the importance of textiles in Mesoamerica, little study has been done on textiles among Formative Period cultures such as the Gulf Coast Olmec. This is in great part because direct evidence of early textiles is scanty, consisting only of a fabric-impressed clay sherd, some hand-formed spindle whorls, and fragments of cordage and woven mats. As noted in my recent publications, however, depictions of textiles in Olmec sculpture provide additional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dil Basanti.

This paper looks at how ideas of cosmopolitanism can be applied to the African context using Aksum (50-700 AD) in northern Ethiopia as case study. While there is much interest in issues of cosmopolitanism, or the making of a "world citizen" or a "world community" as drawn from 18th-19th century conceptualizations, such issues become difficult to study on the African continent given the strong emphasis on personhoods configured around local, corporate contexts. Burial practices from ancient Aksum...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andres Izeta. Roxana Cattáneo.

The digitization of primary data in social sciences and humanities, including archeology, has been a central issue in the management of science in Argentina by federal agencies, public universities and private foundations. About this topic, Argentina´s National Research Council (CONICET) created the Interactive Platform for Social Science Research, an interdisciplinary space, that over six years has generated protocols related to digitization and ways to share these results under the concept of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Morrow. Meredith S. Chesson.

While archaeologists have explored networks of trade and exchange of manufactured goods between rural communities, regional market towns, and urban centers, less attention has been given to the way that rural shops and shopkeepers played a significant role in the accessibility and distribution of material goods in local economies. Focused on the emergence of rural shops in Western coastal Ireland and islands of Inishark and Inishbofin, 1840-1950, this study will contribute to an understanding of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angus Mol. Hayley Mickleburgh. Menno Hoogland.

The precolonial Caribbean shows great diversity in burial patterns across time and space, making the interpretation of funerary behavior very complex. While some broad trends in funerary practices have been noted, a simple assessment of the frequency of different burial practices in the region reveals a range of body positions and body treatment, as well as burial location, and grave goods. In this paper we use statistical and network explorative approaches to map these variable practices. A...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Katzenberg. Jane H. Kelley. Adrianne Offenbecker. Cormac McSparron. Paula Reimer.

In an effort to resolve some long standing questions about the chronology of the site of Paquimé, accelerator radiocarbon dates were obtained from bone collagen of 77 burials. Bone samples were obtained as part of a larger project to explore life history and diet at the site. We address three questions: the temporal relationship between the Viejo period (Convento site) and Medio period (Paquimé), whether or not the "non-interred" individuals from the Medio phase at Paquimé date to the later...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Deborah Roman.

The dating of sites within the Ventureno Chumash interior region has been robust for Late Period, but less well represented for the Early and Middle periods. We present here a suite of dates that document a well-established "complex of sites" that all date to the Early to Middle period located adjacent to the Santa Monica Mountains and proximal to the Late Period ritual site of CA-VEN-632.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Deal. John Campbell. Bryn Tapper.

Boswell (BfDf-08) is the first archaeological site to be excavated along the Annapolis River, in north-central Nova Scotia. Previously, less than 50 sites had been recorded in the 2130 square kilometer watershed, and only a few of these were tested. Therefore, Boswell is the baseline for our understanding of precontact occupation for this entire drainage system. Thus far, the site has revealed a cultural sequence beginning with the Transitional Archaic (ca. 4100-2700 BP), followed by Middle and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Gaspar. MaDu Gaspar. Paulo DeBlasis.

MaDu Gaspar and Paulo DeBlasis Sambaquis (shellmounds) have attracted attention since colonial times due to their monumentality, and to the presence of human burials and stone sculptures. Discussions on their natural or human origin dominated up to the 1960s, when debate shifted to cultural history and diet, and moundbuilders were taken as nomadic bands with shellfish-based subsistence. The 1990s, a time of changing paradigms in sambaqui archaeology, coincides with the coming of Suzy and Paul...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kirsten Ziesemer. Allison E. Mann. Bernd W. Brandt. Corinne L. Hofman. Christina G. Warinner.

The most frequent pathologies found throughout the circum-Caribbean before arrival of the Europeans are dental and periodontal diseases. To date, ancient oral health has been studied using a variety of techniques, and recently ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis of dental calculus (calcified plaque) has shown great promise in revealing not only (oral) health and disease, but also diet and the composition of the oral microbiome over archaeological timescales. In this paper, we present ancient metagenomic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Quentin Mackie. Colton Vogelaar. Daryl Fedje.

Archaeological investigation of the possible coastal route into the Americas has always been hindered by sea level changes, including the drowning of much of the Pleistocene coastal plain. While it is now understood that significant portions of the coastal plain were never drowned, it is also clear that some of the underwater terrestrial landscape is intact and has archaeological potential. New approaches to the survey and modelling of paleocoastlines may increase optimism of finding underwater...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zhou Kehua.

Recent years have seen a large number of archaeological discoveries in Sichuan; especially during the construction of the Xiangjiaba Hydropower Station in Yibin, Southern Sichuan, which led to four years of excavation covering an area of over 6000 sq. m. These excavations brought to light a large number of remains from the late Neolithic, Shang, Zhou, Qin, and Han periods, greatly advancing our understanding of local cultural developments. The present paper will introduce some of these recent...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shanguo Peng.

Archaeology at Liao and Jin sites in western Jilin Province has enormously increased our understanding of Liao and Jin period history and social organization. At the Chengsijiazi site, temple remains were excavated and a ceramic architectural element was found with "Ninth year of Da’an" written on it. This site is the Liao city of Changchunzhou and the Jin city of Xintaizhou. At the Tahu city site, structures lining both sides of the north-south site axis were excavated and many ceramics were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jian Zhang. Chen Shen. Songan Jin.

During 2007 - 2009, the Gouwan Site in Xichuan County, Henan province, was excavated by archaeologists from Department of Archaeology, Zhengzhou University. Located in the middle of Han River valley, the site represents prehistoric cultural manifestations of Yangshao, Qujialing, Shijiahe and Wangwan III in their four developmental sequences although remains of the earliest Yangshao are the most abundant. While the Yangshao and Wangwan III were part of north cultural system in the Central Plains,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Taylor Dodrill. Nicholas Jew. Scott Fitzpatrick. Connor Thorud. Martin Nelson-Harrington.

As part of a newly established University of Oregon field school along the southern Oregon coast in cooperation with the Coquille Tribe and Oregon State Parks, we conducted a pedestrian survey of Bullard’s Beach State Park. During systematic survey across the southern portion of the park, we relocated known prehistoric sites, identified and mapped several new ones, and assessed site condition for each. Because the last major survey had taken place more than 20 years ago, this was an opportunity...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chris Caseldine.

Canal System 1, the largest of the four major systems along the lower Salt River, brought water to fields associated with some of the most well-known Hohokam villages, including Mesa Grande, Los Hornos, and Los Muertos. Previously, it was thought that the system reached its maximum extent prior to the Sedentary Period. Recent data and reconstructions of the development of Canal System 1, however, indicate that the system may not have reached its full extent until the Preclassic/Classic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tina Hart. Michael L. Terlep. David Lewandowski. Theodore Tsouras. Francis E. Smiley.

Between 1967 and 1983 the Black Mesa Archaeological Project (BMAP) conducted extensive survey and excavations on Peabody Western Coal Company lease area on Hopi and Navajo tribal lands on northern Black Mesa, Arizona. The project contributed immensely to our collective understanding of the Kayenta Branch of Ancestral Pueblo and prehistory in northern Arizona. In support of a current environmental impact statement, Logan Simpson recently completed a Class III pedestrian survey of nearly 4,000...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Madeline Mackie. Todd Surovell. Robert Kelly. Matthew O'Brien.

The La Prele Mammoth site (formerly the Hinrichs or Fetterman Mammoth) was discovered and initially excavated in 1987 by a crew led by Dr. George Frison. The remains of a single juvenile Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) were recovered along with a stone tool, a possible hammerstone, and a dozen pieces of debitage. Due to landowner dispute, no further work was completed on site for 27 years. In 2014 we returned to investigate the potential for intact deposits and settle the debate about...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha Krause. Timothy Beach. Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach. Tom Guderjan. Colin Doyle.

Lidar has exponentially increased our knowledge of ancient agricultural systems and land use, especially within the Maya world. This paper explores a new Lidar dataset for the Maya Lowlands in Northwestern Belize where archaeological and geoarchaeological teams have studied ditched and raised field systems for over 25 years. Through surveys and excavations, researchers in Northwestern Belize have shed light upon the importance of Maya wetland agriculture, but questions of spatial scale still...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ciprian Ardelean.

The systematic search for ancient human presence in the Zacatecas semi-desert of central-northern Mexico continued with new field explorations and excavations during 2016. A new season at the Chiquihuite Cave was meant to verify the weak signals of older-than-Clovis human presence obtained a few years ago. The new extended excavation inside the high-altitude cave revealed two old, clearly differentiated cultural components that had not been acknowledged before. The upper component is clearly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Manuel San Roman. Victor Sierpe. Jimena Torres. Cristóbal Palacios. Marianne Christensen.

In this poster we present the results of research at Bahía Mejillones 45, located at the northern coast of Navarino island, at 55º parallel south, Chile. We describe and illustrate the results of an extended archaeological excavation, including stratigraphic and radiocarbon information (6850 Cal BP) concerning the Middle Holocene assemblage. Bone technological elements are characteristic of early marine hunter-gatherer groups of the region, considering multi-denticulate harpoons, detachable...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maxime Rageot. Angela Mötsch. Birgit Schorer. Cynthianne Debono Spiteri. Philipp Stockhammer.

Our research focuses on consumption practices, particularly on feasting in Early Iron Age Central Europe (7th-5th cent. BC). The aim is to integrate the cooking and drinking practices to complete our knowledge of Early Celtic societies. We try also to identify exchange networks linked to biomaterial exploitation and circulation. To conduct this study, organic residues of pottery from several Central European sites (in particular the Heuneburg and Vix - Mont Lassois) were analysed. A wide range...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Wilkerson.

Results from excavations at the St. Mungo site by Len Ham and his team in the early 1980’s challenged previously held ideas about the Charles Culture (5000-3300 BP) in the Gulf of Georgia region. Previous research determined the Charles Culture was represented by egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies. Several lines of evidence were cited to support this idea, including both the absence of ground slate knives for intensive fish processing and storage technology which would have allowed people to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wendy Reynen.

The emerging picture from the Australian archaeological record shows a varied pattern of human responses to the environmental and climatic fluctuations that characterised the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the terminal Pleistocene in arid Australia. Archaeological data suggests a decline in site use and reorganization of human landscape use in correlation to broad shifts in climate and environment. The nature of these changes is complex and requires unpacking on a high-resolution scale as it is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Frances Robertson. Andrew Trites.

The Quileute people of Washington State are an ocean going people dependent on marine resources. They are skilled fishers and hunters, and like their neighbors to the north, the Makah and the Nuu-chah-nulth, they have a history of exploiting the once abundant marine resources in both coastal and offshore waters. While much is known of about the whaling activities of the Makah and the Nuu-chah-nulth, little is known about the whaling activities of the Quileute, especially 20-40 miles offshore. We...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Markus Reindel. Franziska Fecher. Peter Fux.

As part of the Central American Isthmus, Honduras adopted a special role in prehispanic America. Together with Nicaragua, the territory of modern Honduras functioned as a bridge between the culture areas of Mesoamerica and the Intermediate Area. In spite of that unique situation, archaeological investigations in Honduras have been focusing on the western, Mesoamerican part, especially on the Maya city of Copan. In contrast, cultural developments in the east remain largely unknown. With the goal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only T. Douglas Price. Shintaro Suzuki.

site of Copan in western Honduras. Strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotopes are measured in human tooth enamel from 66 burials in the Late Classic (ca. 600-750 A.D.) Núñez Chinchilla residential group at. Approximately 50% of the individuals are identified as non-local based on strontium and oxygen isotope ratios. They came from a variety of places in the Maya area. Comparison with an Early Classic burial group suggests substantial changes took place in the origins of migrants with more...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dani Nadel. Reuven Yeshurun.

A wealth of Late Pleistocene - Early Holocene open-air camp-sites is recorded around the world. However, in sites pre-dating the use of stone for construction, central features such as huts and their floors are rarely preserved. Thus, the documentation of site structure and the identification of past activity areas are limited to hearths (when preserved) and their environs, and to distribution patterns of cultural remains. The focus of this paper are selected sites from the Mediterranean Levant,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christian Reepmeyer. Mathieu Leclerc. Karen Joyce. Geoffrey Clark. Daud A. Tanudirjo.

This poster presents new research on a novel technique to analyse temper in archaeological ceramics. The outcome of the study was to assess whether petrographic analysis of temper grains can be automated through the combination of mineral mapping and remote sensing. Ten pottery samples were analysed by automated mineral mapping. The output of analysis is an image of mineral distribution, based on 15 micron spot analyses, with a quantification of total abundancies of minerals in the sample. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Elliott. Wendy Matthews.

Animal domestication has traditionally been investigated through archaeozoological approaches which can be problematic and may not detect the earliest stages in this important transformation (Zeder 2006). The study of dung provides an alternative line of evidence for the investigation of: animal presence and proximity, increased animal management, domestication and sedentism, potential secondary product use, animal diet and environment. To identify and analyse faecal material there is still the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yunbing Luo.

Lacquered artifacts unearthed from Chu state tombs represent the highest achievements of the lacquer industry in the Eastern-Zhou period (770BC-221BC). Antlers form an important part of several typical Lacquered wood-wares unearthed from large and medium-sized Chu Tombs. Antler-wares mainly belong to three categories: (1) tomb-protecting beast (with two or four antlers inserted on the head), (2) lacquered wooden flying birds with tiger-shaped bases (with two antlers inserted on the bird waist),...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Genevieve Pothier Bouchard. Michael Buckley. Jamie Hodgkins. Susan M. Mentzer. Julien Riel-Salvatore.

Faunal remains play an important role in helping reconstruct Paleolithic hunter-gatherer subsistence and mobility strategies. However, differential bone preservation is an issue in southern European prehistoric sites, which often makes morphological identification impossible. Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) is a new, low-cost method that will improve NISP statistical significance in a replicable way by using diagnostic peptides of the dominant collagen protein as a fingerprint of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only AnaBeatriz Balcarcel. Edgar Suyuc-Ley. Richard Hansen. Francisco López. Josué García.

The Late Preclassic period (350 B.C.-A.D. 150) in the Mirador-Calakmul Basin is characterized by innovations in various aspects of ancient Maya society which are the reflections of an complex ideological, socio-,political, and economic power. These ingredients were responsible for the conception and creation of large and diverse works of architecture and engineering achievements. This paper will discuss the importance of the Late Preclassic period in El Mirador and contemporary cities within...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Brickley.

Less than half of the current world population is estimated to have adequate vitamin D status and potential consequences are much debated. For those engaged in addressing the challenges that vitamin D deficiency poses, information on past deficiency provides an important time dimension to current debates. Over the last 15 years I have undertaken extensive collaborative work on past deficiency. Investigations at St. Martin’s, a 19th-century UK site, established diagnostic criteria and revealed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Arroyo.

Recent data has been unearthed on Kaminaljuyu during the last five years. Despite Guatemala City´s growth, much information is still under the ground. A continuous program has allowed for the piecing together of various research programs carried out at the site. An effort to integrate most of the research and rescue programs has been done to obtain a comprehensive perspective of the culture history of the site. This paper will present data on recent research, focusing on the significant...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Kovacik.

Macrofloral analysis conducted on sites concentrated in the northwestern Permian Basin (southeastern New Mexico) recovered evidence of charred yucca (Yucca sp.) leaf bases in numerous features. Ethnographically various yucca plant parts are mainly associated with fiber and food processing. The presence of these remains in solitary hearth features distributed on the arid landscape of southeastern New Mexico suggests use of these plants simply as tinder. Yucca plants represent a natural and easily...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rhy McMillan. Deidre Cullon. Heather Pratt.

Acquiring accurate and precise dates for archaeological materials and features is fundamental for investigating human history on the Northwest Coast (NWC) of British Columbia, Canada. Remarkably few radiocarbon dates for intertidal features exist in the literature, and they are only associated with features that yield objects which can be directly dated, such as fish traps containing wooden stakes. Various numerical and relative dating techniques have been applied to other types of intertidal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only XinLin Dong. WANG Ying.

The Liao Supreme Capital site is located in Lindong, Balinzuoqi, Inner Mongolia. It contains the Royal City in its north and the "Han" City in its south, with a total area of five squared km. To preserve and better understand the Supreme Capital’s layout and evolution, Team Two of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Archaeological Research joined with the Inner Mongolia Institute of Archaeological Research to form the Liao Supreme Capital Archaeological Team, which conducted full...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Boyd. Donna Boyd.

In 2015, the Physical Anthropology section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) officially became the "Anthropology" section of AAFS. This reflected not simply a name change, but an acknowledgement of the importance of archaeology to forensic anthropology and forensic science. This has heralded a new age of forensic anthropology based on increasing reliance on archaeological methods and theoretical principles. The interaction between forensic archaeology, anthropology, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Seren Griffiths.

This presentation will reflect on the so called four ‘Radiocarbon Revolutions’ and their implications on archaeological narratives and theory generally, and Neolithic studies in Britain specifically. The timing of this reflection is critical given the implications of recent Bayesian analysis in order to produce precise, robust and probabilistic chronologies for parts of European prehistory. This paper will revisit the reactions to the initial radiocarbon revolutions by important theorists such...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Suzanne Pilaar Birch. Russell Graham. Eric Grimm. Jessica Blois. Jack Williams.

The Neotoma Database (neotomadb.org) functions as an interdisciplinary, open-access, and community-curated database for paleoecologists. Primary data types include proxies such as pollen, vertebrate remains, diatoms, and plant macrofossils. Because stable isotope data carry essential paleoenvironmental information about hydrology, diet, foodweb, and other signals, the structure of Neotoma has been modified to accommodate isotope data, thus facilitating the integration of these data with other...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Murray.

Archaeological landscapes are complex three-dimensional environments, containing not only cadastral survey units and evidence of sites in the form of artifact scatters, but also anomalous topographical features and standing architectural remains of a variety of periods, types, and states of preservation. The time-consuming nature of careful architectural recording and the difficulty of acquiring the high-quality geodata required for a proper architectural survey in the remote countryside have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yinghua Li. Side Hao. Wanbo Huang. Hubert Forestier. Yuduan Zhou.

The characterization of Paleolithic culture in South China and their relationship with mainland Southeast Asia remains ill-defined and unclearly known. The lithic industry of South China has been characterized as simple "cobble-tool" industry persisting from early Pleistocene to Holocene and the most representative industry of Southeast Asia was also marked by pebble-tool techno-complex termed Hoabinhian during late Pleistocene-early Holocene. The possible cultural link of the two regions was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Horsley. Casey Barrier. Robin Beck. John Kelly.

In this paper we report on new collaborative research that seeks to investigate the history of pre-Columbian urbanism and Mississippian culture in the greater American Bottom region of eastern North America. Our research is being designed to take advantage of a wide range of archaeological methods, technologies, and analyses to produce information for Cahokia and other sites in the region. Here, we present initial results from our first season of work at Cahokia. In July 2016, project members...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Camila Capriata Estrada. Raúl Zambrano Anaya.

The archeological site of Nieve Nieve is located in the middle Lurin Valley, Central Coast of Peru. The spatial configuration of this site differs drastically from other late prehispanic settlements in the valley. The presence of a colonial church as well as a series of architectonic compounds built along parallel and perpendicular streets not only indicate a well planned construction but also the introduction of a new, and probably foreign, urban design. Yet, other aspects such as the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeanne Lopiparo.

As the sun set and the light dimmed in the Classic Period Ulúa Valley, Honduras, the nighttime sky and a soundscape of nocturnal animals emerged. The transition between day and night was marked not only by the shifting sensory experience of the nightscape but also by the passage of the sun through the underworld, as the realm of death and the ancestors came alive. The night was inhabited and animated by liminal animals and ancestors that moved between the world of the living and the dead. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Reed. W. Scott Zeleznik. Nan Gonlin.

Societies, present and past, consume particular foods at certain times of the day, and these foods often symbolize quotidian practices. Even in American culture, certain foods are taboo at certain times and in certain contexts, such as desert after breakfast or the increasing concern of healthy eating with respect to bedtime snacking. Food functions as a social vehicle beyond its nutritional value, and mealtimes or food events serve as occasions to reinforce culturally appropriate behaviors....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Schurr.

Over the past 20 years, nitrogen stable isotope ratios have been used to explore infant feeding practices in ancient populations. In spite of many productive studies, uncertainties remain about how to interpret juvenile isotope ratios in regard to comparing feeding behavior across different populations, and the relationships of infant feeding practices to health, subsistence modes, environment, and social organization. Infant feeding practices are likely to be constrained by the biological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Manuel Espinosa-Pesqueira. Blanca Maldonado. Isabel Medina-González. Gérald Migeon.

The West Mexican region of Zacapu (today Michoacan, Mexico) is known to have witnessed the rise and development of the Tarascan Empire during middle Postclassic period. Archaeological evidence indicates that this area underwent major spatial and social reorganization around 1200 AD, events that indicate socio-political and ideological changes generated by the centralization of power in Tarascan society. Tarascan metallurgy represents a valuable reference for understanding the cultural context in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Konrad Smiarowski. Michael Nielsen. Christian Madsen.

This presentation is an attempt to illustrate the scale of climate induced loss of organic preservation at Norse/Viking farmsteads in the Eastern Settlement of Southwest Greenland. For over a century now Norse Greenland has been associated with well preserved sites, where wooden artifacts, bones and even textiles have been recovered. Archaeological investigations at sites that previously reported excellent preservation conditions suggest that recent climatic changes have had a wide and severe...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales. Eileen Johnson.

North America had a large and varied bear diversity (Mammalia, Carnivora, Ursidae) during the late Pleistocene. At least seven species occurred from southern Mexico and Belize north, as far as Alaska and the Yukon, constituting the subfamilies Tremarctinae and Ursinae. Tremarctinae had at least four species: two short-faced bears pertaining to the genus Arctodus; the spectacled bear Tremarctos floridanus; and an undescribed species, probably within the genus Arctotherium. All of which are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only George MacDonald.

The objective of the North Coast Prehistory Project was to investigate the development of Maritime adapted cultures in the Pacific Northwest and the role of exchange systems in the subsequent development of stratified societies including advanced systems of trade and warfare based on Northeast Asian prototypes. Excavations of the extensive shell middens of the Prince Rupert Harbor yielded evidence of elaborate militarism along with extensive inland trade. The project worked closely with the oral...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alison Leonard. Steve Ashby. Dries Tys.

This talk presents the results of a northern European collaborative pilot study on the compilation and analysis of internationally-derived datasets of metal-detected material culture. Drawing on nascent heritage initiatives across northern Europe designed to protect and record our at-risk portable material culture, the project seeks to develop and trial a methodology for the synthesis and analysis of metal-detected datasets from England, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands, resulting in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcela Sepulveda. Luis Cornejo. Thibault Saintenoy. Daniela Osorio. Luca Sitzia.

The different models of hunter-gatherer mobility in South Central Andean area, despite its theoretical and conceptual factors, normally emphasize for the Archaic Period the complementarity between vegetation belt for various biotic resources, depending on availability, location and seasonality. Here we complement such models at a meso-scale level, based upon results from surveys and excavations in upper Azapa valley bassin, a region located at the foothills of the Northern Chile Cordillera. Our...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nikolay Kradin.

In Yuan shih chronicle Hasar, the brother of Chinggis Khan, is described as having the territory of the Argun river and nearby steppe. In the new Yuan empire, after change of the capital from the Onon – Herlen to the Orkhon valley, Eastern Mongolia and Transbaikalia were transformed from heartland into hinterland. Because of previous betrayals by his family Chinggis granted Hasar only four thousand yurts. Also, a city was built in what is today the Hailar/Hulumbur area of Inner Mongolia. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Wickler.

Epeli Hau’ofa’s (1993) perception of Oceania as a ‘sea of islands’ is a useful point of departure for exploring the long-term trajectories of the many thousands of islands scattered along the coast of northwestern Norway. Hau’ofa’s vision of joined islands is also instructive as a way of emphasizing seaborne connectivity rather than insularity within maritime archaeology. This paper highlights problems related to island colonization and settlement since the Early Mesolithic (11,500-10,000 BP) in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elna Siv Kristoffersen.

The presentation takes up a northern way of expression opposed to a southern one – namely the stylistic depiction and focus on animals and mixed animal/human designs prevailing in the Nordic Barbaric area opposed to a focus on the naturalistic ideal of the human body throughout the classical world. The complexity and continuity of this Nordic art form indicates that it was structurally incorporated in an overarching principle that reflects social and cosmic order. The mixed animal-human designs...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcos Llobera.

The late 80s and 90s saw an explosion of landscape studies in archaeology. The notion of landscape was herald as a ‘usefully ambiguous concept’ (Gosden and Head 1994) that was to be applied everywhere only to be later scrutinized and criticized. The emergent interest in landscapes helped archaeologists expand their understanding of the widely diverse range of relationships people maintain with their surroundings, and precipitated a renewed interest in the study of landscapes at a more intimate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffery Clark. Katherine Dungan. Leslie Aragon.

Most 14th-century Salado settlements in the Upper Gila watershed are comprised of separate room blocks in both planned and ad hoc configurations. These spatial arrangements suggest that integration, and by extension coalescence, was never fully achieved despite occupation spans of more than a century. This poster examines ceramic and other material culture variability among room blocks within four settlements to identify social and cultural differences that persisted until depopulation in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Abigail Levine.

The use of molds for pottery manufacture is an integral part of the ceramic tradition of the North Coast of Peru, dating to at least as early as AD 100. Analysis of mold-made Chimu-Inka monkey effigy vessels excavated from mortuary contexts at the sites of Farfan and Tucume suggest that Late Horizon fineware production occurred in local workshops rather than in a centralized facility—a pattern consistent with other studies of Inka pottery production from around the Central Andes. The use and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcie Venter. Daniel Pierce. Michael Glascock. Tiffany Franklin. Caitlyn Housley.

Ceramic evidence combined with obsidian and sculptural data from the archaeological site of Matacanela are beginning to paint an unexpected picture of intra- and inter-regional dynamics in the Early and Middle Classic Tuxtlas region of the southern Gulf lowlands. These data point to an unexpectedly independent political-economic relationship with the nearby center Matacapan, but one that may have been created through elite-alliance networks that differently incorporated Teotihuacan-style symbols...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Callan Ross-Sheppard.

Often the use of geochemical and mineralogical techniques to characterize archaeological ceramics is performed with the underlying idea that the goal of the enterprise will be the sourcing of the ceramics to their production locales. However, in many situations this goal may not be achievable due to such factors as a lack of variability in regional geologies or a lack of information on the scale, type and location of ceramic production. This paper looks at one such case from the Chifeng Region,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angela Lieverse. Samantha Purchase-Manchester. Andrzej Weber. Vladimir Ivanovich Bazaliiskii.

This research uses novel methods to investigate infection—specifically sinusitis, otitis, and mastoiditis—and better understand physiological stress and life ways among middle Holocene hunter-fisher-gatherers fro Siberia’s Cis-Baikal region. Two hundred and fifty individuals from three cemeteries are examined, together representing two distinct biocultural periods (Early Neolithic [EN], 8000–7000/6800 BP, and Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age [LN–EBA], 6000/5800–3400 BP) and two micro-regions...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian Takaoka. Sharyn Jones.

This paper reports on excavations from field seasons in 2013 and 2014 when major excavations on the main landmass of Vanua Levu, Fiji were conducted at the beach site of Nukubulavu. This site is positioned on a small peninsula in the island’s southeastern Natewa Bay region. Nukubulavu produced ceramic assemblages that extend to all of Fiji’s known culture history. The team also documented a deeply buried probable house floor with diagnostic artifacts that indicate intensive occupation during...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eugene Morin. Elspeth Ready. Arianne Boileau. Cédric Beauval. Marie-Pierre Coumont.

NISP (Number of Identified SPecimens) and MNE (Minimum Number of Elements) are frequently used as measures of anatomical abundances in archaeology. Recent experimental results suggest that NISP provides estimates of skeletal abundances that are less robust than those based on MNE. However, our analysis of paired NISP-MNE data shows that MNE is prone to inflate the representation of rare parts. Moreover, MNE is known for being severely impacted by aggregation methods. These fundamental problems...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charlotta Hillerdal. Kate Britton. Warren Jones. Rick Knecht.

Northern sea ice levels are at an historical and millennial low, and nowhere are the effects of recent climate change more pronounced or destructive than in the Western Arctic, with the erosion and subsequent loss of coastal archaeological sites in this area being yet another casualty. Based in the community of Quinhagak, and at the well-preserved precontact Yup’ik site of Nunalleq, our project examines the complex relationship between past cultures and ecosystem change, and the interplay...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Workinger. Stacie King.

Studies of obsidian tool manufacture in Mesoamerica typically focus on workshops located at source areas or at the major sites controlling them. In this paper, we explore production at the periphery, from the Nejapa/Tavela region of Oaxaca located roughly midway between the sources in Central Mexico and those in the Highlands of Guatemala. Rather than the thousands of artifacts representing the byproducts and errors of a single workshop, we are forced to rely upon the handful that found their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Freund. Tristan Carter.

The McMaster Archaeological X-ray Fluorescence Laboratory (MAX Lab) was established in 2010 with the goal of using compositional analyses of archaeological objects to engage with broad-level questions about past human behavior. In this context, obsidian has been the primary artifact type analyzed, taking form through the sourcing of artifacts to the geological sources from which they originated. As an example, this presentation focuses on prehistoric obsidian exploitation on the central...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Kaplan.

This paper examines the procurement and consumption of obsidian within the Wari capital (AD 600 – 1000) in the Ayacucho highlands of Peru. During the Middle Horizon, the Wari Empire expanded and controlled much of the Peruvian Andes, largely through the import, export and regulation of critical resources extracted from subject territories and populations. This project hypothesizes that obsidian may have operated as one such critical resource for imperial control and seeks to examine this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Franco Rossi.

This paper investigates an order of ranked specialists marked by title Taaj ("obsidian"), as they occur at Late Classic Copan. This "obsidian order" was first identified on a mural at the site of Xultun, Guatemala, where archaeological evidence revealed that its members held expertise in indigenous Maya sciences, ritual practice and codex book production. Since then, the Taaj have been identified at several Classic Maya centers besides Xultun—with the texts of Copan providing the most detailed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dan Healan.

Technological classification of nearly 30,000 pieces of obsidian recovered from survey and excavation followed by attribute analysis of stratified random samples of some 3,400 specimens reveal several distinct modes of raw material acquisition, reduction technology, and utilization at Altica. The various modes are described from a technological perspective and their various logistical, social, economic, and political implications are considered.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Pierce.

The Postclassic Aztatlán Tradition of Western Mexico is well known for its expansive trade networks. Aztatlán merchants traded ceramics, shell, copper, and obsidian across vast distances. Obsidian provides us with a particularly unique opportunity to trace trade networks due to the compositional homogeneity of obsidian sources. Recent studies have identified the source of thousands of obsidian artifacts from numerous Aztatlán centers, allowing for an elaboration on themes such as access to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David McCormick.

Scholarly understanding of the prehistoric economy of the Pacific Coast lacks the resolution afforded its Lowland counterpart. Analysis of the Obsidian deposits at Cotzumalguapa offer us a lens through which to bring our understanding of the prehistoric economy of the Pacific Coast into focus. Surface survey and excavations near the El Baúl acropolis revealed the presence of several obsidian dumps, the result of a large-scale lithic industry in the Classic Period site of Cotzumalguapa. Thus far,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandi Lee MacDonald.

In coastal and interior British Columbia, ochre was a key component of local traditional knowledge among hunter-fisher-gatherer communities. Ochre pigment quarries are found in alpine, lowland, and alluvial geologic deposits, and each are uniquely storied locations that carry ideas about history, tradition, and place. The procurement, trade, and use of ochre from each of those locations is deliberate, and embedded within a complex set of ideas and decision-making. Provenance-based analysis of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrés Mejía Ramón. Luis Barba.

The Formative Period site of Altica in the Patlachique range poses many problems when designing an excavation strategy. Three millennia of erosion, and centuries of chisel plowing have eviscerated the site, removing any traces of architecture and in situ remains above the tepetate (local bedrock). As such, in the early stages of the Altica Project, the primary concern was the detection and identification of sub-surface remains inside intact bedrock-incised pits. In most archaeological sites, the...