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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jess Beck.

Post-mortem manipulation of human remains played a critical role in mortuary practices in Copper Age Iberia (c. 3250-2200 BC). During this period in Spain and Portugal, individuals were buried communally in tholos-type tombs, as well as natural or artificial caves and rock shelters. Evidence from across Iberia suggests that mortuary practices included the manipulation and movement of previously interred bodies, either in order to clear space for new individuals, or to facilitate secondary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bradford Andrews.

Analysis of the obsidian artifacts recovered from households in the city of Calixtlahuaca (AD 1130–1530) indicates that prismatic blade production was not a domestic affair. Furthermore, intensive survey did not reveal evidence of onsite blade workshops anywhere in the city. This finding is at odds with what has been reported for many other Postclassic urban centers. This paper discusses why the blade-core data are not consistent with onsite blade production. It then evaluates three models for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Johnson. Heather McKillop. Bretton Somers.

Arvin’s Landing is a Postclassic (A.D. 900-1500) settlement located on Joe Taylor Creek near Punta Gorda in southern Belize. The abundance of obsidian in the artifact assemblage at Arvin’s Landing indicates trade from the Maya highland sources of obsidian. During the Classic period (A.D. 300-900), obsidian was transported along the coast and by inland routes to the Maya in the lowlands. There was a shift from a dominance on El Chayal obsidian in the Classic to Ixtepeque obsidian in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only M. Kathryn Brown. Carolyn Freiwald.

Ritual feasting as a practice by which sponsors create uneven social relations with other participants has been suggested to play an important role in establishing social hierarchies in many ancient societies including the ancient Maya. Feasting activities may have also been an important part of Preclassic communal building projects in the Maya lowlands. In this paper, we present data from Middle Preclassic special deposits associated with a series of early public platforms at the site of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ruth Maher. Robert Friel. Lindsey Kemp. Julie Bond. Stephen Dockrill.

Coastal erosion sites contain the same complexity as any other site; however, the sequences are often truncated and the recovery conditions require adaptive approaches. Although these sites are eroding, there is a need for equal rigor in their recording. The coastal erosion site at Swandro, Rousay, Orkney, has been recorded using a variety of georeferenced data sets. This paper examines the potential of micro-analysis of the 3-dimensional coordinate records of artifacts and geo-referenced...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Belkin. Daniel Plekhov.

Historical Archaeology has seen a steadily increasing embrace of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for the purposes of site recording, preservation and management, but has seen little to no use of the plethora of spatial datasets already publicly available. Such datasets include census, tax, and immigration records, property and housing maps, and archived aerial and satellite imagery, which when properly integrated in a GIS, have great potential for further contextualizing historical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jasminda Ceron.

Archaeobotanical studies in Southeast Asia has been gradually developing in the archaeological scene in providing interpretation of the past. In this paper, a macro-botanical study of Vietnam, focusing on the anthracology (wood charcoal) and archaeological parenchyma, was initiated. The principles and methods used by the archaeologists in other regions in the analysis of wood charcoal and parenchymatous plant tissue are applied in the analysis of the plant remains recovered in the archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Larry Steinbrenner.

The production of polychrome pottery in Pacific Nicaragua during the Sapoá and Ometepe Periods (AD 800-contact) has traditionally been attributed to various migrant cultural groups of vague Mesoamerican origin who were living in the region at the time of Spanish contact and who are usually assumed to have displaced the autochthonous inhabitants of Greater Nicoya. Supposed links between specific ceramic types and specific Mesoamerican groups that were originally based more on speculation than on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Barzilai. Susan M. Alt. Timothy R. Pauketat.

Since 2012, large-scale survey and excavations at and around the Emerald site east of Cahokia have investigated the religious foundations of the rise of that American Indian city. Emerald was a shrine complex, where religion was performed by Cahokians and pilgrims beginning around AD 1000. Excavations have revealed dense stands of non-domestic, ceremonial and public architecture alongside seemingly temporary, short-term housing. A prominent aspect of the rituality of the place was the use of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Reese. Molly Iott. Katherine Portman. Donna Glowacki. James Potter.

Cowboy Wash Pueblo (5MT7740), south of Sleeping Ute Mountain in the Northern San Juan Region, is the largest and latest pueblo in the Cowboy Wash Community. In collaboration with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Potter and colleagues (2013) recorded a large rubble area (~1000 m2), 13 pit structures, a potential D-shaped structure, and a surprisingly sparse surface assemblage (n=206). They also noted that the east edge of the pueblo is endangered by arroyo cutting. Due to this and because it was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Autumn Beyer. Terrance Martin. Jodie O'Gorman.

A variety of ritual contexts are documented at the Oneota and Mississippian Morton Village site and the associated Norris Farms Cemetery in Fulton County, Illinois. These include multi-scalar mortuary contexts, communal ritual structures, and smaller domestic-related facilities. Animal remains from both food and faunal tools, along with artifacts that are imbued with animal symbolism, were found in each context. This paper explores the variability and looks for patterning of animal use within...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ronald Spores. Laura Diego Luna.

Yucundaa-Pueblo Viejo de Teposcolula, Oaxaca, Mexico, is the urban capital and power center of a Prehispanic and Early Colonial Mixtec state, occupying four square kilometers from AD 1000 to 1550. This research utilizes a convergent archaeological, ethnohistoric, and biological methodology, and focuses on the evolution and transformation of the city and its surroundings until the time of its relocation to the adjacent lowlands in 1550. Of particular concern was identification and analysis of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Debora Trein. Brett Houk. Gregory Zaro.

La Milpa was one of the largest ancient Maya urban centers in the eastern Maya Lowlands during the second half of the Late Classic to the Terminal Classic periods, its influence extending over communities throughout the Three Rivers Region of northwestern Belize. La Milpa’s rise to regional prominence is associated with a series of upheavals during this period, including increased political dynamism following the decline of Tikal at the end of the Early Classic period, and a dramatic rise in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriel Cooney. Jenny Murray. Will Megarry.

In the Shetland islands off the north coast of Scotland there was major exploitation of a lithic source known as riebeckite felsite during the Neolithic period. This source provided the raw material for the majority of stone axes known from the archipelago and also for objects known as Shetland knives. At the source, North Roe, mainland Shetland intrusive dykes of felsite occur in granite. Integrated, multi-scalar survey and excavation by the North Roe Felsite Project has demonstrated that some...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Mrozowski.

This paper outlines some of the lessons learned from more than a decade of working with the Hassanamisco Nipmuc of Massachusetts. During the course of this evolving collaboration there have been many epistemological and ontological challenges. Chief among these has been finding common ground between the questions pursued archaeologically and those that hold relevancy for indigenous peoples. Rather than seeing these as contrasting purposes the Hassanamesit Woods Project has found productive ways...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Herr. Maren Hopkins. T.J. Ferguson. Vincent Randall.

Western Apache and archaeologists have often commented that Apache avoid archaeological sites for all but ceremonial purposes. Yet, the distribution of Western Apache site components in central Arizona shows that until the late nineteenth century Western Apache often reused earlier sites as residences and for resources. Elders from the Yavapai-Apache Nation and the White Mountain Apache Tribe interpret these patterns as expressions of their ancestors' pragmatism and their changing power in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lynn Welton.

The current understanding of the pre-Aksumite period of northern Ethiopia has been heavily influenced by data originating from sites in western Tigrai, particularly those in the area of Aksum. The Eastern Tigrai Archaeological Project (ETAP), however, has also documented substantial evidence for pre-Aksumite settlement further to the east, through both survey and excavation. This paper will summarize ETAP’s efforts to understand the pre-Aksumite period in eastern Tigrai at the site of Mezber,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Habtamu Mekonnen.

The pre-Aksumite to Aksumite transition (PA-A transition) is critically important for the culture history of the Horn of Africa. This period in Western Tigrai (400/300–150 BCE) represents a cultural break between the Sabaean-influenced pre-Aksumite period (≥800–400/300 BCE) and the predominantly indigenous kingdom of Aksum. Pre-Aksumite and Aksumite polities in Western Tigrai were not directly related and marked by significant sociopolitical change. The emerging picture of the PA-A transition in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessi Halligan. Michael Waters.

Dr. Gruhn has spent her career working in locations that most Paleoindian archaeologists consider to be inaccessible and difficult, maintaining that the story of the First Americans can best be found in well-preserved localities on the geographical and chronological frontiers. Our recent work at the Page-Ladson site in Florida fits well within the spirit of her investigations. Page-Ladson is an inundated terrestrial site with sediments containing lithic artifacts associated with a butchered...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meaghan Peuramaki-Brown. Linda Howie.

In 2015-2016, the Stann Creek Regional Archaeology Project (SCRAP) in collaboration with HD Analytical Solutions, initiated a preliminary petrographic characterization study of presumed "local" pottery and daub artifacts, surface collected during settlement survey at the Late to Terminal Classic (ca. 750-1000 C.E.) Maya site of Alabama, Belize. This initial study, though small, has proved mighty in terms of the new information it has revealed, building on earlier studies of Maya communities in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaime Swift. Rick Schulting. Juanita Oyanedel Perez. Violeta Abarca Labra. Nicole Fuenzalida Bahamondes.

This research documents past diet and subsistence strategies of the pre-Columbian ceramic societies in the Aconcagua Valley of central Chile. We aim to characterize the late Holocene cultural, social and economic interactions of this geographically strategic zone between the semi-arid north and more fertile central Chile. Dynamic changes over the past two millennia include the establishment of culturally heterogeneous enclaves from the north alongside local populations. The broader region of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Zaragoza. Kim Richter.

Although the Huasteca may have had an important role in the emergence and development of metallurgy in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, little has been published, apart from Dorothy Hosler and Guy Stresser-Péan’s short study on Huastec metallurgy (1992). They proposed that the Huasteca was second earliest region in Mesoamerica after West Mexico to produce bronze alloys artifacts during the Postclassic period. Their research positions the Huasteca as an early adopter and innovator of this technology....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ana Karen Galicia Rodriguez.

The town of Amecameca is located in the southwest of Mexico City, near the volcanoes Popocatepetl and Iztcaccíhuatl. Its origin dates back to pre-Columbian times. The city was part of Chalco empire, which was known for its artisans who made extraordinary sculptures. Over time, many of these sculptures have disappeared, mainly by of the destruction of the Spaniards during the conquest. Currently, there are few examples of sculptures from Amecameca in the museums. Despite this, some inhabitants...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Cohen. Monika Therrien.

Infrastructure is currently one of the critical studies in social sciences at the global level, having been promoted as one of the great promises of equality and accessibility, through good performance and penetration of public services among the population, as well as a tool that would contribute to strengthen the control, authority and visibility of the State. The case study of the calle real of Bogota, being one of the oldest and most important streets in the city, makes visible what became...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Armando Anaya Hernandez. Kathryn Reese-Taylor.

The Preclassic (900 BCE – 150 CE) was the period during which the earliest sedentary communities in the Maya lowlands were founded. Acts that initiated these early civic charters, such as the construction of E-groups and communal platforms, were followed quickly by rapid expansion of communities throughout the landscape, involving population growth, monumental architecture, massive waterworks, and a high degree of sociopolitical complexity. It was also during this period when ideologies and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fernando C. Atasta Flores Esquivel. Alejandro Uriarte.

Yaxnohcah is an important Maya settlement in the southern Campeche lowlands, which, according to what present evidence suggests, had its main civic development during the Middle and Late Preclassic periods. The city’s layout includes some features that are specific to Yaxnohcah, as well as others shared with nearby and distant centres. One of central features of the Yaxnohcah settlement, which it shares with other sites, has been described as "clustered nucleation" or "dismembered" pattern for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Dunning. Armando Anaya Hernández. Christopher Carr. Deborah Walker. Helga Geovannini Acuña.

The need to collect and store rain water has been proposed as an important urbanizing force during the development of Maya civilization in the Elevated Interior Region on the Maya Lowlands, where surface water is naturally scarce and the dry season lengthy. We present data from Yaxnohcah, Campeche, Mexico indicating that the construction of large reservoirs was an integral part of the development of this urban center in the Middle and Late Preclassic periods. Data collected to date indicate that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jose Narvaez.

This investigation is an archaeological analysis of the lower Rimac River Valley, located in the Peruvian Central Coast, where several irrigation channels, that were originated from the River allowed the cultivation of a great extension of land in this valley. The objectives of this study were to establish the occupation sequence and settlement pattern in those artificial valleys in Precolonial times and their relation with this irrigation system. Modern and old maps and aerial photos were used...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristine Bovy.

Seabird remains, especially murres, scoters, loons, grebes, shearwaters and gulls, are abundant in the Tse-whit-zen faunal assemblage. There is considerable biological research on the effects of climate change on seabirds, especially in light of recent climate trends; for example, responses of seabirds to increased sea surface temperatures associated with El Niño events are well documented. In contrast, there has been relatively little research on the effects of recent earthquakes on marine...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Guillermo Acosta-Ochoa. Emily McClung de Tapia. Diana Martínez-Yrizar. Cristina Adriano-Morán. Jorge Cruz-Palma.

Altica, situated in the southeastern sector of the Teotihuacan Valley, represents the earliest known farming community in this region. Its importance lies in the potential for the recovery of evidence for domestic plant use by these early inhabitants. Plant remains recovered over several decades in the Teotihuacan Valley provide an idea of the predominant plant communities in the area during the Early-Middle Formative, an indicator of local environmental conditions. Preliminary results from the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristina Crawford.

When populations increase, more resources need to be extracted from the land to satisfy their needs. When cooking, one way to increase yields is to change techniques to include rock heating elements. To test this, twenty sites from the Late Archaic Period (3,000 to 150 BP) in the northern Sacramento Valley of California were examined. The results of the study indicated that there is an increase in rock heating elements and thermally altered rock in archaeological deposits through time. It was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dongju Zhang. Guanghui Dong. Qianqian Wang. Xiaoyan Ren. Fahu Chen.

Current study indicates that Northeastern Tibetan Plateau (NETP) is one of the first widely occupied places by prehistoric people on the Tibetan Plateau. This makes NETP very important to understand the human history on the plateau and human adaptation to high elevation environment. Hence, 151 site, a paleo- to Epi-Paleolithic site in the Qinghai Lake basin on NETP, was chosen to excavate. Thousands pieces of animal bones, hundreds pieces of stone artifacts and several possible hearths were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Blong.

This paper presents the geomorphological and paleovegetation record of the upper Susitna River basin in the central Alaska Range, and discusses late Pleistocene and Holocene landscape and vegetation change and how this affected human use of this upland landscape. Geomorphological data suggest that the last significant glacial ice sheet covering the upper Susitna basin receded by 14,000-13,000 cal BP. Following deglaciation, there is evidence for high-energy aeolian activity spanning the late...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Rowe.

Rupturing and buckling of fissures along the present valley of the Colorado River in Middle Park, Colorado, during the Miocene resulted in thick deposits of tuff and flow basalt which resulted in the Troublesome Formation. The Troublesome Formation primary consists of weakly consolidated siltstone, minor interbedded sandstone and conglomerate, and locally unconsolidated sand and gravels, and chalcedonies. As the result of the chalcedony filtering through the tuffaceous linear deposits of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mariah Walzer. Nathan Goodale. David Bailey. Alissa Nauman.

The work of Charlotte Beck and George T. Jones dramatically advanced toolstone provenance studies from how to conduct field survey, to how to prepare samples for laboratory analysis. Building on their pioneering work, this paper details the beginning of our efforts in sourcing fine-grained volcanic (FGV) toolstones in the Upper Columbia River area of the interior Pacific Northwest. Handheld portable x-ray fluorescence (HHpXRF) instrumentation was used to non-destructively analyze the FGV...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Sezate.

Smoking pipes have played an integral role for many American Southwestern groups. My research project conducts a thorough investigation into the construction of prehistoric ceramic and stone pipes. Using only stone tools, I conduct construction and use-wear analysis on the tools used to create pipes as well as the pipes themselves. I analyze the two materials most used among Southwestern Native American groups, local Southwestern clay (from the Tucson Basin) and vesicular basalt. Measuring the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anisa Mara.

The aim of my poster is to present new provenience data regarding pottery sherds from several prehistoric archaeological sites in Shkodër, Albania. The pottery samples to be analyzed are from survey and excavation and were collected by the Shkodra Archaeological Project (PASH). Pots appear to have played important social and economic roles in Shkodër, but we do not yet know where they were made. Previous studies based on stylistic analysis refer to the large hill fort site of Gajtan as a center...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelly Jenks.

Recent field investigations at Los Ojitos, a multicomponent site in the Middle Pecos River Valley, have focused on refining the site chronology and documenting the land-use practices of Hispanic homesteaders who settled this area in the late nineteenth century. Like earlier visitors to this site, the Hispanic settlers were attracted to the clean water provided by several little springs ("ojitos") that empty into the river. Survey of one of these spring-fed drainages identified at least 45...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Candice Brennan.

The details of prehistoric settlement patterns in the Alamitos Bay area of southern California are not well documented. Due to rapid urban develop throughout the 20th century, the archaeological record has been explored with only limited excavations. The lack of systematic investigations have limited our knowledge about prehistoric populations and their variability in terms of subsistence practices and settlement patterns. Using a review of information gleaned from archaeological studies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Savelle.

Prehistoric Thule Inuit in the Canadian Arctic were pre-eminent whalers, focussing on the bowhead whale, the largest prey species hunted by any prehistoric or historic hunter-gatherer society. The ethnographic literature provides a rich source of information dealing not only with the importance of bowheads in the diet of early historic bowhead-hunting Inuit societies, but also how social structure, ritual, symbolism and ideology were all centered on complex Thule-bowhead relationships. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Locascio. Matthew Colvin.

A season of test excavations at a late archaic tree island site in south Florida has produced several interesting, if broad, patterns in the practices of prehistoric peoples living within this landscape. Stratigraphic evidence further supported by AMS dating reveal use of the tree island spanning nearly 1000 years of periodic long-term human occupation. Evidence attests to a certain "social fabric" at the settlement, suggesting its identity as a memorable place on the landscape, a quality...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Trudeau. James Torpy. Travis Williams.

In 2016, excavations at the George M. Murrell Home, a mid-nineteenth century plantation home located in northeastern Oklahoma, yielded a number of chipped stone artifacts attributable to the Archaic period. Abandoned during the Civil War, the Murrell home is currently owned by the Oklahoma Historical Society and run as a living history museum and park. Located near the confluence of three major waterways, the site lies in an ecotone between broadleaf forests and prairie parkland. The lithic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Xu Zhang. Yajun Zhang. Tao Tong.

The Tibet Autonomous Region is located on the Tibetan Plateau,which is one of the most active areas in the development and interaction of ancient cultures. Human remains from Gur-gyam cemetery (1800±BP) in Gar County(often known as "Ali"), Ngari Prefecture of the western Tibet Autonomous Region of China is a group of inhabitants during the Xiang Xiong Kingdom period. It lies in front of a modern Bon monastery of Gur-gyam, which affirmed the capital of the ancient Xiang Xiong Kingdom based on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only M. Elizabeth Grávalos. Rebecca E. Bria.

Located in north-central Peru, the highland Ancash region sits at an important geographic and scholarly intersection. Despite its position as a main thoroughfare between the northern and southern sierra, it is often neglected during discussions of the increased interregional interaction of the Middle Horizon (ca. 700-1000 CE). This period is characterized by the expansion of the Wari state out of the south highlands. There remains much to be known about the Middle Horizon in highland Ancash,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yi Jia Gabriela Poh.

The Xianbei tribe, prior to establishing their political regime, embarked on a journey of migration from the now-Northeast China to the "Central Plain"; and archaeologically, we observe their burials en route. Past studies focused on identifying the Xianbei from other tribes, but in the era of ethnic fusion, the in-congruence of burial goods with ethnic identity poses a range of complexities. This paper shifts focus to look at the Xianbei from an economic perspective to depict the social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Klemmer.

The Rio Chico site is situated on the central coast of Ecuador, a region that is heavily influenced by climatic events such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Rio Chico was occupied almost continuously for 5000 years (ca. 3500 B.C.E. to 1532 C.E.), and therefore provides an opportunity to study coastal resource usage over a long temporal span. This poster presents a preliminary zooarchaeological analysis of the relative abundance of fish and other classes of fauna at the site. A sample of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Brunson. Lele Ren. Jada Ko.

Qijiaping in Guanghe County, Gansu Province is the type site for the Bronze Age Qijia Culture (ca. 2200-1600 BC). In July of 2016, the Tao River Archaeological Project began small-scale excavations at Qijiaping. We present a preliminary analysis of the faunal remains uncovered during these excavations. Pigs and sheep were the most commonly identified specimens. Additional identified taxa include large bovines (probably domestic cattle), dog, deer, small rodents, and an unidentified wild bovid....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marc Abramiuk.

The Quebrada de Oro Ruins comprise the remains of one of four known Classic Maya centers located in Bladen Branch region of the Maya Mountains of southern Belize. Initially recorded in the 1970s, the site has not garnered much attention by archaeologists due to its remoteness. However, this has not deterred cartographers from noting it as a significant landmark or archaeologists from asserting that it played an important role in ancient times. This contrasts with the views of the few...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brooks Lawler.

This project examines prehistoric human mobility and raw material preference for tool manufacture in the Tanana River Drainage, Interior Alaska. A geographic approach is used to investigate the distribution of prehistoric obsidian and rhyolitic artifacts in relation to the sources of these materials. The objective of the investigation is to reveal spatial patterning in the distributions of artifacts made of these two materials, relative to each other and relative to the cost of obtaining these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Xiaoting Zhu. Hong Zhu. Hua Zhang. Dongya Yang. Minghui Wang.

This present study investigates human skeletal remains (N=108) of Jiangzhuang site from Xinghua, Jiangsu, China. Jiangzhuang, dated to the Liangzhu Culture (ca. 3400–2250 B.C.), provides a unique opportunity to explore the stress and lifeways of ancient people from the Neolithic rice agricultural community in East China, since the preservation of human remains is very rare due to the acidic soils of the region. Multiple skeletal indicators of stress were examined including oral pathologies,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hinanui Cauchois. John O'Connor.

The Society Islands are of primary importance for understanding human impacts on island ecologies and the dispersal of pre-contact voyaging populations in East Polynesia. Raiatea, the largest island of the Leeward Group, is recognized through Polynesian oral traditions as a locus of regional interaction and a departure point for migrations that colonized the distant islands of Hawaii and Aotearoa (New Zealand) in the second millennium AD. Here we present results from our first season of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yiru Wang. Hong Zhu.

Traumatic injuries and other osseous evidence of stress are important factors that reflect the health status of past populations. Human skeletal remains excavated from the Gouwan (99 human skeletal remains in total), a Yangshao culture site (ca. 5000-3000 B.C.) in Xichuan, Henan Province were examined macroscopically for the evidence of skeletal trauma and stress using a biocultural approach. Trauma was investigated to reveal possible types, causes and rigor of activities in this sedentary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Philippe Nondédéo. Cyril Castanet. Eva Lemonnier. Louise Purdue. Jean-François Cuenot.

Located in the northern Petén, Guatemala, the Maya site of Naachtun has been investigated since 2010 by a pluri-disciplinary French-Guatemalan team. Some of its goals aim to reconstruct the political history of the site and its spatial evolution through time, and to understand the management of local resources and the impact of anthropic activities on the landscape. Archaeological and environmental excavations and studies have been carried out in the city center and surroundings areas while a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcello Canuto. Tomás Barrientos. Luke Auld-Thomas. David Chatelain.

Located in the northwestern Petén, Guatemala, the Maya sites of La Corona and El Achiotal have been investigated since 2008 by a multi-disciplinary US and Guatemalan research project. While a primary goal of this project has been to reconstruct the region’s political history, we are now beginning to investigate the management of local resources and general human impact on the landscape. In fact, the area between La Corona and El Achiotal is almost entirely unknown archaeologically, especially...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Quanjia Chen. Jun Chen. Ping Ji. Chunxue Wang. Yonggang Zhu.

The Haminmangha Neolithic site is located at Horqin Left Wulat Middle Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and dates back to 5500-5000 BP according to radiocarbon dating results. More than 100 bone, antler and tooth artifacts were unearthed from Haminmangha. These artifacts include stone knives with bone handles, bone darts, arrowheads, needle cylinders, needles, daggers, awls, and hairpins, horn, antler awls and borers, tooth ornaments and other bone and antler materials. According to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mandy Ranslow. Sarah Sportman.

Robbins Swamp is a large freshwater swamp located within the Housatonic River drainage in Litchfied County, Connecticut. Archaeological sites within its environs and along nearby rivers date from the Paleoindian period through the Woodland period, indicating the wetland and nearby rivers and streams were an important resource for Native Americans for over 12,000 years. With the exception of George Nicholas' extensive work for his dissertation, which identified 500 additional sites, few...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Natasha Osing. Mengyang Wu. Yuling He.

In the study of refuse pits from Bronze Age China, much effort has been invested in defining chronologies illustrated by ceramic typology, while overlooking the practices surrounding the usage of the pits. Our research is intended to capture and interpret depositional behaviors related to domestic ritual and social organization and transformation during the middle Shang period. We are presenting our preliminary results of a refuse pit (2016NEK0541H128) excavated at Huanbei (late 14th century –...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Collins. Christopher Ames.

Grassridge Rockshelter sits at the base of the Stormberg Mountains in the northern part of the Eastern Cape, South Africa. This region has only been the focus of two previous major archaeological projects, with research at Grassridge last conducted in 1979 and identifying Holocene Later Stone Age and Late Pleistocene Middle Stone Age occupations. The Grassridge Archaeological and Palaeoenvironmental Project (GAPP) renewed research at Grassridge in 2014. In this presentation, we summarise the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fei Peng. Sam Lin. Nicolas Zwyns. Jialong Guo. Xing Gao.

Shuidonggou, a site complex containing multiple Upper Paleolithic localities in Ningxia Province, China, is one of a few archaeological examples in North China that contain artifacts of a blade technology similar to those of the Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) in Mongolia and Siberia 30–40 ka. At Locality 2, the occurrence of two blade cores in the lower layers dated to ~34–41 ka; and has led the lithic industry of the locality to be separated into those of the so-called IUP and others of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Derek Reaux. Geoffrey Smith. Ken Adams. Nicole George. Sophia Jamaldin.

Guano Valley is located between Warner and Catlow valleys. Relative to the surrounding valleys, it has received little attention from professional archaeologists over the years despite early visits by Luther Cressman. During the 2016 field season, the Great Basin Paleoindian Research Unit (University of Nevada, Reno) began a long-term research project in Guano Valley focused on searching for Paleoindian sites in the area. Although our work is in its infancy, we have already uncovered a very rich...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wolfgang Alders. Abdallah Khamis Ali.

We present the preliminary results of a study investigating long-term agricultural history in northern Unguja, the southern island of Zanzibar. In the summer of 2016, we excavated four test pits in modern rice fields to collect bulk, starch, phytolith, C14, and micromorphology samples, as well as samples from upland areas along watersheds, with the aim of characterizing contemporary and ancient land use in the rice-growing western side of the island. We also carried out brief archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Kotar. James M. Savelle.

Paleo-Inuit groups settled and inhabited the Canadian Arctic from 2800 B.C. until the arrival of Thule Inuit groups approximately 1200 A.D. Previous archaeological research indicated that Paleo-Inuit populations were particularly large and stable in a "core area" comprising Foxe Basin, Nunavut, and adjacent regions. The diverse and supposedly stable resources of this area allowed people to continuously inhabit the region for almost 3000 years, including a supposedly smooth transition from the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Biwer.

In this poster I present preliminary results and interpretations of paleoethnobotanical investigations at the site of Quilcapampa, located in the Siguas Valley, Department of Arequipa in south-central Peru. Recent AMS radiocarbon dates indicate Quilcapampa was occupied for a short period during the mid-eighth century AD, which places the site within the Middle Horizon (AD 600-1000). Based on site architecture and ceramic evidence, the site may represent a colonial installation of Wari Empire...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ha Beom Kim. Gyoung-Ah Lee.

This study investigates the land-use pattern of the Middle Mumun culture (c. 29/2800–2400 cal. BP) in south-central region of Korea from a spatial analytic perspective. By employing inter-settlement visibility analysis and geographical variable comparisons, this study explores social and environmental contexts affecting cultural decisions of the Middle Mumun people for their settlement locations. Through our analysis, we find that relationships across the Middle Mumun settlements may have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Kate. J. Heath Anderson. Douglas J. Kennett.

In this paper, we present preliminary paleodietary data and radiocarbon dates for 12 burials recovered from Cerro Magoni, an Epiclassic (ca. AD 600-900) hilltop settlement in Tula, Mexico. Stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) analyses of bone collagen were used to assess the diet of individuals buried near the summit of the settlement. The production of bone collagen requires essential amino acids derived from protein, therefore stable carbon analyses reflect the origins of dietary protein,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bree Bamford.

Excavations conducted at the site of Hup’kisakuu7a (93T), in partnership with the Tseshaht First Nation, unearthed a variety of fauna that merit zooarchaeological analysis. Unlike the major ancient village sites previously excavated, such as Ts’ishaa and Huu7ii, the shallow shell midden of 93T is representative of a small-scale site, potentially occupied over a long period of time, comparable to that of the aforementioned major sites. The faunal assemblage is small in comparison to those of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Will Russell. Sarah Klassen. Katherine Salazar.

Turquoise, both the mineral and the color, are inexorably linked to contemporary ideas of the indigenous Southwest. Without doubt, the importance of turquoise extends back into prehispanic times, although we know relatively little about its cultural significance. The mineral turquoise may also have been represented in a more abstract way; J.J. Brody and Stephen Plog have suggested that Chacoan contemporaries of the Mimbres tradition may have used hachured elements on pottery to represent the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Hastorf.

While archaeobotanist’s work hard at interpreting botanical data, one way to improve our interpretations is to interact about our material, tacking between raw and adjusted data to better understand those transformations with others, bringing us closer to the past. Like a gear change, presenting material and hearing responses make a big difference in our explanations and perspectives. I stress this here because of Steve’s crucial initiation of the Society for Ethnobiology some years ago, which...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremy Freeman. Victoria Munoz. Carolyn Boyd.

The Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas retain hundreds of rock art murals exhibiting varying degrees of preservation. Since 2009 Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center has been documenting the murals, some of which date back 4,000 years. As part of this project, we collect Legacy Photographs to assess historic deterioration of the art. Analysis of these photographs has revealed significant changes in the imagery over the past 50 years; however, the factors affecting its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Boyd. Megan Wady. Andrew Lints. Clarence Surette. Scott Hamilton.

In the last two millennia before European contact, pottery technology was adopted by foragers across much of the southern Canadian Boreal Forest in response to the spread of Woodland (~100 BC – AD 1700) cultural influence. However, the function and importance of pottery in these northern societies remains unclear due to a combination of poor organic preservation, thin and disturbed stratigraphy, and limited archaeological exploration. In this study, we summarize the results of food residue...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Blanca Maldonado. José Luis Punzo. Thilo Rehren. Juan Julio Morales. Avto Gogichaishvili.

Copper was the main metal produced and worked in Mesoamerica, but data for pre-modern primary production and processing remain elusive. Systematic research at Itziparátzico, a Late Postclassic location in Central Michoacán, Mexico, has located evidence of copper production areas where concentrations of smelting slag were recorded. The absence of metallurgical materials other than slag (e.g. crucible fragments, mould fragments, stock metal, metal prills, failed castings, part-manufactured objects...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tyler Howe. Kathryn Sampeck.

This paper presents ethnohistoric accounts, ethnographic commentary, early colonial cartography, and archaeological evidence to investigate factors affecting processes of regionalization in the southeastern Appalachians. Returning to ethnohistorical theoretical and methodological roots of multi-sourced data and community co-construction to understand ethnolandscapes, we explore how central tenets of the Kituwah Way, the ethical and cultural principles guiding Cherokee practices, have observable...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jane Buikstra. Jason King.

Interred within a deep, mounded and relatively elaborate tomb nearly two millennia ago, our Hopewell man lived approximately as many years as we have studied his remains. While his tissues have remained unchanged since excavation, our analytical gaze has witnessed near tectonic shifts in theoretical perspectives. The first interpretations, those of the senior author in zealous pursuit of her doctoral degree, were decidedly processual and lacked reflexivity. She spoke of status, for example,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stefanie Smith.

Data recovery excavations at Site 1Mb504 in the downtown section of the City of Mobile, Alabama produced a large assemblage of faunal material relating to the 19th century occupation of the surrounding city blocks. By the 1840's, the area was occupied as a residential block including the private homes of merchants, doctors, and other professionals, as well as boarding houses for similar professional classes. In the 1910's, land use began to shift from residential to commercial. By the 1950's,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aaron Wright. Colleen Strawhacker.

The onset of the Hohokam Classic Period witnessed the consolidation of settlements within the major river valleys of southern Arizona, a demographic reorganization that culminated after centuries of regional expansion, population growth, and cultural florescence. In the Salt River Valley, the resultant demographic packing was unprecedented and appears to have promoted environmental degradation, aggravated biological stress, and suppressed birth rates. It has been suggested that communities...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Lyons.

Public archaeology, as constructed in the United States, is heavily invested in the efficient use of tax and rate payer moneys to identify archaeological sites. The form of that investment, typically, results in a well certified and experienced archaeological practitioner walking the land and/or systematically probing soils. Although well established, this approach is not without its conspicuous errors and project crushing missteps. With the recent proliferation of remote sensing datasets (e.g.,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carmen Pérez. Yoko Sugiura. Wesley Stoner.

La cerámica Coyotlatelco ha jugado un papel importante en el Epiclásico del Altiplano Central de México. Dicho complejo cerámico se constituye por formas de servicio como ollas, cazuelas, cajetes, platos y vasos, y exhibe características definidas por un alto grado de pulimento y decoración pintada en rojo sobre bayo, cremoso o blanco. Los resultados del análisis NAA y el estilístico, realizados al Coyotlatelco tanto de la cuenca de México como del valle de Toluca señalan que éste no parece...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Garstki.

It is becoming more common to see 3D digital artifacts used for analysis and interpretation, often as if these digital forms are equivalent to the original. This paper discusses the process of creating a 3D model as an essential but often under considered aspect of the final product that should be taken into consideration in their use in any archaeological analysis and interpretation. Digital artifact models inhabit a strange place amongst the suite of traditional archaeological data – their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffany Clark.

Produced between A.D. 1150 and 1550, Chupadero Black‐on‐white pottery is found throughout central and southern New Mexico, and adjacent parts of Texas, Arizona, and Chihuahua, Mexico. Despite its widespread distribution, chemical and mineralogical compositional data indicate that the pottery was manufactured in only two areas of central New Mexico – the Jumanos portion of the Salinas province and Sierra Blanca region. Distributional studies indicate that the Chupadero pottery produced in the two...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marisol Cortes-Rincon. Erik Marinkovich. Cady Rutherford. Spencer Mitchell. Kyle Ports.

This study investigates the nature and intensity of ancient Maya household economies in northwestern Belize. The primary focus will be centered on investigative ways in which settlement pattern data offers insight to understanding production systems in hinterland communities. The preliminary patterned relationship that emerged among settlement features and land resources allowed for the interpretation of land management strategies and production systems implemented in different environment zones...

DOCUMENT Citation Only C. Fred Andrus. Alice R. Kelley. Daniel H. Sandweiss.

El Niño-related changes in marine and terrestrial productivity impacted Chicama residents in several ways, including altering available marine species, soil productivity, and by extension, the technological and economic innovations necessary to adapt. The combination of marine and terrestrial resources were central to the economy of people living in the Chicama Valley throughout the Holocene. Estimates of El Niño’s effects on past marine productivity typically rely on open ocean proxies distant...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Halperin.

In many ways, simple molded Maya figurines during the Late Classic period become ordinary objects, aided in part by the technological capability of reproduction through molds. Nonetheless, molds do not automatically create ordinary, accessible, everyday objects, and, in turn, ordinary objects are not without their ability to delight and affect the senses. This paper draws on newly collected ceramic production evidence from the site of Ucanal, Guatemala, as well as a compilation of research on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Howe.

There is an undeniable trend of a gradual decrease in projectile point size over time in prehistoric North America. About 1000 years ago (1kya), this morphologic decrease seems to plateau at a very small size, until projectile points were no longer used. Most archaeologists today posit that this sudden change has to do with the invention or adoption of the bow and arrow; however, without a large sample of preserved wooden bows, arrows, or darts, it is difficult to say for certain that this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tyler Faith. Margaret Avery.

Over the last several decades, Quaternary scientists have developed numerous techniques to generate quantitative paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on the taxonomic composition of fossil assemblages. The appeal of these methods is that, rather than providing reconstructions in qualitative terms (e.g., cooler versus warmer), they offer potential to generate numerical assessments. While these methods have been applied to a variety of fossil organisms, including pollen, diatoms, foraminifera,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Rhode.

The dry deposits in Promontory Caves #1 and #2, northern Utah, contain abundant well-preserved plant materials related to the late prehistoric occupations there. Much of the plant macrofossil record in both caves, especially Cave #1, represents the manufacture of textiles, in particular the production of bulrush matting. Plant remains attributable to dietary use constitute a small part of the overall assemblage, consistent with the negligible evidence of plant food processing such as milling...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin P. Gilmore. Derek Hamilton. John W. Ives.

Similarities between contemporaneous occupations from the Promontory Caves in Utah and Franktown Cave in eastern Colorado provide evidence of a pre-A.D. 1300 migration of proto-Apachean speakers into the Rocky Mountain west using both Intermontane and Plains margin migration routes. Bayesian modeling of Promontory Culture AMS dates from Franktown Cave suggests a 40-85 year occupation starting in the early A.D. 13th century that likely overlaps the modeled 25-55 year occupation of Promontory Cave...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joel Janetski.

Julian Steward found a distinctive culture in the uppermost levels of several caves on the north shore of the Great Salt Lake and labeled it Promontory after the low range of mountains containing the caves. Based on stratigraphy, material diagnostics and findings elsewhere along the Wasatch Front, he placed the Promontory culture subsequent to the Puebloan (Fremont) and prior to the Shoshone presence. Steward recognized the possibility that these recent cave occupants were Athapaskan speakers...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sturt Manning.

This paper will present some current work in (i) NE North America (northern Iroquoia), (ii) NW Mexico, and (iii) the East Mediterranean-Caucasus using radiocarbon (14C) dates integrated with archaeological/historical and/or dendrochronological information to try to achieve high-resolution chronologies via Bayesian chronological modelling. The paper will discuss and investigate the potential to achieve much greater precision which, through defining new chronologies, can in turn be transformative...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Linn Gassaway.

The increased wildfire activity in Western North America is endangering most if not all historic and prehistoric archaeological sites on American's public lands. This paper looks at how archaeologist can work with fire fighters during these emergencies to protect the most susceptible sites, historic structures and wooden buildings and structures to fire, and how to plan for such event and what steps are needed to best protect these sites during a fire event.

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Oliver. Russell Graham. Thomas Stafford, Jr..

Large datasets of bone 14C dates are the foundation of integrative research in Late Quaternary faunal paleoecology, biogeography, paleogenetics, responses to environmental change, extinction occurrences and rates, and roles of climate and humans in the extinction process. This research requires strict date-assessment protocols including knowledge of material dated, taxon, sample chemistry, fraction dated, isotopic and C/N values. Currently, however, using 50+ years of 14C dates and implementing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Vania Carrillo Bosch. Aline Magnoni. Travis Stanton.

The objective of the paper is to present and compare the notions held by the contemporary residents of the town of Yaxcabá, the municipality’s head, and the village of Yaxunah in Central Yucatán, about the protection and conservation of the archaeological sites on their lands. Even though Yaxcabá and Yaxunah are less than 20 km apart, these two population centers display social, political, and economic differences and have been influenced by varying amounts of exposure to archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Scott. Barney Venables. Steve Wolverton.

Archaeological chemistry continues to expand by adopting taphonomic experimentation as a means to identify the effects of particular processes and conditions on the preservation of biomolecular remains. Analysis of ancient proteins through mass-spectrometry based proteomics requires that archaeological chemists observe and record protein modifications that occur related to processing and use behaviors. We conducted cooking and fermentation experiments using horse milk; we then assessed protein...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Boyoung Lee. Mark Pollard. Holger Kramer.

Silk fibre generally known is made from a species called Bombyx mori, which was domesticated about 2,000 years ago in China. This is reared by human and the process is called sericulture. However there are other wild silk species that are not domesticated but still used in textile making. In an archaeological context, the proof of sericulture could be an index of the cultural and technological development of a location: it implies that there was a developed economy to import or produce silk—and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Isabel Medina-González. Manuel Espinosa-Pesqueira. Gregory Pereira.

Within the large and rich vein of archaeological studies on Western Mesoamerican metallurgy (ca. 800-1500 a.C.), a large body of literature is devoted to the metal production of the Tarasco Kingdom (1420-1522 a.C.), since by 1450 a.C. this became the most important centre of Pre-Columbian metalworking. Indeed many scientific studies have focused on the material and the technological aspects of Tarascan metal artefacts, particularly of copper and copper alloy bells. In comparison, little in known...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle Cannon. Carly Plesic. Khori Newlander.

As a cost-effective and non-destructive method for multi-element analysis, portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) has the potential for broad archaeological application. Here, we employ pXRF for the compositional analysis of pottery sherds collected from Stoddartsville, an early-19th century milling village built along the upper Lehigh River in northeast Pennsylvania. Our analysis demonstrates that we can use compositional data to source pottery sherds to regional potteries, documenting...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dennis Braekmans. Brett Kaufman. Hans Barnand. Ali Drine.

The site of Zita is an urban mound located in southern Tunisia and situated along an ancient trade route from Carthage to Tripoli. It is the highest point on a peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean Sea across from the Island of Djerba, often identified as the Island of Calypso of the Lotus-Eaters from the Odyssey. Established as a Carthaginian settlement around 500 BCE, the city became a Roman regional center in the 1st century CE. Zita still has industrial features such as ceramic kilns and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Howie. Heather McKillop. E. Cory Sills.

The pottery recovered from Late Classic Maya salt works sites can reveal important information about both the production and distribution of this highly valued trade item. Determination of the geographic origin of the serving vessels and storage jars recovered from salt works, for example, provides direct evidence of trade connections to other areas, as well as the geographic extent of the exchange networks through which salt was distributed. From local perspective, the technological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Marston. Canan Çakirlar.

Naomi Miller conducted extensive archaeobotanical research at the urban center of Gordion, in central Turkey, where she worked closely with zooarchaeologist Melinda Zeder to publish an integrated study of diachronic change in agricultural economies and land use. One period, however, was not included in this study: Roman Gordion, when the once-large city became a small military encampment. Drawing on the foundational effort of Miller and Zeder, we couple archaeobotanical data with new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mauricio Torres. Andrea Chávez. Andrea Méndez. Byron Ortiz.

El Parque Arqueológico Cochasquí se encuentra en las estribaciones sur orientales del macizo montañoso de Mojanda, en la provincia de Pichincha a 52 Km al norte de Quito. El sitio está conformado por 15 pirámides truncas, casi todas conservando sus rampas que facilitan el acceso a la parte superior. En el mismo espacio se puede encontrar varios montículos circulares. En 1932 Max Uhle - el primer arqueólogo en realizar excavaciones dentro del sitio – concluyó que las pirámides fueron sitios...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Clark. Andrew Robinson. Margaret Patton. Timothy Reed.

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community Archaeology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The State Historical Society of North Dakota (SHSND) recently acquired a suite of geophysical survey equipment in preparation for collaboration with the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and Spirit Lake Nation. At the same time, a small community cemetery contacted the SHSND for information on locating unmarked burials, as the descendant community...