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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zebulon Hart. Mitchell Grothaus. Timothy Hare.

During our 2015 and 2016 field seasons, we mapped and created 3D models of numerous excavation sites in the Northern Yucatán. Several of these sites are located in Mayapan’s periphery and many were scheduled for destruction due to highway expansion. We used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs/drones) to carry photographic equipment to collect both vertical and oblique photos as well as videos. In several areas we used both visible light and a near-infrared (NIR) cameras. The resulting images were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lynda McNeil.

In his recent analysis of petroglyphs in the Uintah and San Rafael zones east of the Wasatch Mountains, Keyser (2016) identifies a subset of Fremont style figures as "solidly pecked trapezoidal body style Fremont." In this paper, I expand upon Keyser's analysis by adding to this stylistic repertoire a set of anthropomorphic figures that are largely similar to, but lack Classic Fremont diagnostic features, such as horned or winged headdresses, or body decorations, such as necklaces. Rather than...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Browne Ribeiro.

The Mouth of the Xingu River, on the Lower Amazon River, is a place of many histories. The edge of the Amazon Delta, it was the first Portuguese foothold in contemporary Northern Brazil, and later home to a "glorious" 19th-Century rubber boomtown. Centered on the city of Gurupá, the region was a major hub in the traffic of Amerindians and also marked the Western extent of African slaving networks in Luso-Amazonia. Part of the Cabanagem revolt, place of Amazonian Jewry, export center for forest...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pablo Fernando De Jesús Pérez.

El presente estudio trata sobre trabajos realizados en la Sierra Sur de Oaxaca, localizado en los márgenes del río Tehuantepec, región en donde se establecieron grupos humanos dedicados a la caza, pesca, recolección de frutos y agricultura, con recursos naturales que fueron explotados, haciendo posible su establecimiento permanente, dejando plasmada su historia a través de elementos arquitectónicos, que para el año de 2015 fueron explorados arqueológicamente. El desarrollo de esta investigación...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Rosas.

El presente trabajo versa sobre la pintura de la tapa de bóveda 1 del yacimiento arqueológico de Sacnicté, Yucatán. En ella aparecen representados un par de personajes, uno ha sido interpretado como un enano jorobado en actitud amenazante. Al respecto pongo en duda este planteamiento, ya que analizando diferentes aspectos de la imagen como la posición, la postura, el gesto y las características de cada individuo, propongo que se trata únicamente de un individuo jorobado, que señala al otro...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Smith.

This study presents an analysis of the architecture and spatial organization at Maukallaqta de Nuñoa, a prehispanic site within the highlands of Peru dating to the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000 – 1450). Within the northern Titicaca Basin where the site is located, hillforts dominate the archaeological landscape during this time as a result of increased political fragmentation and social discontinuity. While these hillforts often display very little architectural investment other than their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Bartusewich.

This paper will address economic and political interactions of two Cypriot polities during the Iron Age prior to political transitions in about 450 BCE. Idalion is a polity in the interior, near the copper-bearing Troodos Mountains and Kition is a port town on the southern coast. These polities are separate by 20km of rolling hills and plains. By 450 BCE, Kition had obtained political control of Idalion, but there has been little research about these two urban areas interactions prior to this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiina Manne. Peter Veth. Fiona Hook. Kane Ditchfield. Ingrid Ward.

Barrow Island, located 50km off the modern Pilbara coast, contains the longest and richest archaeological record of Pleistocene coastal settlement in northern Australia. During lowered sea levels of the Pleistocene, the island was part of the greater Australian continent. Archaeological survey has revealed an array of sites in cave, rockshelter and open air-settings. The most diverse record has been recovered from a large limestone cave, where repeated visits began at c. 50 ka BP and continued...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cristiana Barreto. Helena Lima.

Archaeologists working in the lower Amazon have been identifying a particular ceramic style with a vast regional distribution, including the Caribbean, the Guyanas, the Amazon estuary and, more recently, the lower Amazon floodplain. This paper will discuss the distribution and varibility of this style in the lower Amazon, its correlation with Carib speaking groups, and the possible contexts, processes and practices that generated such dispersion.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Weilin Wang.

As one of the most influential archaeological cultures in prehistoric China, the Miaodigou Phase of the Yangshao Culture has been found widely in many regions. During the Miaodigou Phase, a common cultural identity appeared across China for the first time, which had great significance for the later formation of Chinese civilization. However, archaeological research has until recently been limited to the study of ceramic styles. In recent years, investigations at the Yangguanzhai site in Shaanxi...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicolas Naudinot. Gregor Marchand.

Prehistoric archaeology is now focusing on past hunter-gatherers societies behaviors and relationships with their environments. In Western France, the Late glacial and the Early Holocene were the stage of an important research dynamic. The chrono-cultural organization has been revised relying in particular on the excavation of new key sites. This research shed greater light on the human territories and paleo-economic behaviors. Understanding human mobility depends on our control of time linked...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren E. Schwartz.

Interpretations of Mesoamerican households tend to focus on activities that might rightly be associated with daylight hours and mostly informed by material culture that is moveable and multipurpose. However, intensive examinations of the non-movable or architectural composition of household settings have recently revealed even more about these diverse and socially complex domestic spaces. This examination initiates an analysis of the interaction between humans and their built-environment as it...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelly Monteleone. Andrew Wickeret. E. James Dixon.

The coastline of SE Alaska was submerged by post-Pleistocene sea level rise from at least 16,000 cal yrs BP until it stabilized about 10,600 cal yrs BP. The submerged continental shelf was modeled using bathymetry and other data to identify areas exhibiting high potential for the occurrence of archaeological sites. Two seasons of underwater archaeological survey have been conducted at this location (NSF OPP -#0703980 and 1108367), using multibeam sonar, side-scan sonar, sub-bottom profiler,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christophe Delaere.

Since 2014, the project of underwater archaeology in Lake Titicaca (ULB), gives priority to the study of the Yampupata strait between the Island of the Sun and the Copacabana Peninsula. This research strategy was chosen because of different elements: First of all, the Island is a homogenous insular territory whose affordable dimensions (14,3 Km2) allow underwater activities. Secondly, one of the main characteristics of this territory is its dense, complex and continuous occupation which has been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather McKillop. Harry Roberts. Karen McKee. Terrance Winemiller. John Jones.

Following the discovery and mapping of over 100 salt works in a shallow, salt-water lagoon system, a collaborative, interdisciplinary research project was initiated with funding from NSF to examine the ancient landscape, sea-level rise, use of the wooden buildings for salt production and as residences, and reconstruct the underwater sites using 3D GIS. Sediment coring across the lagoon system identified red mangrove peat, an indicator of actual sea-level rise, as well as a plethora of pollen...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Sportman. David Leslie.

The CTDOT Walk Bridge Replacement Project in Norwalk, Connecticut presented several challenges, making it unsuitable for a traditional Phase I archaeological survey. The urbanized Area of Potential Effect (APE) has been heavily industrialized since the mid-19th century. The pervasive ground disturbance, landmaking, and hazardous soil contamination that characterize the APE presented obstacles to typical survey methods such as hand-excavated shovel test pits. Documentary research identified...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Frieda Bogemans. Rindert Janssens. Cecile Baeteman.

Over the past century archaeological research in Upper Khuzestan has shown a long history of settlements in the alluvial plains. The Lower Khuzestan plain has barely been studied with research has been restricted to superficial surface surveys. The nearby presence of the Persian Gulf and the downstream parts of the rivers Karun and Jarrahi, the first one being the largest river in Iran, offer great potential for human settlements and activities. In lowlands, however, processes of sedimentation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Calogero Santoro. José M Capriles. Claudio Latorre. Eugenia Gayo. Ricardo De Pol Holz.

New archaeological evidence demonstrates that by 12,800 years ago, bands of hunter-gatherers effectively occupied the hyperarid basins of the Atacama Desert. The selection of the habitats they exploited and the location of their activity areas were constrained by specific environmental circumstances that coincide with positive moisture anomalies that provided abundant resources. The distributions and properties of which were likely managed by these people to create complex landscapes using...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith Wismer.

Fat in the form of bone marrow and/or grease is a valued resource among foragers, and is more frequently exploited during times of subsistence stress. Risk-reduction in the face of resource stress is one potential theory for why prehistoric people incorporated horticulture into existing hunting and gathering practices. During the Woodland period (2800-1350 BP), the tallgrass prairie region of western Iowa provided a rich environment where numerous prey species could be found, including bison and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chelsey Geralda Armstrong. Dana Lepofsky. Leslie Main Johnson. Nancy Turner.

It is widely understood that humans have varying degrees of influence on a wide range of ecological patterns and processes. In British Columbia an array of landscape management practices have been documented among Indigenous communities resulting in novel ecosystems. Yet, little is known about the range and extent of these eco-human dynamics in pre-settler colonial contexts. We explore the concept of "unique ecologies" as a way of better understanding the untold past of ecological and cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Harkleroad.

Discussions of ritual in society often focus on how ritual is used to bring individuals, communities, and larger social groups together. The role of ritual in violent interactions and warfare is less often considered and often what discussion there is focuses on the use of warfare to procure captives for public rituals, such as execution. Virtually ignored in this discussion is the role ritual plays in routinizing violence and warfare and how this ultimately impacts individuals and societies....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cristina Real Margalef. Aleix Eixea. Alfred Sanchis. João Zilhão. Valentín Villaverde.

Excavations at Abrigo de la Quebrada (Chelva, Valencia) have revealed 9 archaeological levels belonging to Neanderthal occupations. Level IV, characterised by a high density of lithic (>18,000) and bone (>100,000) remains, has been dated with AMS between 43,930±750 BP (Beta-244002) and >50.8 ka BP (OxA-24855). Human presence in the shelter has been favoured by its location, giving rise to a kind of natural trap where hunting animals would be feasible. The immediate environment is varied (abrupt...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsay Bloch. Douglas Armstrong. Jillian Galle.

A wide variety of ceramics are recovered in plantation contexts on Barbados and Jamaica, from hand-built coarse earthenwares to refined tablewares, as well as industrial wares for sugar production. The origins for these ceramics are often uncertain. In addition to the importation of ceramics from Great Britain and elsewhere in the Americas, many potters and workshops existed on the islands to produce both quintessentially Caribbean pots as well as European-style vessels. To better understand...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Supriya Varma.

The peninsula of Saurashtra is a distinctive physiographical region in western India that is surrounded by the sea on all sides except the east, where it is attached to the mainland of South Asia. This square peninsula, virtually a cul-de-sac, is somewhat isolated when compared to the Gujarat plains that are located to its east. Farmers, pastoralists, crafters and traders have left behind their signatures through settling and unsettling in a region, which is characterized by shallow,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Lancelotti. Jonas Alcaina Mateos. Javier Ruiz perez. Alessandra Pecci. Marco Madella.

Jandhala is a small village in the rural countryside of North Gujarat (India) where many of the activities related to food processing are still non-mechanized. One compound within the village has been investigated ethnographically to test a novel methodology to unravel activity areas. In this paper we present the results of investigations in the courtyard of the compound. Over 170 samples were collected, in a regular grid of 2x2 meters, and analyzed for multi-element geochemistry. We compare our...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claire Alix. Owen Mason. Lauren Norman.

Birnirk culture is well-known for driftwood structures that were repeatedly re-assembled to form low mounds. The structures were "hopeless tangle[s] of logs" to pioneering 1930s archaeologists whose reports lack details on construction techniques. Birnirk houses diverge from the preceding Old Bering Sea and later Thule single room houses with lengthy entrance tunnels. Our 2016 fieldwork "followed the wood," employing enhanced photography within two exceptionally preserved houses at Cape...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Klassen. Jonathan Weed. Damian Evans.

One of the largest puzzles for archaeologists at Angkor is untangling the extremely complex chronological development of the site. The region was host to hundreds of years of urban occupation arising out of a long tradition of habitation through the Bronze and Iron Age. Decades of archaeological investigations have established relational frameworks through which it is now possible to do more precise dating. Recent LiDAR investigations and the associated mapping and ground truthing have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stefanie Bautista. Justin Jennings. Willy Yépez Alvarez.

The seventh century AD marked a period of great social change in the coastal valleys of Arequipa, Perú. During this time, an increase in violence, population growth, and social complexity was met with foreign influences from the Wari state of the central highlands. While scholars have long asserted that Arequipa fell under Wari control at this time, the evidence for direct state control has never been demonstrated conclusively in the region. This presentation reports the results of our...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Kassabaum. Ashley Peles.

During the Coles Creek period (AD 700–1200), people constructed three earthen mounds at the Feltus site in Jefferson County, Mississippi. Before, during, and after the construction of these earthworks, Feltus was a location for ritual gatherings characterized by communal feasts and ritual post activities. Archaeological investigations at Feltus produced not only a large amount of bear bone, but a range of skeletal elements that are unusual at prehistoric sites. The nature of these remains and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Craig Goralski. Alexis Gray.

In 2014, the Unidentified Persons Project transitioned from being a small scale volunteer-based project to a twenty-three student forensic archaeology field school, allowing for the exhumation and DNA sampling of a much larger number of individuals than had been previously possible. This paper will summarize the opportunities and challenges associated with this transition from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, and will discuss the evolution of the project’s research questions and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erich Fisher. Jamie Hodgkins. Curtis Marean.

Zooarchaeology continues to suffer methodological problems in that analysts use methods for calculating skeletal element and surface modification abundance that vary widely, are non-transparent, and almost certainly produce data that is not comparable across analysts. In 2001, Marean, Abe, Nilssen, and Stone presented a method to overcome these problems by using a GIS-based approach to calculate minimum numbers of skeletal elements (MNE) and surface modification frequencies corrected for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mietje Germonpré. Martina Láznicková-Galetová. Mikhail Sablin. Hervé Bocherens.

With this contribution, we would like to present our ideas concerning the first steps in the domestication process of the dog. Two main hypotheses on the origin of the dog have been proposed: 1)"Self-domestication" by wolves: Some wolves were following Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to scavenge on the remains of prey left by the prehistoric people at the human settlements. Generation after generation, these wandering wolves adapted themselves to the human dominated environment. 2)"Social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Sarig. Ofer Marder. Omry Barzilai. Bruce Latimer. Israel Hershkovitz.

The study on the partial calvarium discovered at Manot Cave, Western Galilee, Israel (dated to 54.7 ± 5.5 kyr BP, Hershkovitz et al. 2015), revealed close morphological affinity with recent African skulls as well as with early Upper Paleolithic European skulls, but less so with earlier anatomically modern humans from the Levant (e.g., Skhul). The ongoing fieldwork at the Manot Cave has resulted in the discovery of several new hominin teeth. These include a lower incisor (I1), a right lower...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marilyn Masson.

A usually predictable attribute of Postclassic Maya settlements (in Belize and Yucatan) is the abundance of faunal remains relative to preceding Classic Period contexts. This discrepancy is not attributable to taphonomy or bone age, given the recovery of human bone from both periods and the abundance of fauna in even earlier Preclassic deposits. Robust forest environments, balanced human predation levels, and variable animal husbandry practices represent the best explanations for the wealth of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Kulick.

Sequences at Bronze Age Cretan settlement sites are defined by destructive events, natural or anthropogenic, that capture cultural material in a particular time and space. The traditional approach of studying urban archaeological contexts based on these snapshots of material culture is not completely suitable for analyzing transitional phases that occur between these events. However, detailed micromorphological examination of the sediments present in these transitional stratigraphic sequences...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tibor Lieskovsky. Milan Kovac. Tomas Drapela.

The paper deals with validation and quality estimation of spatial data acquired in the focus area of the project "Proyecto arquelogico regional – Uaxactun" as a part of a LIDAR project supported by the PACUNAM. The project has 2 high-quality 3D models of the pre-classical city of Uaxactun and the site of Dos Torres acquired by detailed topographical survey of the focus area at its disposal. The DEMs serve as basis for the evaluation of spatial accuracy of the LiDAR DSM and an etalon for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Patton. Trevor Orchard.

Eulachon was an important resource for many NWC First Nations. Ethnographers such as Garfield and Boas note the particular importance of this fish among the Tsimshian. One of the primary eulachon spawning locations on the coast is at the mouth of the Nass River, north of PRH, and rights to fish at particular locations in this area were owned by Tsimshian descent groups. Access to this fish, its processing, and storage played an important role in structuring subsistence and settlement patterns,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcelo Ibarra López.

The cultural core of the Tarascan society settled in the region of what is now Michoacán, western Mexico. For the Tarascans, gathering firewood was a sacred activity, and the maintenance of a never-ending fire within their temples or "cues" was an essential part of their religion. This sacred element was an offering for their most venerated god, Curicaueri. Collecting wood was an activity so sacred that even the tools used to retrieve it were transformed into consecrated objects sharing the same...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathaniel Kitchel.

Red Munsungun chert from northern Maine has long been recognized as an important lithic raw material during the fluted point period of New England. Building upon this observation, recent lithic sourcing efforts using visual and XRF geochemical techniques, have demonstrated that this material is virtually ubiquitous in fluted point sites from the region. This same study also shows that red Munsungun chert is transported over longer distances than other raw materials commonly used at this time....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Xinyi Liu. Zhijun Zhao.

This article reviews the use of Chenopodium plants in Chinese archaeobotanical record. We will draw attention to two regions particularly, Northeast and Southwest China. We will consider the use of Chenopodium food in the context of origins of agriculture in China.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shera Fisk. Laure Spake. Luisa Marinho. Ellie Gooderham. Hugo F. V. Cardoso.

The onset of puberty, characterized by menarche in females, marks the important transition from the juvenile to the adolescent life-history stage. Limited research has been done to investigate the relationship between this transition and indicators of skeletal and dental maturation. This study examines the association between age of menarche and stages of skeletal and dental development seen in radiographs of the hand/wrist and dentition, using a sample of 33 females followed longitudinally in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leonor Pena-Chocarro. Guillem Pérez Jordà.

This presentation focuses on the various examples collected from northern Morocco during ethnographic fieldwork on the use of dung. Apart from the most known use of dung as fuel, traditional communities in the Moroccan Rif used dung for other purposes such as flooring, tempering, manuring, making containers for storage, etc. This paper will discuss the various uses of this important material and results will be compared to other examples from other Mediterranean areas.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Hasenstab.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are typically used in Archaeology to analyze the patterning of sites in a region. Part of this patterning is the result of past human social behavior. Such patterns are manifested in the spatial arrangement of sites on the landscape. These patterns and arrangements can be analyzed using certain GIS methods. This paper presents GIS methods sensitive to analyzing prehistoric social dynamics. Demonstration of the methods is shown by way of example as well as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rory Becker. George Holley. Jakob Jensen.

Monochrome ultraviolet (UV) photography provides a new method in the analysis of incised imagery on stone artifacts. In this study, the technique is used to enhance the interpretation of figures on a collection of finely incised catlinite tablets from the Red River Valley of Minnesota and North Dakota. The nine hand-sized tablets included here are commonly associated with the Oneota tradition, although these display designs rooted in Plains themes. These tablets are ideal for the method as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steven Holen. Kathleen Holen.

Patterns of use wear and distinctive breakage are caused when a bone is broken on an anvil surface.The use wear on cortical bone surfaces consists of high polish and linear striations. Breakage patterns can include negative cones of percussion, cone flakes, rebound flakes removed from the cortical surface and V-shaped or U-shaped projections. In sites where there is only evidence of bone processing, these features, and other distinctive breakage patterns, can help identify human activities in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yichao Zhao.

Some preliminary research on ceramic vessels of the Longshan culture had indicated li vessels as the most important type of cooking vessels. Vessel's categories might not exclusively indicate a vessel type. As was observed for the Tonglin site, an important site of Longshan culture at Linzi, li, guan, and pen vessels are the most abundant categories type. However, li vessels of Tonglin site have small rim diameter sizes on average, and it is necessary to collaborating use-wear analysis for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Womack.

Excavated in 1978, the cemetery at the site of Dibaping in southern Gansu Province, China revealed hundreds of Banshan period (2600-2300BC) ceramic vessels. The elaborately painted geometric motifs on many of the vessels led to them quickly being touted as an example of the pinnacle of artistic achievement in Neolithic northwestern China. Aside from typology, however, no other analyses have been done on these objects. The result is that little is known about how these vessels were created, the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicola Howard.

Do you have a collection of tiny teeth, bones or seeds?? Photomicroscopy might be for you! This poster demonstrates the results of a four month contract position to digitize a small section of the Quaternary Palaeontology’s collections at the Royal Alberta Museum in 2013/14. Photomicroscopy is an effective, non-invasive digitization technique for museums and educational institutions to be able to expand the accessibility of collections for display and education purposes. Taking several photos of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Loebel.

Historically, microwear studies have focused around resolving issues centered on tool form and function. However, microwear also offers the opportunity to investigate site level activities surrounding "soft" technology, particularly in situations where organic preservation is poor or absent. In addition, when combined with a holistic approach to assemblage composition, microwear can provide larger insights into the organization of technology and larger patterns of adaptation. In this paper I...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lewis Borck. Leslie Aragon.

Between approximately A.D. 800—1450, politically oriented religious movements flourished and withered throughout the Hohokam world of the Greater Southwest. The public architecture associated with these movements is some of the only remaining evidence that archaeologists have for their occurrence. While researchers have started to investigate how these movements were politically intertwined, in this paper we lay out an argument that their physical remains can also be used to ontographically...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claudine Gravel-Miguel.

Anthropological research suggests that climate and environmental resources influence the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers. My research uses an agent-based model to generate test expectations related to the impact of different geographical and social environments on the social networks formed therein. It focuses on Magdalenian social networks created in the Cantabrian and Dordogne region, and visible through similarities of portable art representations. The regional resources and climate of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Carroll.

Archaeologists often find themselves excavating sites where previous investigations have been performed, and documentation relating to earlier work may be of varying quality. This discussion focuses on the use of a topographic mapping drone to assess error and uncertainty in archaeological site survey performed at Tel Lachish, Israel since the 1930’s. Systematic assessments of historical map datasets were performed within a Geographic Information System (GIS) allowing for an enhanced...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lana Martin.

Many people recognize the need for markedly different mode of living amid a growing body of scientific evidence that the current world population is environmentally unsustainable. Exploring ancient foodways and landscape management techniques may improve our ability to imagine highly productive modes of food production and resource consumption dissimilar to that of our current global reality. Here, I show how a reconstruction of macrobotanical and faunal remains builds a narrative of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Moots.

The Neolithic Transition brought with it a number of changes in the relationships that people had with animals, plants and pathogens. Increasing proximity to domesticated and commensal animals, and larger, denser communities shifted the disease ecologies of these communities and resulted in an increasing number of disease vectors. I use ancient and modern DNA to look at the effects that these new dietary and epidemiological trends had on people in the past and the genomic legacies of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Niespolo. Warren Sharp. Christian Tryon. J. Tyler Faith. Todd Dawson.

The Middle to Later Stone Age transition in East Africa ~30-60 ka has been hypothesized as a response to increased resource risk due to cooler, drier Late Pleistocene environments with greater short-term variability. Local paleoenvironmental records are needed to test such hypotheses. Ostrich eggshell (OES) fragments are common in African archaeological sequences, are amenable to 14C and U-series dating, and their δ13C and δ15N values are known to correspond to the C isotopes of vegetation and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charlene Murphy.

Pulses were an important crop in human prehistory. Tracking traits of domestication in pulses has been limited in the past due to poor preservation of diagnostic features of domestication. Traditionally, morphometric techniques have focused on changes in seed size. The authors measured horsegram (Macrotyloma uniflorum) from South Asia, dating from the Neolithic (2000BC) to the Early Historic Period (400-700AD), which showed an increase through time with domestication. This is in juxtaposition to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Philip De Barros.

Philip de Barros, Palomar College. A 2013 study of the ethnoarchaeology of the blacksmithing village of Upper Bidjomambe in the ironworking region of Bassar in northern Togo provided invaluable data to help archaeologists interpret archaeological smithing sites. Oral traditions document the village's occupation from ca. 1870 to 1970 when it was abandoned leaving it virtually intact with little disturbance or tool recycling. An 80+-year-old informant formerly from Upper Bidjomambe, who was a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Cook. Mark Schurr.

Examining the formation histories of houses within prehistoric villages is difficult in cases with coarse resolution of radiocarbon dates and lack of stratigraphic relationships. Here we examine this problem by using two relative dating techniques, accumulation studies of artifacts and fluoride dating of animal bone, at the Guard site, an early (ca., AD 1000-1300) Fort Ancient village located in southeast Indiana. The sampling strategy involved excavating test units in all houses to assess the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emma Jenkins. Sarah Elliott. Samantha Allcock. Carol Palmer. John Grattan.

Our understanding of Neolithic sites in southwest Asia is often impeded by the lack of preservation of biological evidence. As a result, they often consist of a series of structures, the construction and function of which, remains elusive. In order to address this problem we conducted a study which used phytoliths and geochemistry from an ethnographic site in Jordan, Al Ma’tan, to determine if certain building construction techniques and anthropogenic activities leave specific phytolith and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Celia Goncalves. João Cascalheira. Jonathan Haws. Mussa Raja. Nuno Bicho.

The central topic of this poster focus on the conversion of archaeological survey data to a GIS format for the identification of settlement patterns by communities that inhabited the Elephant river region, a tributary of the Limpopo River (southern Mozambique), from c. 300 to c. 20 thousand years ago. Specifically, we tried to identify and characterize the settlement dynamics of each cultural phase (MSA and LSA), in order to understand the choices related to the selection of site location in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Travis Stanton. Aline Magnoni. Jessica Wheeler. Nicolas Barth.

The first research performed by the Proyecto de Interaccion Politica del Centro de Yucatan centered on understanding the impact of Chichen Itza in the region to the southwest of this Terminal Classic city. Working in an area of roughly 500 square kilometers around the site of Yaxuna we performed traditional ground reconnaissance and mapping at numerous centers in the region from 2007 to 2013 to better understand regional settlement patterns and how they changed with the establishment and growth...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Carr. Jeffrey Brewer. Nicholas Dunning. Kathryn Reese-Taylor. Armando Anaya Hernández.

Airborne lidar presents a valuable tool to investigate water management in a water-scarce region of the Maya lowlands. We analyze 25 sq-km of lidar elevation data for the ancient Maya site of Yaxnohcah in Campeche, Mexico. Using the hydrologic tools in the GIS software ArcMap we identified hundreds of closed depressions (many extremely small). These features may have a natural origin (e.g. a sink hole) or may be anthropogenic (e.g. from quarrying), or may be data artifacts. We used a series of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina M. Giovas.

For some time archaeologists have speculated that non-native mammals introduced to the prehistoric Caribbean may have been managed in captivity, but direct evidence for this practice has been wanting. The question of management is complicated by ambiguous and conflicting data from ethnohistory, animal behaviour, and archaeology, as well as potentially unwarranted assumptions about human interaction with synanthropic animals. I examine this issue for introduced agouti (Dasyprocta sp.) and opossum...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Ryan.

Management and dissemination of data has long been a challenge for archaeologists, and this challenge has increased in recent years with demands from various funding agencies for data management plans. Additionally, querying the complex datasets generated often results in iterative rounds of SQL code creation as each answer raises further questions. Online analytical processing (OLAP), a tool for multi-dimensional analysis used by many private companies for reporting, management, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juliette Mitchell. Dave Cowley.

This paper will show how using multiple techniques will refresh our understanding of cropmark sites, which is imperative for their protection and preservation. This work comes out of a research project looking at barrow cemeteries in north and east Scotland, the wealth of aerial archive was reviewed and explored through multiple methods. Rectifying and transcribing the aerial APs was one aspect, but ground survey picked up newly identified upstanding barrows at multiple sites. The results extend...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Theodora Moutsiou.

This poster presents the preliminary results of an extensive geo-chemical fingerprinting program using pXRF that was undertaken on a large and diverse lithic collection that included three different raw materials, namely obsidian, carnelian and picrolite. Specifically, the project investigated the use of these three raw materials in Early Holocene lithic assemblages - stone tools and ornaments - from the island of Cyprus, eastern Mediterranean. Obsidian, carnelian and picrolite have been defined...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Raghda El-Behaedi. Douglas Gamble. Eman Ghoneim. Eleanora Reber.

The Abu Simbel temples, commissioned by Ramesses II in Upper Egypt, are vulnerable to inundation due to the ancient structure’s proximity to the Nile River. Because of the rapid rise of water in the Lake Nasser reservoir, large swaths of land are becoming submerged. In order to monitor the recession of the peninsula in which the structure is located on, remote sensing techniques were employed. Using Landsat 5, 7, and 8 multispectral images coupled with SRTM data, change detection and risk maps...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Schott.

The Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona has a long record of prehistoric occupation, including within extensive deposits of semi-stabilized dunes and sand sheets. It has been hypothesized that during the Pueblo periods, inhabitants farmed these eolian soils. Eolian sands are not typically conducive to dry-farmed agriculture; however, dune farming is known ethnographically, and has been inferred in archaeological contexts on the southern Colorado Plateau. This paper...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Khori Newlander.

In many regions of the world, archaeologists use sourcing studies to document patterns of toolstone procurement and conveyance that, in turn, inform their understanding of prehistoric lithic technological and socioeconomic organization. This is certainly true of Charlotte Beck and George T. Jones’s research in eastern Nevada, where the sourcing of obsidian, andesite, and dacite artifacts has figured prominently in their study of Paleoindian lifeways. In this paper, I briefly reflect on Beck and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anneke Janzen. Patrick Roberts. Nicole Boivin.

The spread of pastoralism through Kenya may have been slowed by novel disease challenges presented to livestock by wild taxa. In particular, wildebeest-derived malignant catarrhal fever (WD-MCF), which is extremely fatal to cattle, would have been encountered by pastoralists for the first time as they moved south of the Lake Turkana Basin into the native range of East African wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus). Today, migratory wildebeest have well-known annual migration patterns. However, while...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Stantis. Hallie Buckley. Amy Commendador. John Dudgeon.

Though many ethnohistoric sources in the tropical Pacific recount chiefly feasting events, few describe the feeding practices of children despite the impact childhood nutrition has on morbidity and mortality throughout an individual’s life history. The Namu burial ground (circa 750 — 300 BP) on the island of Taumako in the southeast Solomon Islands provides a direct means of understanding prehistoric life on a Polynesian Outlier. Twenty individuals from the 226 excavated were sampled as part of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jan Pérez. Isabel Rivera-Collazo.

Human activities leave chemical traces in the sediments, which can give us clues about the content of the subsoil and the activities that might have occurred in the past. In this study we evaluate the potential of the geochemical evaluation of sediment samples collected from surface survey for the identification of buried patterns of human activity at the site of Tierras Nuevas, is an archaeological site in a tropical environment. Based on topographical characteristics, we had identified...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Davies. Simon Holdaway. Patricia Fanning.

In Australia’s desert regions, different conceptual models are sometimes used to explain patterning in late Holocene surface deposits. Among these patterns are distributions of radiocarbon determinations, which have been concurrently explained as generated by intermittent occupation by hypermobile foragers, or growing semi-resident populations of broad-spectrum hunter-gatherers. This paper shows how models connected to the language and logic of record formation can help resolve competing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Cvinar.

In 2016, the National Park Service celebrated its centennial anniversary thus reminding the public that places of historical significance matter to our national cognizance. Using the National Historic Landmark designation as a means for public education, this papers draws upon my Master’s thesis project, which focuses on building a bridge among CRM, research, and public education at the national level. It serves as a model for how graduate-level, archaeological training contributes to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arlen Mildred Talaverano Sanchez. William Mc Collum. Steven A. Wernke.

Los espacios rituales han sido desde siempre lugares importantes dentro de las comunidades humanas pues son la expresión material de sus creencias y su fe. En el caso del Virreinato del Perú, la invasión española del siglo XVI significó un cambio radical en la concepción y materialización de la religiosidad practicada, donde la construcción de edificios de carácter religioso encarnó el cambio de vida y costumbres de los pueblos conquistados. Esta ponencia explora el espacio arquitectónico de la...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Asia Alsgaard.

Nestedness analysis suggests that the presence of specific ichthyofauna in assemblages from seven different sites from the northern Yucatán peninsula may be a result of the life-histories of those species or cultural preferences rather than being driven by environmental barriers. The results suggests that the assemblages may be derived from different populations suggesting that they are not coming from the same source. I argue that while trade is playing a role, it is also likely that ancient...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kaitlyn Cometa. Allen Denoyer.

Antelope Creek is a part of the important larger obsidian source at Mule Creek in Southwestern New Mexico. Antelope Creek contains an abundance of both poor and good quality obsidian that appears to have developed from the same volcanic event. In this experiment, a large sample of Antelope Creek obsidian was collected and tested for quality through the process of flintknapping. Results indicate that knappers can readily tell a poor quality nodule from a good quality nodule from this source by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Gould.

In an era of globally declining government funding for culture, including archaeology and heritage, the philanthropic sector will loom increasingly important to funding this discipline. Major philanthropic organizations and individual philanthropists increasingly are seeking to define and measure the impact of the causes they fund. That "impact" may be social, economic, political or cultural, but in all cases the essential element is a set of clearly defined impact metrics. This change in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin McAllister. Brent Kober.

Law enforcement officers working for agencies not directly involved in land management, such as county sheriff’s departments, traditionally have not been trained to recognize evidence of crimes related to resource protection, for example, artifacts and human remains stolen in the commission of archaeological crimes. In a recent class presented by our firm and cohosted by the Lake County, California Sheriff’s Department and two California tribes, sheriff’s deputies and evidence technicians...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anne Underhill. Fengshi Luan. Fen Wang.

Recent research does not support the common view that the numerous large sites from the Longshan period of northern China ca. 2500-1900 BC represent a homogeneous type of settlement with respect to developmental process, scale, and organization. Most publications regard these large settlements as cities and expect they share specific features indicative of organizational homogeneity. The focus has been on large Longshan and later, early Bronze Age settlements in Henan province. We discuss...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Boswell. Ellen Howe. Joanne Pillsbury. Deborah Schorsch.

In the last thirty years, archaeological investigations on the north coast of Peru have produced a wealth of new information leading to nuances in our understanding of Moche sociopolitical organization (AD 200-800). These discoveries have included excavations of intact tombs of Moche male and female elites, interred with their ritual regalia and other grave goods. Metal ornaments made up an important part of this regalia, yet our understanding of Moche metallurgy technology and its relationship...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Miquel Molist. Josep Bosch. Anna Gómez. Sílvia Calvo. Mònica Borrell.

This paper presents a synthesis regarding the exploitation of the variscite mineral in the prehistoric mines of Gava, Spain, as well as the manufacturing of ornaments and their dissemination during the Neolithic period. Special emphasis will be given to the results of the latest research in both the mineralogical characterization and archaeological interpretations derived.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Spencer Armitage.

Hup’kisakuu7a (93T, DfSh-43) is a small pre=contact site in Tseshaht territory. This site was excavated in 2015 and 2016 in order to determine to what extent smaller sites in Barkley Sound were being used during the late and mid-Holocene (ca 5,000-200 cal BP). Two 2x2 meter units were excavated. A column sample was taken from the north wall of each units in 2016. These column samples reached a depth of 120 cm depth below datum (DBD) in unit 1, and 137 cm DBD in unit 2. The sediment recovered...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ye Wa. Weilin Wang. Liping Yang. Mitchell Ma. Mathew Fox.

Of all features excavated at the late Neolithic site of Yangguanzhai since 2005—including houses, hearths, postholes, kilns, child and adult burials, and ditches—pits features, known by the generic term "huikeng" or "ash pit" in Chinese archaeology, account for about 80%. Detailed studies of such features are important not only because of their sheer number, but also because their contents are often used as criteria for site dating and chronology. As our excavation of one such feature (H85)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Seifried.

This paper offers a glimpse into the roles played by religion during the decline of one empire and the emergence of another, from the perspective of a historical case study: the Mani Peninsula. Mani is a peripheral region in the Peloponnese, Greece, that converted to Orthodox Christianity under the Byzantine Empire, and its occupants maintained this religious identification throughout the subsequent periods of Ottoman and Venetian rule. This unbroken religious continuity, which can be traced in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Morgan.

The Terrace Building Complex at the Iron Age site of Gordion in Turkey has been called the most complete picture of organized textile production at a Mediterranean palatial center. Artefactual analysis of the numerous textile tools discovered in the Terrace Building has provided a foundation for ambitious models of the Phrygian political economy: it’s been suggested that textiles produced in this ‘industrial quarter’ were intended as payment for the Phrygian army, or tribute. Analyses of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carly Whelan.

The ethnographically documented Mono Lake Paiute of Eastern California regularly crossed the Sierra Nevada to procure acorns from Yosemite Valley; a total journey of fourteen days. It is not clear whether such trips are economically efficient in their own right, or were undertaken as components of social excursions to visit and trade with the Yosemite Me-Wuk, or as journeys of necessity in years with poor piñon pine nut harvests. To evaluate the economic productivity of procuring acorns from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ken Seligson. George J. Bey III. Betsy M. Kohut. Tomás Gallareta Negrón.

Escalera al Cielo (EaC) is a Terminal Classic Period Maya elite hilltop complex located 1.5 km to the west of the site of Kiuic in the Puuc Region of the Northern Lowlands. Previous research on the hilltop focused largely on investigating the organization and day-to-day activities associated with the northern residential architectural group. The southern group, located atop the highest spur of the hill and consisting of four vaulted masonry structures accessed by a grand staircase, was believed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alanna Warner-Smith.

Several scholars have explored the role of the empirical sciences in colonial contexts; far from a neutral study of the world, they were actively making and remaking material, social, and geographic boundaries. Cartography was part of these boundary-making practices, as the varying positions and views of actors engaging with the world are dissolved into the singular, authoritative view offered by the map. Studying a cholera epidemic that moved through the Caribbean in the 1850s, I consider how...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Howard Higgins. Brenda Ireland. Sandra Marian.

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Many Indigenous groups that underwent the deleterious effects of colonialism and forced acculturation are now in the process of repatriating their traditional knowledge and culture and reclaiming their unique identities, social structures, and governance. In Canada, this process of self-determination is within the context of the United Nations...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tamara Bray.

In this paper I re-visit a particularly interesting find made in the Pimampiro District of northern highland Ecuador a number of years ago. It consisted of a traditional shaft tomb burial that contained an unusual assemblage of items, which included seemingly obvious Late Period Caranqui and Panzaleo wares together with a set of four Nueva Cadiz beads. How and why did these precious European objects penetrate this seemingly remote region at such an early date to be inserted into such a basic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Baitzel.

Although limited in area compared to the neighboring Moquegua, Caplina, and Azapa valleys, the Sama valley (Departamento Tacna, Peru) with its the warm temperature, perennial water sources and arable flood plain creates hospitable conditions for highlanders who settled the valley as early as Late Horizon period. In his 1567 visita, Garci Diez de San Miguel notes the presence of a Luqapa colony and an Inca Tambo at the site of Sama Grande near the modern town of Sama-Inclan. In addition, survey...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tina Jakob. Joe W. Walser III. Donatella Usai. Sandro Salvatori.

Archaeological sites south of Khartoum are much scarcer compared to those further to the north and this presentation aims to report on a multi-phase cemetery that is situated at the periphery of our archaeological knowledge. At present, burials dating to three chronological periods have been recovered at Al Khiday. The site is located on the left bank of the White Nile, approximately 20 km south of Omdurman (Khartoum). Forty-two individuals are dated to the Classic/Late Meroitic period (end of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gina Malfatti. Nick Kardulias.

The present study traces the history of grave manipulation and reentry in Scandinavia from the Stone Age through medieval times, but with a special emphasis on the context and implications of funerary activity during the Viking Age and the early medieval period. During this time span, the people of Scandinavia became a major force that reshaped the economic, political, and social structure of Europe. I examine the phenomenon of grave reentry and alteration within the framework of Neil Price’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andreas Hennius.

In Sweden, recent excavations have revealed how the production of tar evolved from a small scale, household operation situated within the settlements of the Roman Iron Age, to a large-scale activity in the forests during the Vendel and Viking periods. The resulting quantities of tar far exceeded ordinary household requirements. This change in production coincides with the introduction of the sail, characteristic for the Viking Age, with extensive need for large amounts of tar. The change in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Neil Price.

In December 2015, the Swedish Research Council made an unprecedented investment in archaeology with a ten-year, multi-million dollar grant to establish a center of excellence in Viking Studies at Uppsala University. Much of the recent research into the Vikings and their time (c. 750-1050 CE) has focused on the complex processes of state formation and Christian conversion that eventually gave rise to the modern Scandinavian nations. Far less attention has been devoted to the very beginnings of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Suzanne Villeneuve.

Understanding when and under what conditions aggregation into larger communities with large corporate house organizations, socioeconomic inequalities and specialized ritual structures occurred has been a central theoretical issue in various regions of archaeological investigations. Perhaps the biggest bone of contention in current theorising is whether these transitions occur when hunter/gatherers accepted claims to privilege on the part of some individuals by consensus to deal with community...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsey Büster. Ian Armit.

The Sculptor’s Cave in NE Scotland saw a long history of use, from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Medieval (Pictish) period. Late Bronze Age activity is characterised, as in other caves along this stretch of coast, by complex communal funerary practices involving the exposure and processing of human bodies. Veneration continued for many centuries, yet by the Roman Iron Age (c. 3rd century AD) perceptions of the cave had markedly changed. During this period, several adults were decapitated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Harrison.

In Turkey, rapid industrialization is one of the most prescient concerns facing the country’s natural and cultural heritage. Increasingly, archaeologists are expanding their traditional toolkit to incorporate methods of virtualization, to create 3D models of sites, structures, and artifacts. This paper offers a case study of digital heritage preservation at Seyitömer Höyük, an Early Bronze Age (ca. 3000-2000 BCE) urban center that is located within an active coal mine, and is under direct threat...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aikaterini Psimogiannou.

Following anthropological theory regarding the dynamic relationship between the living and the dead, this paper will explore the role of mortuary and ceremonial places as important venues for human activities related to broader social phenomena and cultural changes. By the mid. 3d mil. BCE southern Greece had witnessed the emergence of social stratification evident both in the settlement and mortuary archaeological record. Little is known, however, regarding the preceding period and the...