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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kendall McGill.

Ideal-Free Distribution (IFD), a behavioral ecology theory, has been increasingly adopted by archaeologists to address questions about the relationship between settlement distribution, environment, and economy. In an anisotropic environment like Cedar Mesa, IFD theorizes that individuals would arrange themselves across the landscape according to habitat suitability and occupy the highest ranked regions first to maximize benefit to the individual. The Ancestral Pueblo of Cedar Mesa subsisted on a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Parish. Bretton Giles. Kenneth Rowland.

The prehistoric cultures of the Middle Woodland Period (200 BC – AD 350) have been a central research focus in North American archaeology since the 18th Century. One trademark of these culture groups, commonly referred to as "Hopewell", is the presence of extensive social networks as evidenced by large amounts of exotic materials acquired from great distances. Chert cache discs found in the thousands in burial contexts are reported to have moved along these social networks. Both Wyandotte...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Black. Charles Koenig.

Foraging societies in the semi-arid Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwestern Texas intensified the use of desert succulents over a span of 9,000 years or more for food, fiber, and other uses. Food plants including Agave lechuguilla, sotol, and prickly pear were baked in earth ovens with stone heating elements, an iterative process that left massive residual by-product in the form of fire-cracked rocks and burned and unburned plant refuse in and around baking facilities. The archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Gilleland.

Throughout the Late Woodland of the American Southeast, prehistoric communities appear to have expanded the range of species used for food to include lesser ranked resources, resulting in increased exploitation of freshwater mussel beds. These mussel remains provide a valuable source of information about past environments during the Late Woodland. Because many mussel species are extremely sensitive to the characteristics of the waterways in which they live, the pattern of species distribution...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amira Ainis. René L. Vellanoweth. Nicholas P. Jew. Antonio Porcayo Michelini. Andrea Guía-Ramírez.

Over 700 fish otoliths were recovered during archaeological excavations at the Rancho Punta Estrella sites on the northern Gulf coast of the Baja Peninsula of Mexico; over 120 of these have been identified as totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi, Sciaenidae), a critically endangered species due to pressures from commercial fishing and human alterations of the Colorado River. AMS radiocarbon dates on seven totoaba otoliths suggest two primary occupations at ~4900-5400 cal BP and ~800-1150 cal BP. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeff Bryant. Robert Feranec. Nayeli Jiminez Cano. Marilyn Masson.

This paper will offer preliminary results of fish otolith thin-section growth ring analysis from the Postclassic archaeological site of Mayapan, Yucatan, Mexico. This study offers the first use of otoliths for investigating seasonality of the fish trade in the Yucatan, utilizing perhaps the largest collection of otoliths from an inland site in the Maya world. Data on seasonality, age, and size of several fish species are presented, and discussed in the context of trade ethnohistory, ecology,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Magnus Haaland. Christopher Miller. Christopher Henshilwood.

Archaeological material, for example engraved ochre and bone, shell beads, bone tools, and bifacial points recovered from the Middle Stone Age levels (c. 101–70 ka BP) at Blombos Cave (BBC), South Africa, is central to our current understanding of the technological and cultural development of early modern humans in southern Africa during the Late Pleistocene. While these artefacts have attracted much attention for their behavioral implications, the sedimentary context in which they were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian Scharlotta.

Using a high-resolution chronological framework developed for Early Neolithic Cis-Baikal, Siberia, grave goods and stable isotope data are analyzed for specific relationships between functional items, prestige goods, and diet. Evidence suggests increasing importance of fishing during two separate phases of cemetery use at Shamanka II. Dietary changes and interlinked social structures may have contributed to differentiation in the cemetery. Fishing specialists are identifiable in grave...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Quan Zhang.

Boncuklu Höyük (the 9th millennium to the 8th millennium cal. BC) is an Early Neolithic settlement found in the Konya Plain, Central Anatolia. At this site, wild boar (Sus scrofa) is the most common species found in the mammal remains. This pilot study tries to explore the relationship between Boncuklu boar and the community that inhabited this area. Samples of archaeological boar’s teeth from Boncuklu Höyük are analysed using three methods: (1) dental morphometrics, (2) dental microwear...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ginessa Mahar.

Archaeological approaches to fish weirs in the southeastern United States have traditionally focused around issues of social complexity and resource intensification in the Mississippian period (post cal A.D. 1000). This pairing has limited our view of the antiquity of fish weirs and their socio-cultural impact beyond economics, subsistence, and politics—the assumption being that weirs were an answer to a problem of economic demand from the top down. However, a recent look into regional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only George Kollias. Jaime Awe.

Over fifty years of settlement research in the Belize River Valley has made the region one of the most intensively investigated areas of the Maya Lowlands. Recent LiDAR research by the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project identified the previously unknown center of Lower Barton Creek in the southern extent of the Belize Valley, filling in a major gap in our understanding of settlement histories. In this paper, we present the results of settlement survey based on spatial analysis...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcello Fantoni. William Taylor.

Although archaeological data link late Bronze Age cultures with the emergence of mobile herding in eastern Eurasia, the practices and social function of domestic horse sacrifice remain poorly understood. We investigated slaughter and butchery evidence from 18 sacrificial horse burials from the Deer Stone-Khirigsuur (DSK) Complex, a late Bronze Age Mongolian culture linked with the first emergence of horse herding and transport in the eastern Steppe. Using digital microscopy, we analyzed each...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Madisen Hvidberg. Dennis Sandgathe.

Developing some understanding of how many hominins occupied the landscape at any one point in prehistory can provide important insights into basic behavioural patterns, how these differed between hominin species, and how they changed over the course of the Pleistocene. Population density is an important factor in subsistence behaviours, mobility patterns, and the nature of group interaction. A number of approaches have been used by researchers to provide estimates for effective Neandertal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa-Marie Shillito. Tom Stafford. Dennis Jenkins. Ian Bull.

Paisley Caves, Oregon, is one of the key sites in current debates surrounding the peopling of the Americas. Ancient DNA evidence for human occupation of the cave has been debated, and coprolites have been said to be visually dissimilar to human faeces. This has implications for how we understand early occupation and migration in this part of North America. Our project will contribute to this debate, using a novel integration of biogeochemistry and sediment microstratigraphy. The aim is to assess...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Walden. Michael Biggie. Rafael Guerra. Julie Hoggarth.

Classic Maya settlement patterns can be characterized as dispersed or ‘low density’. Yet among the dispersed house groups scattered across the landscape, patterns of residential clustering can often be discerned. These settlement clusters likely resulted from an array of different forms of interaction which collectively acted as centripetal forces bringing people together. For this reason, Maya residential clusters probably represent extended corporate groups or neighborhoods. Unlike their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Natalie Baron. Gyles Iannone.

The landscape of an epicenter has been built and modified to suit the needs of the people, both non-elite and elite. Epicenters consist of administrative, ceremonial, and residential features within a central precinct, often encircled by a moat or wall. Rulers of early tropical states would use religious propaganda to promote their power and legitimacy, which in turn created the purposeful and sacred design of the epicenter. By using the comparative method, this paper will examine the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kendall Hills.

The prime objective of the Socio-Ecological Entanglement in Tropical Societies (SETS) project is to produce a comparative study of socio-ecological dynamics in a variety of low-density tropical urban civilizations through cross-cultural and trans-disciplinary investigations. This paper highlights the contribution of the SETS’s integrative mechanisms sub-project, whose primary goals are to examine, evaluate, and compare the integrative mechanisms evident within a sample of charter states in South...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yan Pan. Baorong Lu.

The origin of Oryza sativa and its genetic differentiation during domestication is a long-lasting problem attracting wide attention of agronomists, archaeologists and geneticists etc. An array of hypotheses have been raised to interpret how wild rice evolved into today’s domestic varieties. However, most studies of rice genetic diversity based on modern samples represent a biased sampling of germplasm from a restricted time period in rice evolution, so that important germplasm for understanding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ye Xiaohong. Tang Jigen.

During the Shang dynasty，the remarkable tradition of working jades extends back to the Neolithic period. However, the duplicate or symmetrical design incised on jades is the major artistic style at that stage. The present study is based on examination of molds of tool marks on several jades unearthed from the Fuhao tomb in Yinxu by scanning electron microscopy. Our observations suggest that rotary incising wheels charged with abrasive (which is called Jieyu sand in ancient China) were used for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arthur Demarest. Carlos Alvarado. Tomas Barrientos.

The site of San Andres Semetabaj, Guatemala, located on the northern edge of Lake Atitlan, is central, geographically and chronologically, to major theoretical and culture-historical controversies and problems of PreClassic highland archaeology. The size, nature, and importance of the site have been underestimated, in part due to limited available information based only on smaller preliminary seasons and a looted tomb and also due to the assumption by many that the very large structures there...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelly Graf. Julie Esdale. Ted Goebel. Grant Zazula. Aureade Henry.

In 2013 our team began testing the recently-discovered McDonald Creek archaeological site, located in the Tanana Flats, Central Alaska. To date we have excavated a total of 15 m2. The site contains evidence of a set of living floors dating to the Middle Holocene, Younger Dryas, and early Allerød. Our tests have revealed thousands of archaeological materials, including lithics and faunal and floral remains, associated with domestic features such as hearths and possible dwellings. We are analyzing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alyssa Haggard. Jeffrey Brewer. Meaghan Peuramaki-Brown.

Peri-urban zones of settlement are unique localities among the urban-rural continuum that form due to dispersed urban growth, creating hybrid landscapes of fragmented urban and rural characteristics. Within these zones, domestic-scale reservoirs that the ancient Maya modified and maintained to manage their seasonally-scarce water resources are an important component. This study focuses on processes of multiple nuclei urban development and associated peri-urban formation at the site of Yaxnohcah...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Miller.

Faience (composition, frit or siliceous paste) was widespread, special, and yet everyday across much of Eurasia for well over a millennium, yet hardly known today. These materials were made with many different recipes and production methods, but there is an unusual, apparently unique, variation in faience composition for some objects in the Indus. Some siliceous paste objects include steatite fragments, invisible on the surface and requiring laboratory analysis for detection. These could be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith Linn.

During the height of the Great Hunger in Ireland in the late 1840s, epidemic typhus fever infected thousands aboard emigrant ships destined for New York City. Suddenly, a disease that had long been known as "jail-fever" or "ship-fever" became the "Irish fever." It was no longer associated with a place, but with a people. This paper will explain why (for many Americans) the intersection between typhus fever and the bodies of rural Irish laborers created a new disease, one they used to naturalize...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kari Lentz.

This paper examines two Irish Rublician Army buttons discovered in a privy associated with a late 19th century household in San Francisco in order to elucidate how Irish immigrants became Irish Americans on the West Coast. Archaeologits and historians have studied the Irish Diaspora, this they have largely focused on the Northeast. While the Irish Republican Army is familiar to contemporary audiences, many people are unaware of the organization’s 19th century roots in the United States. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steven A. Wernke.

The Reducción General de Indios (General Resettlement of Indians) in the Viceroyalty of Peru brought about one of the largest mass resettlement programs ever enacted by a colonial power, forcibly displacing some 1.5 million native Andeans to compact towns (reducciones) built around plazas and churches. As a colonial utopic project, the Reducción was to remake the Andean world in the ideal self-image of Spanish civic and religious community. As materialized manifestations in the Andean...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Brite.

In the mid 19th century, Imperial Russia established domination over "Russian Turkestan," a large territory in Central Asia. A core part of the colonial mission was the transformation of Turkestan's arid environments into productive farmland. Though this was eventually achieved by the Soviets who constructed massive new irrigation systems in Central Asia, earlier imperial authorities failed in this task and struggled for decades to wrest control of water management from local populations. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cyprian Broodbank.

Island colonisation took off as a field of comparative archaeological investigation during the 1970s and 1980s, with thought-provoking analyses of regional theatres (primarily Oceanic, Caribbean and Pacific), as well as pioneering efforts to explore wider commonalities and differences between these. In the Mediterranean, the research of John Cherry sought underlying patterns and processes among a mass of empirical data, within which new evidence might find meaning and place. Such evidence has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Birgitta Stephenson.

Environmental factors associated with open context sites are frequently considered to negatively impact on the survival of archaeological residues on lithic artefacts. This report challenges these views and documents how the simple combination of three lines of evidence enabled the identification and characterisation of significant and varied subsistence practises from two sites on opposite sides of Australia. The identification of use-related residues was facilitated by using a specifically...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Chazin.

Pizzly bears and coywolves have been making headlines over the past few years. Offspring of illicit pairings between species of charismatic and aggressive megafauna, these hybrid monsters are presented as signs and portents of a troubled future. This paper explores the relationship between contemporary discourses about unruly and uncanny hybrid species and academic efforts to define and engage with the Anthropocene. It questions the relationships between tacit understandings of the animal as a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Craig T. Goralski.

This paper explores the training and education that forensic anthropologists and forensic archaeologists have traditionally received, and how it is put into practice in forensic contexts. The substantial differences in theory, method, and practice between the two sub-disciplines will be summarized and how these differences shape what each can contribute in the field will be discussed. This paper will argue that although some overlap between the two sub-disciplines exists, contemporary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Boivin. Mary Prendergast. Jillian Swift. Ceri Shipton. Alison Crowther.

Until recently, the small islands lying off the coasts of Tanzania and Kenya have seen little systematic archaeological investigation. Their biogeographic diversity, reflecting various processes and chronologies of formation, nonetheless offers an ideal opportunity to examine processes of prehistoric colonization and anthropogenic impact.We explore the earliest evidence for human activity on three different islands, Pemba, Zanzibar and Mafia, and provide the first evidence for early human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only L. Antonio Curet.

Like many other regions, the colonial experience in the Caribbean included the arrival of foreign archaeologists, mostly from the United States or Europe representing museums, universities, or scientific academies forming what has been called ‘imperial science.’ The objects, specimens, and archival documentation gathered during their research were taken back to their countries and today form part of major collections in museums throughout the world. Theodoor deBooy of the Museum of the American...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Ames. Meagan Conway.

This study looks at the relationship between geographical ‘islandness’ and community formation in Western Ireland. In this paper we investigate to what degree geography shapes the social, economic and political experiences of a community. Furthermore, we examine to what extent these elements of community composition strengthen or diminish their influence on each other. We compare the 19th and 20th century island communities of Inishbofin and Inishark, Co. Galway against the complementary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Wagner. Kayeleigh Sharp. Go Matsumoto. Mary McCorvie. Heather Carey.

Native Americans recognized unique natural features as representing parts of ritual landscapes imbued with power that also contained cultural elements including rock art and mortuary sites. One such landscape within Illinois consists of a three mile long isolated bluff segment located on the now-drained Mississippi River floodplain that prehistorically was surrounded by a mosaic of lakes, ponds, and swamps. In this paper we use GIS, LIDAR, and archaeological data to reconstruct the ancient...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Hard. Raymond Mauldin. Kristin Corl. Deborah Bolnick. Jacob Freeman.

We analyze radiocarbon, stable carbon, and nitrogen isotope data from the Morhiss Site (41VT1) located on the Texas Coastal Plain. In 1939-1940, personnel with the Works Progress Administration excavated deep deposits at this large hunter-gatherer site but they lacked adequate chronological control and results were never fully reported. From this location on the Guadalupe River and only 35 km from the Gulf of Mexico, hunter-gatherers could access a variety of habitats. In fact they returned to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Van Voorhis. Valentina Martinez. Nicole Jastremski. John Krigbaum.

A preliminary report is presented on research into the diet, health, and mobility patterns for prehistoric coastal Ecuador, based on an analysis of both modern data and archaeological data from Site 035 Salango. An assessment of dietary habits provides insight into a broad range of societal developments, such as the implementation and timing of maize agriculture. Additional insights are provided by an osteological evaluation of human remains, with a particular focus on evidence of pathologies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Guiry. Suzanne Needs-Howarth. Paul Szpak. Michale Richards.

Isotopic analyses of archaeological faunal remains can add significant temporal depth to modern and historical baseline data, which play an important role in understanding present and future environmental change. In this paper, we use stable nitrogen isotope analyses of archaeological (A.D. 1000-1900) bone collagen of pelagic predators, such as lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) and whitefishes (Coregonus sp.), as a proxy measure for environmental changes in Lake Ontario over time. Results show...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francisca Santana Sagredo. Julia Lee-Thorp. Rick Schulting. Mauricio Uribe.

Research on the Late Intermediate Period (AD 900-1450) in northern Chile has been strongly influenced by two mobility models: John Murra’s classic vertical archipelago model and the more recent gyratory mobility model. The use and application of these two models, however, is problematic since there is insufficient supporting archaeological evidence. The use of stable isotope analysis allows a direct approach for studying diet and mobility patterns, in contrast to material culture. The aim of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Deanna Grimstead. Jay Quade. Mary Stiner.

Previous research on the prehistoric communities of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (ca. A.D. 800 – 1250) provides evidence of an extensive procurement system of non-local food and economic goods. In this paper we use oxygen, carbon, and strontium isotope analyses to establish whether animal protein followed a similar pattern. We contextualized our analyses of the archaeofaunas from recent excavations at Pueblo Bonito with data on modern faunas across an area of ~100,000 km2 around the site. Our...

DOCUMENT Citation Only YaoWu Hu. Dong Wei. Ning Wang. YaShan Ren.

So far, the relationship among Mongolian noble families is scarce due to little findings of Mongolian burials. In this study, isotopic analysis of Mongolian noble tombs was undertaken, aiming to understand the dietary affinity and social classes within Mongolian families. The isotopic similarity and difference was discerned among the population and the reason to account for that was also discussed.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Szpak.

This paper presents carbon and nitrogen isotope data from camelid (llama and alpaca) bone, hair, and wool textiles from sites throughout the north coast of Peru spanning the Early Intermediate Period through the Late Intermediate Period (200 BC – AD 1476). Through these case studies this paper explores how stable isotope data can be interpreted using various statistical methods to infer a deeper understanding of human-animal interactions in the past than would be possible using only traditional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Hepburn. Brian Chisholm. Michael Richards.

This study aggregates and re-evaluates all available stable isotope data from archaeological human remains in British Columbia. Isotope signatures for coastal individuals correspond well with the heavy marine specialization attested to by archaeological and ethnographic studies of traditional Northwest Coast diets. Within this marine specialization, the data for coastal BC demonstrate a high degree of regional dietary variability, although high trophic level marine prey species are of ubiquitous...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hervé Bocherens. Dorothée Drucker. Martina Láznicková-Galetová. Mietje Germonpré. Christoph Wissing.

Predators are usually considered not so informative in zooarchaeological investigations, except when their bones carry cut-marks. They are more viewed as a disturbing factor for the bone assemblage. However, tracking their paleoecology using stable isotopes in their bones can yield valuable information on several key aspects of their relationships with paleolithic human populations. Especially carbon and nitrogen stable isotopic composition in bone collagen of predators compared to those of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith Chesson.

This session interrogates the practice, theoretical foundations, and outcomes of collaborative archaeology, and explores how collaborators are transforming our discipline today. Today’s papers demonstrate how collaborative archaeology offers epistemological resources that traditional, public and even community archaeology cannot provide, and how collaborative approaches force us to reexamine the disciplinary goals, practices, and outcomes of archaeological practice widely. We have divided the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kari Carter. Aubrey Cannon. Eduard Reinhardt.

We present the results of using an ITRAX XRF core scanner on fine-fraction shell midden sediments. High-resolution multi-element analyses of central coast sites confirm patterned intra- and inter-site variability in the relative abundance of phosphorus and calcium determined on the basis of earlier low-resolution studies. Analysis of Namu site deposits dating from 11,000-2000 cal BP show the relative absence of residual calcium in early shell-free deposits (ca. 11,000-7000 cal BP) but overall...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meg Berry.

Murujuga, located off the northwest coast of Australia, possesses one of the largest and most vibrant open air rock art galleries on the planet. On Murujuga, low erosion rates, durable geology, and growing evidence from the wider region has allowed for archaeological contextualization of rock art into deep time; giving researchers the opportunity to investigate both the changing social dynamics of groups and the stimuli for this change over thousands of years. The main objective of this paper is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eleanor Harrison-Buck.

Maya ethnohistory suggests that burning incense, erecting monuments, penis bloodletting, and pilgrimage were all activities associated with New Year ceremonies. These annual rites were calendrically-linked and aimed at ensuring agricultural renewal and earthly regeneration. Today, Maya New Year ceremonies involve initiation of young men prior to marriage and sexual relations, requiring self-sacrifice and long-distance pilgrimage with male elders. Cross-examining these data along side...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Mendelsohn.

This paper explores coastal and highland interaction in southern Mesoamerica between coastal Chiapas and highland El Salvador. Published accounts of Salvadoran excavations have reported that ties between highland Salvadoran sites and Mesoamerica declined at the close of the Formative period with the eruption of the Ilopango volcano. The dating of the Ilopango eruption has since been updated, and an renewed look at interaction between these zones is necessary. This paper reviews archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Marquardt. Jill Bassett. Allen Madril. Paula Brooks. John Marshall.

The utilization of traditional foods in the Columbia Plateau on ceded tribal lands is of great importance to present day indigenous communities within the region. Huckleberries (vaccinium spp.) are one of these highly valued traditional food stuffs among the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) and the Nez Perce among others. However, the impacts of forest projects (i.e. logging, and prescribed burning) on this reserved treaty resource are poorly understood. Bearing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Breukel.

This paper reports upon the wear trace analysis of 20 ground stone axes from the Ceramic Age site of Pearls, Grenada. The selection contains several exotic lithic materials including twelve jadeitites, for which the nearest known source is over eleven hundred kilometres away. Pearls is a heavily disturbed site on the Atlantic coast of Grenada, of which much of the material record is held in private custody. Yet, the site holds central importance in the wider interacting region, as a lithic,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Reyna Solis. Emiliano Melgar.

The archaeologist of INAH recovered hundreds of lapidary items at Tamtoc and Rancho Aserradero. Among these pieces, there are glossy greenstone objects restricted to the burials of both sites. The chemical composition and mineralogical characteristics of them with Micro-Raman, XRF, and FTIR, allowed us to identify two exotic raw materials, jadeite and green quartz from the Motagua Valley in Guatemala. Also, with the technological analysis of their manufacturing traces with Experimental...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Hanson. Wendy Teeter. Lynn Dodd.

Presentation of an immersive, virtual reality experience of 19th century Santa Catalina Island/Pimu that features a digital model of historic structures and virtual reality stagecoach ride across the island as an exploration of the interpretive and documentation possibilities of the Jaunt VR camera.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rory Walsh.

The inhabitants of Jeju island, Korea, maintained active trade routes with societies in the Korean Peninsula, the Japanese Archipelago, and mainland East Asia. These interactions are encoded in material culture, including imported pottery. Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis provides high-resolution data on ceramic geochemistry that allows for differentiation among local Jeju clay sources, Peninsular clays, and those from farther afield. Samples from the earliest known pottery-bearing sites...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Howard Higgins. J. Michael Bremer.

Most consultation occurs as part of NEPA and/or Section 106 compliance. That is, there is a predefined, location specific undertaking that concerns traditional communities, such as Native American entities, who are contacted and with whom consultation occurs. This is not, however, the only, or even the best, process by which traditional peoples may be included in consultations with land managers. Some land managing agencies have recently been adopting more proactive approaches. One example of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yumi Huntington. John Warner.

Jequetepeque-Jatanca, located on 3 km away from Cerro Cañoncillo, was occupied during the late Formative period by several successive cultures suggesting that it was a site of consistent religious and political importance to many different societies. The Jatanca archaeological complex consists of an Acropolis, the oldest and only elevated structure, along with five Compounds that are distinguished by their sizes and dates of construction. Among all, the Acropolis is the most important, due to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jillian Galle. Lynsey Bates.

Hand-carved ceramic discs excavated from historic-period sites across North America and the Caribbean suggest the widespread growth of gaming culture during the third quarter of the 18th century. From Spanish missions and French forts to villages of enslaved people across the British, French, and Spanish colonial domains, people fashioned discs from flat portions of ceramic vessels for use in a variety of games. We begin by exploring the production and use of hand-carved ceramic gaming discs of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caitlin O'Grady. Nancy Odegaard. E. Charles Adams.

Culturally defined color, and the technology used to produce it, is a hallmark of ceramics produced in the American Southwest prior to European contact. This characteristic (among others) was utilized to initially name, define and describe archaeologically recovered ceramic wares (e.g. Colton and Hargrave 1937; Fewkes 1898; Kidder 1931; Shepard 1931). The integration of conservation science and materials science approaches to this research is crucial to reveal nuanced interpretations of cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Roberto Lopez Bravo. Elizabeth H. Paris.

In contrast to the sociopolitical instability and depopulation observed at many sites in the Southern Maya Lowlands during the Classic to Postclassic transition, Highland Chiapas was characterized by stability and demographic expansion, as suggested by our excavations in the Jovel Valley, where small cities and towns maintained their roles as political and economic centers throughout this period. In this paper, we examine patterns of continuity and change evidenced by recent excavations at the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Skibo.

The list of the greatest technological innovations of all time include the wheel, bow and arrow, stirrup, and the controlled use of fire among other great human achievements. These technologies are given such prominence because they changed human history in significant ways. Never mentioned, however, is the cooking pot.Yet this common, inexpensive, utilitarian tool was an important part of profound, worldwide changes in cooking and food. Boiling or simmering opened up a whole series of new foods...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Malloy. Heather Rockwell.

In the summer of 2013 a thin piece of slate with peculiar, jagged grooves was recovered from the excavation of the Buzzart Dykes medieval park landscape in the council area of Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Unclear whether the grooves were natural or anthropogenic we employed a new method of examination, known as "reverse microwear analysis," to understand what material made the scratches. A series of experiments were conducted where slate pieces were incised using a variety of different stone and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gelenia Trinidad-Rivera.

While researching an archaeological collection, it is important to trace its history in terms of its origins, what makes up the collection, where it is located, and who is responsible for it. Jácanas, a pre-Columbian site in Ponce, Puerto Ric,o was excavated during the first decade of the 21st century. The fieldwork was carried out by a non-local cultural resources management company under contract with the United States Corps of Engineers (USCE). Among the many concerns expressed by local...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michelle Negus Cleary. Elizabeth Baker Brite.

Kalas (qalas), as iconic fortified enclosure sites, were nodes within dispersed and low-density settlement patterns of Central Asian oases. The largest kalas functioned as the equivalent of urban centers for mobile, agro-pastoral societies. A complex and diversified system of agro-pastoral subsistence and production strategies were employed within the oases in response to extreme climatic and environmental conditions. This paper will focus on the transition from the Late Antique to Early...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arnau Garcia. Hector A. Orengo. Athanasia Krahtopoulou. Anastasia Dimoula.

The Thessalian Plain has been at the fore of Neolithic research in Greece and Europe since early 20th century exploration in the area which documented an intensively occupied landscape during both Prehistoric and Historical periods. Despite the Thessalian Plain's potential for archaeological research, western Thessaly has provided scarce evidence of occupation. This might be related to the extensive modifications it has been subjected to during the last 45 years. These have rendered the Western...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jan Bemmann. Susanne Reichert.

It is undisputed that Karakorum was founded by the Mongol Emperor/Khan, saying this means we analyze a top-down planned large city in a non-sedentary, non-urban society. Therefore we will address the question of the layout of the city and the spatial organization. How are activities and people ordered, is there common space, what kind of infrastructure is provided by the city founders and how is it maintained during the nearly 200 years of the existence of the city. At which areas were landmark...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steven Howard.

Most archaeological sites within the upper Allegheny Valley of Northwestern Pennsylvania and Southwestern New York have been heavily damaged by decades of plowing. The Karl Site, while no exception, has revealed that a precious few undisturbed features can exist beneath the ravages of the plow zone. Investigations at the site, involving geophysical survey, controlled surface survey, and limited excavations, have revealed some insights into the function of the site within the broader landscape....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sonali Gupta-agarwal.

Traditions are transmitted through teaching and learning. The manner in which knowledge relating to craft production gets transmitted can help us in understanding the causes behind cultural continuity and change. In this paper, I use an anthropological approach to discern teaching and learning patterns. I investigate the role of potters in modern-day pottery workshops of Egypt and India in the transmission of knowledge relating to pottery production. Employing video footage using a video...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren Woolwine. Lucy Atha. Nicholas Shepetuk. Hannah Plumer. Katherine Miller Wolf.

The ancient Maya site of Blue Creek, located in northern Belize, has revealed archaeological evidence suggesting regional occupation from the Preclassic through Terminal Classic periods. The excavation of one Late Classic group (550 C.E. - 830 C.E.), Kin Tan, by the Maya Research Project revealed a chultún containing the remains of five commingled individuals of various ages. Examination of these skeletal remains revealed some commonalities in postcranial non-metric traits among those interred...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Miriam Stark. Peter Grave. Lisa Kealhofer. Darith Ea.

The Angkorian Khmer (900-1500 CE) manufactured an array of goods that materialized and celebrated political authority, from temples and religious statuary to ornaments and domestic tools. Khmer stoneware ceramics were one of the least spectacular and most ubiquitous of these, yet their distributional pattern deftly maps the geography of 9th – 15th century Angkorian rule. Archaeological research at Khmer stoneware kiln sites in the last two decades, coupled with excavations in Greater Angkor,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jenny Cohen. Quentin Mackie. Daryl Fedje.

The Kilgii Gwaay site in southernmost Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, is an early maritime-focused archaeological site dating to a brief interval about 10,700 cal. B.P. The site was occupied at a time when relative sea levels were a few meters below modern and rising rapidly, ultimately drowning the site by up to 18 m of ocean waters for almost ten millennia. Tectonic uplift over the past 5000 years has gradually raised the site, which is now exposed in the intertidal zone. The overall assemblage...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Baohua Hu.

Through type division of a kind of barbed broad-leave bronze spearheads discovered in North China and analogy analysis with the similar artifacts widely discovered in the Eurasia steppes, we consider they are results of the Qijia(齐家) People in the Gansu-Qinghai area(甘青地区) engaging with the further north Seima-Turbino People. However, based on the feature differences on many aspects between them, we consider the former is not a kind of exotic object, but imitations from the latter. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Allison.

Circulation of material goods is common in small-scale societies. Even where exchange is not coordinated above the level of the household, goods produced in one area are consistently conveyed to distant settlements. Numerous ethnographic studies demonstrate that exchange transactions are common among kin, and that the circulation of goods in small-scale societies is structured by kinship ties. From an individual’s point of view, the number of kinfolk available to exchange with and where they...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yu Xiyun.

The bifurcated settlements of prehistoric China indicate that their internal organization is a reflection of a kind of kinship organization akin to the moieties of South America, the phratries of North America, marriage classes of Australia, and the Xing groups of ancient China. With the emergence of clans, the Xing（姓） group system was transformed to the Zhaomu（昭穆） system.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Marshall. Stephanie Huddlestan.

Working in Tsimshian territory as consulting archaeologists can be challenging at best particularly in recent years as a growing number of proposed development projects has put the Northwest Coast in the Provincial and Federal spotlight. As a company we strive to ensure our research objectives are guided by community heritage policies however given the nature of the business we are influenced by our client’s requests, confidentiality, binding contracts, budgets, and provincial guidelines....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dan Malkinson. Daniel Kaufman. Dani Nadel.

Thousands of open-air camp sites dating to the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene have been recorded around the world. However, most suffer from significant preservation issues which limit available data on two levels: the general camp structure, and the details of each feature. The excellent preservation of the submerged site of Ohalo II (23,000 cal BP) provides an opportunity to analyze such a site on both levels. The focus of the paper is a flint assemblage (n=5,621) from a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Speer.

The experimental replication of lithic artifacts commonly encounters issues of standardization and control. Two major issues are how to accurately sample a population and how to sample from specific stages over the flaking process. Knappable stone is unpredictable due to inclusions, cracks, and differences in size, texture, and fracture toughness. It is necessary to create knappable facsimiles of either artifacts or knapped replicas by experts at specific stages. This allows for observation of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Arthur.

The Gamo, who live in the highlands on the edge of the southern Ethiopian rift valley, are known for their unique and beautiful household architecture. Tourists ogle their oval basket-like grass houses and peer inside for mere minutes hoping to observe some secret moment or practice previously unknown to them. Similarly many archaeologists long to feel beneath their trowels a widespread hard surface indicative of a house floor. We remove the tangible aspects of the home, bit by bit, hoping to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Schmidt.

Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands, is located in the western Pacific, ~2,100 miles southwest of Hawai'i and is home to U.S. Army Garrison Kwajalein Atoll. During WWII, it was the site of Operation Flintlock and major bombing operations in the Pacific Theater. The Kwajalein MIA Project (KMP) is a public archaeology project dedicated to identifying aircraft and wreckage in the atoll lagoon that are linked to missing U.S. servicemen from WWII. The project is comprised of an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mauricio Cuevas.

El estudio de las rutas de comunicación nos permite tener un mayor conocimiento de las sociedades prehispánicas, aspectos como dinámicas de transporte, comercio, conexión entre sitios arqueológicos, aprovechamiento del terreno o inclusive creencias compartidas. La aplicación de la teoría de la comunicación puede ser clave para plantear trabajos en los cuales se busque reconstruir las rutas en regiones donde no se cuente con evidencias visibles de éstas. La propuesta teórico-metodológica que aquí...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gustavo Novelo Rincon.

Las investigaciones realizadas en Yaxuná y parte de su área circundante han mostrado un complejo panorama que se manifiesta en el número y variedad de asentamientos prehispánicos, así como en la coexistencia de patrones y elementos culturales de diverso origen. Partiendo de que la arquitectura, como evidencia arqueológica, ha sido interpretada como el reflejo de la forma en que los individuos y grupos sociales conciben, organizan y construyen su espacio, en este trabajo se presenta un breve...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rubén Nieto. Gustavo Jaimes Vences. Xim Bokhimi. Yoko Sugiura.

Durante el periodo Epiclásico, la cuenca del Alto Lerma experimentó una intensa interacción con distintas regiones, que le permitieron acceder a materias primas y productos necesarios para la subsistencia. Entre los productos que se han reconocido como evidencia de la relación señalada, destaca una cerámica que presenta características singulares como un engobe distintivo cuya superficie aparece craquelada. Se caracteriza a su vez por una pasta burda, laminada y con textura porosa y,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edsel Rafael Robles Martínez. Gilberto Pérez Roldán.

Tamtoc se ubica en la huasteca potosina, área donde confluyen elementos de las zonas biogeográficas neoártica y neotropical, lo cual genera una diversidad de ecosistemas que repercute en una gran riqueza biológica que pudo haber sido explotada por los habitantes prehispánicos del sitio. Los estudios biológicos reportan un total de 226 especies disponibles de vertebrados en la huasteca potosina, sin embargo la fauna identificada en el estudio arqueozoológico no sólo es autóctona, también hemos...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ana Iris Murguia Hernandez.

The trade network in the colonial era formed a great circuit that used communication paths. El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro was used to transport the products sold through fairs that were established at strategic points in the New Spain. Kingdoms away as was the Nueva Vizcaya had people who used to travel these roads annually to bring their products and other materials to get points not only of the New Spain, but also from Spain and the Philippines. The circuit of fairs and marked trails around...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luis Joaquin Venegas De La Torre.

Desde hace muchos años, la fotografía aérea ha sido de vital importancia para el desarrollo de la arqueología. Hoy en día, su uso es tan común que podríamos considerarla una herramienta elemental dentro del trabajo arqueológico, ya sea en la etapa de registro, excavación o análisis. El surgimiento de los Vehículos Aéreos No Tripulados (UAVs o drones), trajo consigo la capacidad de obtener fotografías aéreas de espacios o elementos específicos en poco tiempo y a bajo costo, generando mayores...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cira Martinez Lopez. Cira Martínez López. Robert Markens.

Debido a que la greca escalonada es uno de los motivos más perdurables y ampliamente difundidos en el tiempo y espacio mesoamericano, su significado ha despertado desde hace tiempo el interés de varias generaciones de estudiosos. Por su forma geométrica y abstracta, el signo se presta a una gran diversidad de interpretaciones. Esta presentación tiene la finalidad de acercarse al significado de la greca escalonada en objetos del arte e inmuebles en Oaxaca prehispánico mediante un análisis de...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Isaac David Ramirez Rizo.

Los trabajos que realiza a diario la Dirección de Registro Público en el área de Bienes Muebles, generan información fundamental para conocer la dinámica actual que tienen las colecciones arqueológicas en el territorio nacional. A partir de la identificación vestigios dispersos por los Estados de la República Mexicana y tras la creación de la ley de 1972 del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, se dispuso realizar el registro de bienes; uno de sus objetivos fue regular y conocer la...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robyn Dodge. David M. Hyde. Estella Weiss-Krejci.

The hinterland east of La Milpa is distinctive of an upland landscape with bajos on its edges, a few formal courtyard groups, monuments, and numerous informal clusters of mounds. Multiple landscape modifications such as terraces, depressions, chultuns, and linear features are present in these eastern hinterland settlements as well. This paper will provide an overview of the excavations into three specific hinterland communities: La Milpa East, Hun Tun, and the Medicinal Trail Community, as well...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luis Pantoja. Maria Jose Gómez.

La muerte es un proceso natural a la cual el ser humano le ha otorgado unas cargas culturales tan variables como los grupos sociales mismos: la forma en que será tratada dependerá de aspectos políticos, ideológicos, sociales y simbólicas. Por ende, la variabilidad del tratamiento mortuorio es un reflejo de categorías relacionadas con jerarquía interna que puede estar relacionada con características bioculturales. Durante la investigación del Proyecto Arqueológico Región de Mérida (PARME), en...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hector Cardona Machado. Héctor Cardona. Verenice Heredia. John Millhauser.

La región de Tequila es reconocida por la elaboración de una famosa bebida alcohólica, sello de la mexicanidad actual. Pero a partir de investigaciones arqueológicas realizadas en la zona desde hace más de un siglo, se ha reconocido la abundancia de fuentes y tipos de obsidiana que fueron utilizadas en época prehispánica para la fabricación de bienes tanto de lujo como para uso cotidiano. Esta actividad ha sido un componente importante de las narrativas académicas que procuran definir dinámicas...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Teresa Cabrero.

Uno de los factores más importantes para la colonización del cañón de Bolaños fue la necesidad de establecer contacto de tipo comercial con el área de Chalchihuites donde se explotaba la codiciada piedra verde o malaquita. Lograron su objetivo a través del establecimiento y control de una ruta comercial que atravesaba la región de Bolaños; la adquisición y redistribución de la malaquita primero; y la turquesa después, por todo el occidente de México fue el eje rector de su economía. La turquesa...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mari Carmen Serra Puche.

En las exploraciones arqueológicas realizadas en las terrazas de Xochitecatl-Cacaxtla se han localizado varias unidades habitacionales donde se producían diferentes bienes de consumo y de prestigio, entre las que destacan: la cerámica, la obsidiana, las cuentas de jade, la lítica pulida y el mezcal, entre otros. Se han localizado áreas de actividad y talleres con las evidencias arqueológicas de manufactura e incluso de almacenamiento. Analizaremos la producción de estos bienes, su distribución...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juan Alberto Román Berrelleza.

El desollamiento humano es una de las características más notorias asociadas a Xipe Tótec, una de las deidades más enigmáticas del panteón mexica. Durante largo tiempo los investigadores han aceptado sin reservas lo que las fuentes señalan con respecto a esta práctica ritual. Sin embargo, en fechas recientes han surgido varias preguntas en relación a esta práctica. Por ejemplo, ¿Es posible establecer un lugar de origen, temporalidad y evolución de esta práctica en Mesoamérica?, ¿Cómo se...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrycja Przadka-Giersz.

In recent decades, Andean archaeology has shown an increasing interest in studying women and the roles they played in ancient society. The spectacular discovery of the imperial mausoleum at Castillo de Huarmey represents the first undisturbed burial context of fifty-eight noblewomen accompanied with six human sacrifices, two tomb guardians and hundreds of precious artifacts, and provides groundbreaking data on female status in Wari Empire. The amount and the richness of the luxury and prestige...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ema Perea. Karla Patroni. Luis Castillo. Luis Muro.

Huaca La Capilla is one of the best preserved architectural mounds in the archaeological site of San Jose de Moro . Its construction corresponds to the Late Moche period, but extends its occupation after its closure . Excavations in the units 55 and 64, located on the northern slope of the mound gives us an approximation to the function that had the structure after the Moche period.This poster presents the results of 2 field campaigns conducted in 2015 and 2016 where 40 burials of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Byron Smith.

Agrarian production in the Central Maya Lowlands during the Classic period was comprised of a variety of techniques that were used to satisfy dietary needs and to stimulate its subsistence economy. Rainfall totals and intensity along the variable topography of the region may have predisposed areas with less vegetative structure to soil erosion. Previous research suggests the application of terraced features by the Maya as a means to lessening the effects of surface runoff while also...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wu Guo.

Early nomadic kingdoms appeared during the early period of the first millennium BC. Those objects or art theme symbolized the ideology of the ruling class embodied on the prestige goods, the imperial kinsmen's cemetery, the large seasonal ritual center. The formation and expansion of the Aldy bel /Sandaohaizi culture reflected this process. Standing gold deer, curled up or standing snow leopard, the implements of the boar or patterns, and the conical gold earrings, widely spread with along the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Morales. Lauren M. Mirasol. Amira F. Ainis. René L. Vellanoweth.

Land snails have the potential to address a variety of archaeological concerns, including the identification of paleolandscapes and paleoclimatic conditions. Such studies demonstrate how non-marine mollusks can be employed to infer changes such as seasonal and long-term precipitation rates and anthropogenic landscape alterations. Although land snails are abundant in Channel Island sites, they are often ignored. In this paper, we utilize land snail remains from three archaeological sites on San...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alice Yao.

This paper complements prevailing studies on prehistoric domestication and agriculture with an eye toward the interrelated problem of land use and food security in south China. In ecologies characterized by monsoonal variability, rugged terrain, and dense vegetation, what are the conditions that challenge or enable the cultivation of a range of staples? Using archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic data, I examine how extensification of field practices enabled the cultivation of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra McCleary.

This paper will discuss the most recent excavations in the Genizaro Pueblo de Abiquiu, NM (est. 1754). Abiquiu, as one of the oldest and most successful Genizaro land grants, is a key area for better understanding the history and trajectory of Indo-Hispanic settlements in Northern New Mexico. Three distinct areas within the historical boundary of the land grant were excavated, representing domestic defensive, and agricultural contexts. The paper will go over the excavations, ground-truthing GPR...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Raymond Hunter. Steve Kosiba.

Access to land is an important marker of status in agrarian societies. During the Andean Late Horizon (c.1400-1532), land differences grounded status distinctions: nobles developed monumental estate farms and kin-oriented communities collectively administered patchwork fields. Under the Spanish colonial system (1532-1824) access to land and labour came to differentiate status in new ways. Spaniards appropriated labor and property, while indigenous nobility contested Spanish rule and staked new...