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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lori Barkwill Love.

The beginning of the Early Pithouse period in the Mogollon region, around A.D. 200, was marked by a fundamental shift in material culture and lifeways. This major shift included the introduction of ceramics and the construction of more substantial habitation structures as well as communal structures. Yet, relatively speaking, few Early Pithouse period sites have been excavated, and many of the sites that have been excavated were excavated 30 or more years ago. This poster presents new data from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Walls. Pauline Knudsen. Frederik Larsen.

The Morris Bay Kayak is a unique assemblage that consists of kayak fragments and associated hunting equipment that was discovered in 1921 by chance in Washington Land, NW Greenland. This paper documents results from a collaborative project with the Greenland National Museum to re-analyze and date the Morris Bay Kayak, and to consider how it fits in the current perspectives on Inughuit archaeology. Working with the traditional kayaking community in Greenland, the project reconstructed the kayak’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Vera Solovyeva. Amy Tjong.

The Siberian collections at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) are one of the world’s most important collections of cultural artifacts from Northeast Siberia. These artifacts were created as a result of the historic Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897-1902) which sought to study the cultures framing the Bering Sea. In 2014, the Conservation Department at AMNH began a two-year project to stabilize and rehouse 100 items from this collection, including 14 gut skin parkas attributed to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rowan McLaughlin. Katrin Fenech. Rory Flood. Michelle Farrell. Ronika Power.

This paper explores changing patterns of isolation in prehistoric island societies, and their ongoing connections with the wider world. The case study is the expansion of agriculture in Southern Europe in the 6th millennium BC, and subsequent landscape and cultural evolution in the Maltese archipelago. This was a series of maritime events, establishing connectivity between Mediterranean islands whose inhabitants’ ‘Neolithic package’ lifeway permitted high-density settlements in small islands. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ramon Valcarce. Carlos Rodriguez-Rellan.

Horse riding scenes are arguably about the most emblematic representations within post-paleolithic open air rock art in Galicia (NW Iberia). They have been used as a controversial chronological milestone, setting them somewhere between the Final Neolithic and the Iron Age. Such an iconography may be related to a shift in the Human/Nature relationship arising along the Late Prehistory. While not discarding they are showing real activities, we believe the riding scenes could be emphasizing a new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Deborah Huntley. Cynthia Herhahn.

Research by Katherine Spielmann and many of her students highlights the economic and social significance of glaze-decorated ware vessels during the 14th through 16th centuries AD. We take a new approach to Rio Grande Glaze Ware in this paper, examining the role of knowledgescapes in structuring economy in Ancestral Pueblo middle-range societies. Knowledgescapes encompass economic, social, technological, and ritual aspects of glaze ware production, use and exchange. We explore the origins and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Giancarlo Marcone.

In the present paper, I will combine evidence of two sites: The Pachacamac Sanctuary and the domestic site of Lote B, both in the Lurín valley in order to discuss the political changes happening in the central coast to the onset of the middle horizon. Asking how these political changes related with the climatic variation register for the area in both bottom sea and lake cores. I point out that this process of political centralization was contemporaneous with mayor climatic anomalies that have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jun Sunseri.

Drawing on examples from my community-engaged work in post-apartheid South Africa and post-annexation New Mexico, I want to talk about the kinds of risk my community partners navigate in our collaborative archaeologies. Both communities are focused tightly on colonial-era processes that have translated into dimensions of racialized inequalities, against which we hope archaeological partnerships might be employed and produce tools that do more good than harm.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Verónica Vázquez López.

Yaxnohcah is located in southern Campeche, Mexico and had an important occupation from the Middle Preclassic to the Late Classic period (c. 600 b.c.e.-800 c.e.). The focus of this paper is the Grazia complex, one of the ten major civic-ceremonial groups. Grazia consists of two monumental platforms featuring a triadic group and a ball court. The complex is located about 2 km southwest of the center of the site. Excavations began in 2016, revealing the presence of several constructive phases,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alison Rautman.

Katherine Spielmann has contributed to the scholarly literature on ritual and feasting, the archaeology of sustainable and resilient societies, and long-term economic and social changes in archaeological record of the Salinas region in central New Mexico. Less well known, however, are her long-term contributions to the performance dimensions of these models. In fact, her theoretically informed archaeological practices, implemented in the context of the undergraduate field school, illustrate the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Shaffer Foster.

In Celtic countries, early Christianity was syncretized with pre-existing religious beliefs and rituals, some of which were maintained and modified through the centuries, while others were subsequently adopted but understood as ancient or essential. One ritual practice inhabiting the border of Christian and non-Christian tradition is seen in the Irish rag tree, a hawthorn with strips of cloth hanging from the branches, often located at holy wells or other Early Medieval ecclesiastical sites....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joanne Murphy.

The palatial society of the Greek Late Bronze Age collapsed around 1200BC. There were signs of widespread mass destruction throughout Greece and several of the palaces and settlements were abandoned. Two of the largest palaces, however, Mycenae and Tiryns in the Argolid, showed evidence of rebuilding of houses in and around the palaces after the first major destruction fire. The century after the initial destruction of the palaces was a period of turmoil and filled with more devastating fires at...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Faulkner. Peter Hiscock.

Mounded shell deposits dominated by the mudflat bivalve Anadara granosa are highly visible features on the north Australian coast. Because of their distinctive, often monumental, features they have been a focal point for research into hunter-gatherer groups in these coastal environments. Interpretations of these mounded deposits have oscillated between those concerned with the functioning of prehistoric economic systems and those invoking ceremonial and ritual behaviours. In this paper we review...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chrissina Burke. Katie Tappan. Gavin Wisner. Gregory Allen.

Animal use in elite burials can provide a more holistic perspective on the importance of specific fauna as prestige goods or as status and power markers in the Maya world. This presentation discusses a discrete cache of animal long-bones located at the feet of a human burial recovered from the newly discovered royal tomb at Xunantunich during the 2016 field season of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance (BVAR) project. Maya zooarchaeologists have long held that the use of specific...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Deniz Kaya. Ian Kuijt. Meredith Chesson.

Ritual feasting and its social implications: Analysis of the ritual pits at Dana-Bunar 2- Lyubimets, Bulgaria during the Late Neolithic (5400-5000 BC).

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lydie Dussol.

Termination rituals have been a well-documented practice among ancient Maya societies. Generally including the spread of broken artifacts on floors, the manipulation of ancestor bones, and the intentional destruction of architectural structures, termination deposits are believed to have served to symbolically "kill" a building at the time of its abandonment. Regardless of the nature or function of these different deposits, their frequent association with ashes, charcoal and burn marks clearly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary E. Pye. Gerardo Gutiérrez.

This paper presents an overview of the findings from the Formative period caves of Cauadzidziqui (pre-Olmec and Olmec-style paintings), Techan or Cave of the Governors (Olmec style monuments carved into the walls), and Ocotequila (Middle Formative painting), as well as Chiepetlan (Paleo-Indian, Late Postclassic-Early Colonial) and Cueva de las Lluvias (Classic period floor carvings). Also assessed is the importance of the locations chosen for Formative period caves in the sacred landscape of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tsim Schneider.

In the United States, prehistoric and historical archaeology subfields are characterized by distinct intellectual histories, methods, and theoretical frameworks that continue to guide where archaeologists apply their craft. For California prehistorians, deeply layered shellmounds long represented ideal sites for chronology building. Until recently, shellmounds were also unlikely places for historical archaeologists to investigate interactions between Native Americans and colonial institutions....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julye Bidmead.

In times of political and societal instability public ritual acts as a stabilizing force. During the first millennium B.C.E with the rise and collapse of several powerful empires, ancient Babylonia witnessed much of this political turmoil and instability. Kings of each succeeding empire, appropriated long-established Mesopotamian religious ideology to cast themselves as divinely selected rulers. They manipulated the celebration of the akitu, a twelve-day religious New Year’s festival, to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Scott Cummings. R. A. Varney. Peter Kovacik.

Answering the question of what was smoked in prehistoric pipes benefits from a multi-proxy approach. Partially charred residue (dottle) provides more answers than does the black carbon that often lines the interior of archaeological pipes. Pipes examined from the American Southwest and Great Basin attest to use of a variety of plants, sometimes including ground maize, as smoking mixtures. Remains within the partially burned dottle are identified by pollen, phytolith, starch, macrofloral, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Sharp. Rebecca Bria.

Highland mortuary practices during the Andean Late Formative Period (900–500 BC) in Ancash, Peru are poorly understood, in part because burials from this period are rarely encountered. Excavations conducted in 2009 at the archaeological site of Hualcayán uncovered a primary interment of a juvenile aged 5-6 years at time of death, dated in the range 806–540 calBC. The individual was buried with a necklace strung with bone and shell beads and bone spoons. Bioarchaeological analyses indicate the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lissandra Gonzalez. José Luis Punzo. Mijaely Castañón. Alejandro Valdes.

The area of the current state of Michoacan has been considered one of the most important producers of metal objects during the Prehispanic period. These objects are always related to various rituals because of its peculiar characteristics of color, sound, shape and even smell. From the analysis of more than 1,800 metal objects from extensive collections, particularly at the Regional Museum of Michoacan and the State Museum of Michoacan, by the Project Archaeology and Landscape of the Center -...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steven Kuhn. Mary Stiner.

Humans have a unique capacity among primates for cooperation. Recent foragers routinely cooperate in economic activities, and a range of social mechanisms help maintain that cooperation. We argue on the basis of hunting practices and weapon systems that some of these social mechanisms emerged comparatively late in hominin evolutionary history. Large game hunting by Early and Middle Pleistocene hominins involved simple, short range weapons and depended on participation of multiple individuals....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sam Challis.

Statements of authorship of rock art necessarily involve statements of identity. What happens, then, when identity is assumed or implied? This paper examines a well-known historical rock art panel in South Africa, supposed to portray a narrative of the demise of the San from their own perspective. To the contrary it finds that in fact the 'colonists' sporting wide-brimmed hats and toting guns are, more likely, members of an emergent identity of creolized raiding bands drawn from markedly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Brown.

Archaeologists typically dissect rock art stylistically, symbolically, and chronologically. Symbols, in particular, lead to studies of representational imagery, entoptic phenomena, or religious icons. What remains underexplored is the concept of animism and its related behavioral activities. This paper applies a behavioral theory of communication to study the interactions between people and things. It uses performance characteristics analysis to determine the activities associated with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julio Amador.

This presentation describes the process of recording and documenting the pictographs found at the site of Chalcatzingo, Morelos, in central Mexico. It shows the way in which state of the art technology is used for the first time at the site for this purpose. Iconographic analysis, landscape archaeology and the analysis of painting techniques and materials are as well employed to enrich the interpretation of rock art at the site. Upon this basis we elaborate a hypothesis about their relations...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Livio Dobrez.

Rock Art Categorization Over the past ten years I have sought to elaborate a new categorization for rock art images and one based on analysis of visual perception bolstered by cognitive psychology experiments and current knowledge of visual system neurophysiology. The result has been a suggestion for three classes of image, viz the Canonical (mostly profile), Narrative (scene), and Performative (frontal). At the same time Patricia Dobrez has added two possible classes represented by hand...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Teresa Rodrigues. Ashley Bitowf. Chris Loendorf.

The Gila Indian River Indian Community is dedicated to preserving its heritage, and consequently has developed a rock art conservation program in order to care for, restore, and protect petroglyphs within community lands. The proximity of the large Phoenix metropolitan area increases the risk of trespass and vandalism within the GRIC. In recent years, damage at archaeological sites has included defacement and graffiti, and the theft of rock art boulders. Current restoration work has experimented...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melinda Leach.

Prehistoric rock art increasingly is understood to be embedded in complex cultural systems of social routines, kin networks, economic landscapes, technological change, seasonal population movements, domestic and task-specific foraging behaviors, and variable gendered activities. The Holocene record of occupation and use of the High Rock Country in the Northern Great Basin provides an opportunity to explore such complex contexts of rock art. Rich lithic sources, strategic locations for hunting,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Wilkinson.

This research is part of a larger ethno-archaeological investigation of the use of caves in modern Haitian Vodou rituals in Northern Haiti. This paper explores the modern rock art left in the caves as a result of Vodou ceremonies, in particular paint and veve (veve are symbols drawn out with cornstarch used to call various spirits to ceremonies, and are an intrinsic part of Vodou). The art in question included both permanent and ephemeral works, ranging from simple graffiti to caves painted...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Evelyn Billo. Robert Mark.

The shared attributes of two successful rock art site preservation projects near metropolitan areas will be discussed. They started with different backgrounds. The Adams School Site (now Chitactac-Adams Heritage County Park) in California was a neglected and vandalized park whose property had been donated. Picture Canyon (now Picture Canyon Natural and Cultural Preserve) in Arizona was neglected State Trust land being used as an illegal dump that needed to be purchased to become a preserve. Both...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Johan Ling. Per Cornell.

For most of the twentieth century the Bronze Age rock art in Southern Scandinavia has been seen as a manifestation of an agrarian ‘cultic’ ideology in the landscape. In this context the dominant ship image and the armed humans have been perceived as abstract religious icons, not as active symbols relating to real praxis in the landscape. Whilst violence and war related social and ritual traits indeed are common features in the Scandinavian rock art from the Bronze Age and the violence on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Deborah Nichols. Wesley Stoner.

Interaction was important early in the development of complex societies during the Formative period in Mesoamerica. Despite its small size, Altica was integrated into Early-Middle Formative exchange networks as it obtained some ceramics, obsidian blades, and ornaments of exotic stone and exported Otumba obsidian that began to circulate widely at this this time. There likely were other early villages within proximity to the Otumba source engaged in procuring obsidian for trade to other sites, but...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Reid. Patrick Ryan Williams. Donna Nash.

In southern Peru, the transition from the Early Intermediate to the Middle Horizon during the seventh century A.D. was marked by the expansion of Wari state colonists and influence from the Ayacucho heartland. Andeanists have long postulated the role of climate change and drought during this initial state expansion, while issues of chronology complicate this issue. Here, we reevaluate the radiocarbon data from the early Wari colonies of Cerros Baúl and Mejía in the upper Moquegua Valley in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Hotaling. William Saturno. Boris Beltran. Shintaro Suzuki.

Bioarchaeological analyses in the past have worked to investigate and contextualize human remains in the broader realm of ancient Maya mortuary practices. Offerings are a common component of Maya ritual; however, the role of human offerings is still not understood in its entirety. In the 2014 field season at Xultún, Petén, Guatemala, three sets of human remains were excavated within the Los Arboles structure, a pyramid complex to the north of the site. In this paper, I discuss the results of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelly McGuire. William Hildebrandt.

One of the largest and oldest portable rock art assemblages identified in North America has been documented in the upper reaches of the Sacramento River in Northern California. This fluorescence of stylistic activity, commencing as early as 6,000 years ago, appears to be a symbolic manifestation of group identity and a harbinger of the rise of social and territorial complexity in this region. In this paper we explore the linguistic, social, and ecological variables that may have given rise to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Natalie Mueller.

The ethnographic record is replete with examples of farming societies for whom the maintenance and exchange of seed stock was imbued with ritual significance. Seed keeping is often an institutionalized role for families or individuals: a matter of pride, as aspect of identity, and a heavy responsibility. The establishment of these rituals and institutions may have been crucial to the domestication of annual plants and the development of food producing economies. What would seed keeping and seed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sally Lynch.

Often the term ‘social memory’ conjures up ideas of grand commemoration events such as statues, museums, large scale construction and other public displays to remember the collective past. We must not forget, however, the seemingly mundane daily practices that help to create, maintain, and change society while simultaneously forming social identities. This study looks at the Late Moche period (500 – 800 AD) on the North Coast of Peru. It was a time of immense social, religious, and political...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Naglak. Parrish Wright.

Debate concerning the development and origins of the Roman kinship group known as the gens has a long and contentious history. Theses questions, however, necessarily move beyond the primary textual evidence, the standard resource for such studies. Different heuristic models must be utilized to take advantage of all available data, whether it be textual, archaeological, or via ethnographic comparison. I propose the concept of a "house society" as developed by Lévi-Strauss and taken up by numerous...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jianfeng Cui. Guoxiang Liu. Runan Ni.

In this study, we present some sandwich glass beads found in Hulunbir，Inner Mongolia,China. According to the chemcial analysis, these beads are also soda-lime glass with very low Al, Mg and K contents. And the beads are transparent which is due to the Mn2+ decourling techinic was used. Compared with the data published, the beads were much likely from the area ruled by Roman Empire.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Darío Bernal-Casasola.

Over the past 10 years, bones from whales and other marine mammals have been uncovered from archaeological excavations of Roman cities around the Straits of Gibraltar (Baetica and Mauritania Tingitana coasts). The high frequency of archaeozoological remains and their location within fish-preserving contexts (cetariae) has suggested the active exploitation of cetaceans throughout the Roman Imperial period (II BC - V AD). This paper reviews the evidence from Baelo Claudia, Iulia Traducta, Septem...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jean Hudson. Roberta Boczkiewicz.

The increasing number of samples of zooarchaeological remains from the prehistoric Chimu settlement of Cerro La Virgen, on the North Coast of Peru, allow a comparison of consumption and discard patterns within and between households and neighborhoods. The information from this analysis adds to our understanding of economic and political realities of life in a community which would have to balance the demands of family consumption and the state tributes requested by the Chimu polity. Of special...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leandro Cascon. Rui Murrieta.

In the Brazilian State of Pará, Eastern Amazon, indigenous Asurini populations living in the middle course of the Xingú River currently face the challenge of maintaining traditional lifeways in a situation of great ecological and social change, due to the construction of Belo Monte, one of the world’s largest hydroelectric dams. Amongst their practices, the cultivation of diverse varieties of manihot, sweet-potato, beans, maize and other crops is an important aspect of Asurini culture, and one...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Coutu. Judith Sealy.

During the African Iron Age from 800 to 1200 AD, overseas trade began to expand out of southern Africa across the Indian Ocean, which caused an increase in the export of raw materials such as ivory. Archaeological evidence of ivory working has been found on sites across southern Africa dating to this period, including KwaGandaGanda and K2 in South Africa, Kaitshaa and Bosutswe in Botswana and Ingombe Ilede in Zambia. It is unknown whether the raw ivory was obtained locally or traded in, whether...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karine Lefebvre.

A mitad del siglo XV, el joven reino tarasco llevó a cabo una importante fase de expansión de su territorio. Es en este marco que la región de Acámbaro-Maravatío, ubicado a unos 130 km de laguna de Pátzcuaro (corazón del reino), cayó en mano de los tarascos. Pero la conquista no se persiguió más allá y el sector de Acámbaro se convirtió en una zona de frontera. La dominación tarasca de la región fue breve, apenas unos 80 años. Sin embargo, estas ocho décadas fueron suficientes para que el poder...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sheridan Lea. Natasha P. Vang. Tiffiny A. Tung.

Life in a rural village can be vastly different from life in the metropolis, and when an empire collapses the effects can reach even the smallest village. For Qasa Pampa, an agricultural village that was occupied in Wari (ca. 650 – 850 CE) and post-Wari (ca. 1000 – 1200 CE) times and located several kilometers away from the capital of Huari, life for its population may have been quite distinct from their capital counterparts. Stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis can shed light on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Reno Nims. Virginia L. Butler.

Zooarchaeological evidence from Tse-whit-zen indicates that juvenile sablefish, or black cod (Anoplopoma fimbria), played an important role in the village’s economy for ~2,200 years, but sablefish is scarcely mentioned in previous Northwest Coast archaeological research. The near-total absence of this species from other coastal sites in the Salish Sea cannot be explained by post-depositional destruction, screen size, sample size, or differences in zooarchaeological identification criteria. Thus,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Schmidt.

One of the most vexing problems in the archaeology of eastern Africa is the absence of burial evidence from deep antiquity. This issue is now moot with the documentation of multiple burials on the narrow rims of steep volcanic calderas in far western Uganda. Dating to the early first millennium CE, these cemeteries contain well preserved individuals who lived in a forested environment they modified by fire while subsisting on a mixed diet of fish, game, and agriculturally produced grains....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stacie King. Shanti Morell-Hart. Elizabeth Konwest.

In the 16th century, Dominican priests attempted to eradicate various non-Catholic ritual practices in Nejapa. Native peoples apparently regularly visited Cerro del Convento, a Sierra Sur landmark, to perform rituals and leave offerings. In the late 1500s, priests from the Dominican doctrina in Nexapa visited Cerro del Convento to destroy and burn all evidence of "idolatry". Between 2009 and 2013, members of the Proyecto Arqueológico Nejapa Tavela surveyed and excavated at Cerro del Convento to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steve Fox. Jaime Awe.

The functions of cosmologically oriented structures within the site core of Ancient Maya sites have been analyzed by archaeologist throughout time. However, the role of terminus groups in relation to the function of site cores have received little attention. In this paper, we analyze the function of the Zopilote Complex, a Terminus group located south of the Cahal Pech site core. Excavations on Str. 1 at Zopilote uncovered two elite burials accompanied by evidence of human sacrifice....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Virginia Lucas. Claira Ralston. Anna Osterholtz. Andre Gonciar. Angelica Balos.

The Magura Uroiului rock formation, located at the confluence of the Mures and Strei Valleys, is a natural, dominating fortress on the landscape. This rock formation has been utilized by groups including, the Hallstatt, Celtic, and Late Iron Age Dacian. The focus of this presentation is the First Iron Age mortuary monument located at the base of the rock face. This monument yielded both human and animal remains, with primary and secondary burial practices of the human remains occurring. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Schaefer. Bethany L. Turner. Haagen D. Klaus.

The Inka Empire (AD 1450-1532) practiced flexible forms of statecraft that affected their periphery populations across the cordillera. Lived experiences of different Inka subjects differed in varied ways, which therefore requires nuanced bioarchaeological approaches. This study aims to interpret psychosocial stress through assays of cortisol in archaeological hair from sacrificed individuals (n=19) recovered in the Huaca de los Sacrificios at the Chotuna-Chornancap Archaeological complex. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Long.

This investigation of historical ceramics is conducted on a collection that dates from 1886 to 1915. Saenger Pottery Works was in operation from c.a.1885 through c.a. 1915. The size, form, and function variability of the ceramics inform about production techniques used and what forms are preferred over others. The sherds previously collected are currently dated based on makers’ marks, stylistic attributes, and the period of kiln operation. However, issues with the dating method need resolution...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Abigail Meza-Peñaloza. Yoko Sugiura.

El estudio de la salud en el pasado utilizando restos óseos humanos está constreñido a una serie de limitantes, durante las exploraciones arqueológicas no se logran recuperar el total de los esqueletos que deberían representar a la población, sin embargo cada colección ósea representa un fragmento de la historia de vida de las personas que allí vivieron; se estima que un aproximado del 15 por ciento de los individuos presentan alguna señal de enfermedad, que bien puede ser de origen traumático,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fumiyasu Arakawa. Trevor Lea.

New Mexico State University (NMSU) anthropology students spent the summer of 2016 getting to know a bit more about the Mimbres people who lived more than 1,000 years ago, and along the way helped preserve their history. Eight NMSU students joined community volunteers for four weeks to explore and excavate areas of the South Diamond Creek Pueblo (SDCP) in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico. The project had three major goals: 1) to contribute to our understanding of cultural trajectories in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Gonzalez Omaña.

In September 2015, the second season of The Northern Basin of Mexico Sites Verification Project was made. During fieldwork, we had the chance of visit San Marcos Jilotzingo, a little town in the Mexican state of Mexico, and realize that the current village lay over the remains of prehispanic Xilotzingo, in which they share the same agricultural terraces, the tuff carved streets and building materials. But surprisingly there were no structures, since the current inhabitants of Jilotzingo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Bellorado.

Twined sandals were important components of Ancestral Pueblo ritual paraphernalia for a millennium. They were expensive and time consuming to make and many had patterns of raised knots woven into their treads that stamped footprints with complex geometric designs on the ground when worn. Scholars have postulated that twined sandals were likely used in communal rituals, dance performances, and even foot races. During the Pueblo II period, their use appears to have been connected with communal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Perry. Michael Glassow. Terry Joslin. Kelly Minas. Mark Neal.

As the smallest of California’s Channel Islands, isolated and impoverished Santa Barbara Island has received less scholarly attention than its well-known neighbors. Initially described as a "way station" to the other islands, subsequent archaeological expeditions have reinforced the interpretation that the island was only temporarily occupied in the Middle and Late Holocene. In 2012, an effort to rerecord the 19 known sites was undertaken. Subsequent surveys have increased the number of sites to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alberto Sarcina.

What kind of relationships were created between the indigenous people of the western region of the Gulf of Urabá (Colombia) and the Spaniards in the early years of the conquista? What happened in Santa Maria de la Antigua del Darién (1510-1524), the first European city founded on the American mainland, in the course of its short history, and immediately after its abandonment? We have a number of clues that can be drawn from contemporary historical sources (Oviedo), sources immediately following...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Belinda Riehl-Fitzsimmons. Tomasin Playford. Karin Steuber.

The ArchaeoCaravan-Museum Program brings archaeology and history alive in the province of Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan Archaeological Society spent the past five years visiting community museums with our mobile activity centre to educate and inform the public about our rich and diverse archaeological heritage. In total, we visited 107 museums (in 11 museum networks), 102 communities and reached over 10,000 people of all ages. At the same time, we were able to view museum collections that may...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tuna Kalayci.

Roads reflect motivations and needs behind many relations of past societies; they imposed spatial order on agricultural production, enabled transportation of bulk-goods, and mediated hegemonic power. Considered not only as the container of action, but also the action itself, the road has much more to say on the ancient movement praxis. This study focuses on Bronze Age roads (hollow ways) in Upper Mesopotamia. At this space-time, the movement embedded within production economies contributed to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Vining.

As global ecological change becomes a pressing contemporary issue, it’s beneficial to also consider how long term land use histories have effected current ecologies. Using imagery from several multispectral remote sensing satellites and field verification of detected sites, I describe how legacies from archaeological occupations impact modern industrial sugarcane production in the Chicama valley. Occupation sites and agricultural systems, both extant and remnant, continue to influence sugarcane...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Monika Therrien.

Unlike archaeological studies that seek to focus on the relations of power and elites, that by means of physical violence and symbolic exerted their domination over other groups assumed to be passive, an approach from practice theories and spaces of contact in which daily practices took place is proposed. It is in these spaces and through everyday activities that curiosity, knowledge and consent made it possible for the majority to survive under the colonial regime, without this implying an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dominique Rissolo. Michael R. Hess. Jose Huchim Herrera. Fabio Esteban Amador.

Satunsat, or the Labyrinth, at Oxkintok is one of the most unique structures in the Maya lowlands. Inside this otherwise unremarkable terraced building platform are interconnected vaulted passageways that span three levels. In addition to functioning as an observatory, Satunsat has also been interpreted as a symbolic cave, and was in fact referred to as a cave by the residents of Maxcanu during the 19th century. The phenomenon of architectural caves is well documented and lies along the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karin Steuber. Tomasin Playford. Biron Ebell.

Over 30 years ago, Biron Ebell reported the existence of a probable Cody Complex site near Ogema, Saskatchewan, situated about 100 km south of Regina. Since then, numerous artifacts have been recovered and a discrete scatter of bison faunal remains identified. Like most Palaeoindian sites in the region, the Farr site had been recorded as a surface collection with artifacts and observed features exposed by cultivation, wind and water erosion. In 2014, the Saskatchewan Archaeological Society...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith Reifschneider.

The social production of scale in archaeology has figured prominently in research that aims to develop understandings of local, regional, national, and global processes by tacking between various scalar modalities. Oftentimes, ‘the global’ is posited as the causal and ultimate force, relegating ‘the local’ to the status of a case study. Within social science research more broadly, conceptualizations of scale have increasingly undergone complex formulations in order to address political processes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexis Boutin.

Bioarchaeologists have traditionally prioritized statistically significant patterns in large skeletal assemblages to document major biocultural trends in human populations. But in the last 15-20 years, the osteobiography approach has returned to favor, encouraging bioarchaeologists to focus on the specifics of the human scale, reconstruct an experiential prehistory, and restore an identity to those "genderless, faceless blobs" (Tringham 1991: 97) who people so many traditional interpretations of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Dresser-Kluchman.

This poster reports on an archaeological survey in the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument that has revealed important new evidence of the Ute and other hunter-gatherers dating to the late pre-colonial and early colonial periods. Of particular interest are a series of culturally modified Ponderosa pine trees, which are likely linked to Ute foodways employed during period of starvation or want. I examine these culturally modified trees as artifacts on the landscape within the context of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christian Tryon. Nick Blegen. J. Tyler Faith.

Among recent groups, foraging activities are unevenly distributed across the landscape. Archaeological traces of past foragers are also spatially variable as a result of multiple factors, including the redundancy of site use, a bias towards tasks that leave well-defined material traces likely to preserve into the present (e.g., stone tool manufacture), and local sedimentological factors that mediate site preservation through burial as well as subsequent recovery through erosion or excavation....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Iain Davidson.

Analysis of rock art in several regions shows great variability in the presence or absence of combinations of individual images that can be considered as scenes in our graphic traditions. This presentation will consider examples from Australia, Europe and North America to show that the differences in the way people represented the world are significant about how they related to the world.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tilman Lenssen-Erz. Brigitte Mathiak. Eymard Faeder. Maya von Czerniewicz. Joana Wilmeroth.

In prehistoric rock art the notion of ‘scene’ always played an important role but a clear and widely accepted definition of scene does not exist and little was written about what constitutes a scene. If informing context lacks, Gestalt features are often taken to identify what can be considered a meaningful scene. If we consider a scene as displaying a social animated configuration, then the Gestalt laws alone are an insufficient tool. Particularly in scenes including humans and animals...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Dolfini.

According to Kristian Kristiansen, archaeology is now undergoing a major paradigm-shifting phase akin to the ones that defined the discipline in the mid-1800s and mid-1900s. He dubbed it ‘the third science revolution’, for fast-developing scientific methods, chiefly A-DNA and stable isotope analyses, sit at the core of the current changes. Arguably, similar if less visible changes are occurring in material culture studies. These are fostered by the marrying of new theoretical approaches (e.g....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Crown.

Consumption of caffeinated drinks made with cacao and perhaps holly is well documented for Chaco Canyon. Less understood is the context of consumption. Evidence for cylinder vessel production, use and termination particularly reveals aspects of drinking ritual, including frothing. New compositional analysis demonstrates how Chaco potters decorated pots with post-firing pigments on stucco, permitting repeated decoration and cleansing of drinking vessels. Changes in the sizes, shapes, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zuzana Chovanec.

The role of organic residue analysis in archaeological research has shifted from an intermittent side project of interested analytical specialists to becoming standard components of an archaeological research program with a growing number of archaeologists being trained in both excavation and analytical instrumentation. Such developments within the field of archaeology not only highlight the benefits of applying a range of scientific techniques, but also expand the scope of archaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Harke.

The Tiger Lucine (Codakia orbicularis) is a large bivalve native to the West Indies. This tropical species is a common constituent of late prehistoric (AD 800-1500) shell middens in the Florida Keys, the Lucayan Archipelago, and the Greater Antilles (e.g., Jamaica). C. orbicularis’ prominence in the archaeological deposits of these regions is the predictable result of its abundance, relative ease of access, and widespread efficacy as both a subsistence resource and raw material for tools (e.g.,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Smiti Nathan.

Since the late 1960s, flotation has been used to extract macrobotanical remains from soil. Machine-assisted flotation is a popular method; however, very few publications discuss the logistics of designing and constructing such a machine (notable exceptions include (Hunter and Gassner 1998; Nesbitt 1995; Pearsall 2015; Shelton and White 2010)). Flotation machines are often built in the country of research. The availability of local resources impacts the design, construction, and operation of a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Zych. Brian Nicholss.

The culmination of over a century of research at the Aztalan site in south-central Wisconsin has highlighted the drastic extent of landscape modification by the site’s inhabitants. Notably, with the arrival of Middle Mississippians by the end of the 11th century A.D. these modifications included construction of earthen platform mounds, formal plazas, and landscape reclamation. Utilizing publicly available LiDAR derived surface data for Jefferson County, Wisconsin, this poster presents a summary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason King. Jane Buikstra.

Investigations of Illinois Valley Middle Woodland (Hopewell, ca 50 cal BC – cal AD 400) mound structure have traditionally emphasized the organization and composition of initial, or primary, features that anchor these monuments. Particular attention has been placed upon the distinctive ramp and tomb complex that centers initial ritual activity at mound sites and its connection to mortuary activity, cosmology, and creation. In contrast, archaeologists have typically underappreciated subsequent...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dylan Clark.

Mesoamerican archaeology typically approaches social, cultural, political, and economic dynamics from a center-periphery perspective, tracing the historical pulses of integration and disintegration through the lens of the urban centers of the social and cosmological landscape. While the coastal Maya may seem peripheral geographically, maritime communities were actually central integrative forces throughout their dynamic histories. They facilitated and motivated movements and interactions of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander Berry.

Following the last glacial maximum, coastlines around the world drastically changed. This occurred through a complex combination of geomorphological processes, which were compounded by global sea-level rise. While these fluctuations took place, humans adapted to an aquatic subsistent lifestyle along coastal regions. This study focuses on the southern Salish Sea (located in North America’s Pacific Northwest) and human-environmental interactions during the terminal Pleistocene. Through the use of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Valerie Feathers. Heather McKillop. E. Cory Sills. Rachel Watson.

Underwater excavations were performed at Eleanor Betty in 2013 to assess sea-level rise, map preserved wooden architecture, and investigate the inundated shell midden associated with the site. A total of 39 sediment samples were subjected to loss-on ignition (the burning of sediment to obtain the percent of organic matter present) and microscopically sorted in order to identify and analyze organic and inorganic matter. All samples were high in organic content and contained an abundance of fine...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Debra Walker.

The principal ceramic type for the Petén Late Preclassic period, first identified by Edith Ricketson in the 1930s, and dubbed Sierra Red three decades later, has just about the widest distribution of any ceramic type in the Maya lowlands. In particular, the omnipresent simple flaring walled bowl form is virtually synonymous with the period, yet, after five years of excavation at Preclassic Yaxnohcah, Sierra Red remains an elusive minor type. Middle Preclassic Um Phase is well represented as is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alex Nyers. Loren Davis.

Until recently, the search for Pleistocene-aged sites along Oregon’s coast has been mostly limited to subaerial landforms. In 2017 however, the search for early sites will reach past the subaerial and to Oregon’s outer continental shelf. These search efforts will be guided by using a GIS-based model that predicts the foraging potential of reconstructed late Pleistocene-aged coastal landscapes. We review our modeling methodology and how ecological aspects of Oregon’s coastal landscapes may have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Neal Ferris.

The general enthusiasm for all things digital applied to archaeological method and research makes teaching a course on digital archaeology tailor-made for the kinds of experiential learning approaches archaeology does so well within the academy. That enthusiasm facilitates an archaeologically creative engagement with digital technologies and information management that, at its best, re-imagines the archaeological enterprise and advances stunning new research applications. But what is sometimes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tyler Stumpf. Vanessa Hanvey. Richard Jefferies.

The Sapelo Island Mission Period Archaeological Project (SIMPAP) has been conducting research on Sapelo Island, Georgia since 2003 in search of the Mission San Joseph de Sapala. Previous test excavations have produced potential architectural features and Spanish artifacts, while previous geophysical feasibility surveys hint at the presence of unique anomalies warranting further investigation. During the summer of 2016, University of Kentucky personnel conducted new ground-penetrating radar and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kimberlee S. Moran.

In 2009 the National Research Council released a damning report on the state of forensic science in the United States. The end result has been a six year mission to develop national standards and best practice for the myriad of forensic specialties. Coordinated by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), scientific working groups (SWGs) brought together practitioners, academics, and other stakeholders from around the country to draft documents outlining standard terminology...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Geoffrey Cunnar. Ed Stoner. Tom Bullard.

Archaeological investigations were conducted by Western Cultural Resource Management in the Fire Creek Archaeological District in the central Great Basin. We address the results of investigations at a Paleoarchaic site containing a buried soil with both an abundant stemmed point trajectory and a Levallois-like reduction method dating to the Younger Dryas. Employing agency theory and through an examination of depositional history, the chaîne opératoire and spatial analyses, we argue that the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bridget M. Zavala.

Many archaeologists have recorded plazas, altars, and rock art in Durango's pre-Hispanic landscapes. These spaces are often characterized as settings for ritual activities. Nevertheless, few researchers have posited the kinds of activities that were carried out in these spaces. In this paper I analyze data from excavation of the sites of Corral de Piedra and Los Berros in the Sextin valley in northern Durango, Mexico. The materials, architecture and spatial distribution suggest a variety of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Loren Davis. Alexander Nyers.

To date, efforts to search for and investigate Pleistocene-aged sites along the Northwest Coast have been largely limited to subaerial landforms and deposits. Beginning in 2017, the search for early coastal sites will extend onto Oregon’s outer continental shelf. These search efforts will be supported by the use of a GIS-based model that makes predictions about the foraging potential of reconstructed late Pleistocene-aged coastal landscapes. We review the modeling methodology and how...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Toney. Michael Desilets.

In early 2016, Garcia & Associates conducted forensic archaeological investigations for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. DPAA (formerly JPAC) is the Department of Defense agency tasked with providing the fullest possible accounting for missing American service personnel from past wars. During World War II, the Battle for Guadalcanal lasted from 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943 and included intense ground fighting to secure the airstrip known as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ryan Breslawski.

Bison remains often serve as evidence for seasonal food exploitation in archaeological investigations of the Great Plains and adjacent regions. Interpreting this evidence relies on discrete rutting and calving periods that allow zooarchaeologists to link ontogenetic data to a specific time of year. However, ecological data on modern bison show that the timing of rutting and calving behavior varies between herds and even within the same herd between years. To address this problem, this study...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Vadala. Jennifer Chmilar.

All cultural groups must respond to and adapt within their surrounding environment, as was the case for the ancient Maya. The Maya area consists of various distinct ecological zones, from volcanic highlands through swampy bajos and across a dry karstic plain punctuated by wetlands, each providing distinct adaptation opportunities. Seasonal fluctuations provide further texture to the flow of each landscape. This paper explores and attempts to characterize the temporality of the ancient Maya...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Rivas. Sarah Neusius.

As part of its investigations the Eastern Archaic Faunal Working Group (EAFWG) has been examining multiple explanatory models for Archaic variability and change in aquatic resource use. One traditional model argues that the intensified use of aquatic animals can be attributed to population growth and aggregation. In order to test this model the EAFWG explored possible methods for reconstructing Archaic population demographics. Until recently broad-scale Archaic population reconstruction has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jillian Huntley. Steven George. Mary-Jean Sutton. Paul Tacon.

The materials used to created rock art preserve information regarding how, and in some instances when, it was made. Here we outline the field based, geochemical study of three white hand stencils on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia. Portable X-Ray Fluorescence analysis determined that the stencils were made using a titanium dioxide pigment, almost certainly commercially produced white paint. Significantly, this helped us assign a chronology as the rock art must have been produced...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sonia Zarrillo.

Genetic studies suggest that cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) domestication occurred in the Upper Amazon of southeastern Ecuador and northeastern Peru and was then transported by humans northwards to Central America and Mexico. As such, we should expect to find the earliest archaeological evidence of cacao use in the tropical forests of South America. This paper presents starch granule evidence for the early use of cacao from the Upper Amazon site of Santa Ana-La Florida during the Ecuadorian Early...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Hayden.

Caves have been recognized as important prehistoric ritual sites for well over a century. Yet, archaeological discussion of the rituals conducted in caves has rarely gone beyond the platitudes that they were locations for contacting the spirits, invoking powers of fertility, or burying the dead. This paper attempts to place the ritual uses of many caves in a more specific ritual context by documenting the ethnographic ritual use of caves by secret society members and relating this to some...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lance Lundquist. Chris Jenkins.

What constitutes acceptable Section 106 mitigation to resolve adverse effects under the National Historic Preservation Act? Stipulations in a Section 106 Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) need to be enforceable, with sufficient specificity and accountability for an Agency to monitor compliance. Are there limits to what is possible in Stipulations in Section 106 MOAs? This paper uses examples from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Regulatory Program-permitted projects to explore the concept and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Santiago Mora.

Two different scenarios have been proposed to explain sedentarization and the transition from foraging to sedentary societies. In the first a key resource or a combination of resources allows the stability of the population giving rise, over time, to sedentarization; in the second, a population concentration caused by an external change such as drastic climatic fluctuation or regional population increase with its concomitant social problems force the adoption of a sedentary way of life. In these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charlotte Goudge. Sarah Hunt.

The typological and scientific study of trade beads in Native American contexts has contributed a great deal to understanding contact period sites (ca. 1607–1783). The Cape Creek site, NC is a perfect example of British-indigenous connectivity in the contact period and is important for understanding interaction in the Southeast. Unlike other studies of this type that mostly focus on mortuary sites, Cape Creek is a village settlement and will therefore provide a different ...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Martinez-Yrizar. Carmen Cristina Adriano-Morán.

Over the last decades, as a result of archaeological research inside of the Sun and the Moon pyramids in Teotihuacan, significant concentrations of chía (Salvia hispanica) seeds have been recovered in association with ritual contexts. This is particularly true in Offering 2, pit 59 of the Sun Pyramid and in Burial 6 of the Moon Pyramid. The archaeological artifacts were similar in both contexts, for example Tlaloc vessels, projectile points, pyrite disks and faunal remains, among others. In this...