Society for American Archaeology

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson. Torun Zachrisson.

With the expansion of the Eastern trade route during the 9th and 10th centuries a regular contact with the markets of the Muslim world was established. Long-distance trafficking of slaves became an important commodity. It was a high risk venture that required a new level of organisation, control and logistics. The full extent of the trafficking is not known but it included moving people and goods in both ways along a route that offered little infrastructure and difficult terrain. Trafficking of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only E Adams. Samantha Fladd. Richard Lange. Claire Barker.

In 2011 the Homol’ovi Research Program (HRP) launched a fieldschool at Rock Art Ranch (RAR) 8 km south of Chevelon Pueblo and nearly 25 km from the Homol’ovi core (Homol’ovi I-IV) to investigate (1) the relationship of the many small pueblos in the area to those occupied at the same time in the core Homol’ovi area and ultimately to the large Pueblo IV villages; (2) the location and age of sites associated with the major petroglyph panels at The Steps in Chevelon Canyon generally dating...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Kroot.

Archaeological ethics require all sites identified on survey to be reported and described in such a manner as to allow for the archaeological community to understand their research potential. This can present a challenge in regions without a significant body of previous research to aid in the interpretation of finds. The Bandafassi Regional Archaeological Project in southeastern Senegal faces just such a situation. A research question driven survey strategy, directed at the archaeological record...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Annelou Van Gijn.

Experimental archaeology plays a critical role in the development of new ideas and techniques within the discipline, for example, within studies of artifact manufacture and use, butchery practices, taphonomy, etc. Despite a difference in the nature of ‘controls,’ out-of-the-lab experiments play a crucial role in scientific archaeology because they often shed new and different light on a range of complex issues, as demonstrated by recent house building experiments conducted with the assistance of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thadra Stanton.

This is an abstract from the "NPS Archeology: Engaging the Public through Education and Recreation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. On-going efforts to increase outreach, education, engagement and relevancy for the Southeast Archeological Center (SEAC) over the past 8 years have resulted in the increased visibility of SEAC, the National Park Service, and archeology. SEAC has worked with educators through the Teacher-Ranger-Teacher program to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steffan Gordon. Hongbin Yue. Zhanwei Yue.

Excavations at the locus of Tongle Huayuen in the Late Shang Dynast (ca. 1250-1046 B.C.E.) capital site of Yinxu, near the modern city of Anyang, uncovered the remains of a small aboveground earthen structure (2015ALNF1). The recovery of wall and ceiling remains, much of which displayed considerable fire-reddening, from refuse pits associated with building foundations provided the opportunity to examine non-elite, non-palatial architecture in greater detail than has generally been possible at...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Whitney Battle-Baptiste. Elizabeth Chilton. Elena Sesma.

Over the past several decades there has been a great deal of archaeological excavation and analysis of both U.S. and Caribbean plantations. However, many of these research projects are designed to address archaeological research questions rather than some of the pressing problems faced by descendant communities concerning their heritage. In 1994, UNESCO launched their “Slave Route” project, with the aim of “contributing to a better understanding of the causes, forms of operation, issues and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Miriam Belmaker. Omri Barzilai.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 'Ubeidiya, Central Jordan Valley, Israel, is one of the earliest prehistoric sites outside Africa. Extensive excavations in the second half of the twentieth century yielded important archaeological, paleontological, and geological data, which provided insights into early Pleistocene hominins’ expansion out of Africa. The primary geological descriptions of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katrina Erickson. William Reitze.

This is an abstract from the "NPS Archeology: Engaging the Public through Education and Recreation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beginning in 2012 Petrified Forest National Park developed an archeological internship program designed to bring young professionals into the park for training, education, and outreach with the public. Since then the park has had 31 student interns. The internship program involves students working directly with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Larmore.

Excavations conducted near the ancestral Tolowa village of Naa-k’vt-‘at on the South Fork of the Smith River produced unexpected results in terms of the apparent absence of tools, such as harpoon tips and fishing weights, related to salmon fishing. Rather, an unusual lithic tool was identified, described as a "backed" knife produced from splitting a biface or uniface longitudinally to facilitate hand-held use. This paper will explore the possible function(s) of this tool in ancestral Tolowa...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dru McGill. Katherine Chiou. Daulton Selke.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this poster, the authors introduce a project funded by the National Science Foundation to advance knowledge on the pervasiveness and effectiveness of ethics and responsible conduct of research training interventions in archaeology and other science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Specifically, the project will examine the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bruce Bernstein.

This is an abstract from the "From Collaboration to Partnership in Pojoaque, New Mexico" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The K’uuyemugeh Project is designed to develop new methodologies, providing opportunities for Pojoaque community members to oversee, participate and interpret ancestral sites and their continuing relevance in telling ancestral and more recent histories. As a cultural anthropologist the work is also designed to bring the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Atsushi UEMINE.

This paper intends to explain how a small number of small-scale Jomon societies in western Japan evolved to large-scale agricultural societies that characterized the Yayoi Period. Traditionally, Japanese archaeologists have approached this issue from the standpoint of settlement archaeology. This paper contributes to understanding this phenomenon based on lithics and their contexts of discoveries. By analyzing the assemblages of chipped stone tools and debitage, it becomes possible to approach...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pam Crabtree.

In the past 15 years, we have seen significant methodological developments in zooarchaeology, including the uses of isotopic studies, aDNA, and geometric morphometrics. However, all of these methods depend on careful identification of animal bone materials and the preservation of their archaeological and stratigraphic context. This paper discusses basic methods of identifying, recording, archiving, and storing zooarchaeological collections in ways that will make them amenable to research by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Xiangming Dai.

Traditionally Erlitou was considered the capital city of the first kingdom——the Xia dynasty, in Chinese history. However, an increasing amount of archaeological data in the past decades have suggested that Taosi was the first state-level society earlier than Erlitou emerging in central China. With the amazing discoveries of the Shimao walled site in north Shaanxi province in the past several years, I offered that Shimao was another early state appearing in northern China, which was approximately...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cameron Gokee. Jason De León.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Immigration and Refugee Resettlement" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Federal agencies and news media often report undocumented migration across the US-Mexico border in gross terms of hundreds of thousands to millions of crossings and apprehensions—a scalar project that then plays into broader political discourse about national belonging. In this paper we draw on research by the Undocumented Migration...

DOCUMENT Citation Only L. Meghan Dennis.

Within videogames, archaeology is often not itself a focus, but provides a flavor or character-defining style based on pre-existing stereotypes of the discipline as presented in other forms of popular culture. This frequently results in utilizing the practice of archaeology as a form of secondary content, designed to provide a financial or game-play bonus to the player character, while allowing access to objects of cultural patrimony and license to commodify those objects. Through an application...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arturo Rivera I.. Sarah Baitzel.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of shicras – Quechua for plant fiber net-bags made to contain and carry building materials/construction fill – has being traced to the Archaic Period on the Central and North Coast of Peru. These bags contained rocks and other materials to prevent the collapse of wall foundations and to prevent collapse during earthquakes. However, there are no...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wendi Murray. Julie Unruh.

This is an abstract from the "Ideas, Ethical Ideals, and Museum Practice in North American Archaeological Collections" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Walk through any archaeological collection and you walk through a historical archive of collections storage practices. Best practices for collections storage evolve as materials science evolves, and storage decisions are realigned to maximize research potential. However, determining appropriate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul R. M. Miller. Paola Cortez Bianchini. Paola May Rebollar. Marta Adriana Pedri. Luis Renato Nascimento.

The "true garden" or "Bai Kui" of the Kashinawá, Pano language speakers in the state of Acre, Brazil, is described here as an example of the original horticulture which occupied the arc of dry forests in southeastern Amazon. Improved forms of manioc, peanuts, and peppers evolved during 9,000 years of cultivation and were exchanged with farmers on the Pacific Coast to improve garden diversity in an ancient and far-flung cultural interaction sphere. The connectivity required for long-distance...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Ciolek-Torello. Jeffrey Altschul. B. Gunchinsuren. T. Amgalantugs. John Olsen.

Mongolia is well known for its history of nomadic pastoralism and Bronze and Early Iron Age burials and monuments. It wasn’t until later in the Iron Age that the first large fortified towns and urban centers were built by the Uygher and Khitan Khanates. One of these, Baibalyk is believed to have been established in 758 CE by the Uyghur khagan, Bayanchur Khan, as a ceremonial and trading center in the fertile and strategically located Selenge Valley. Later in the 17th Century, Baibalyk is known...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Neely. Don Lancaster.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Exceptionally well-engineered prehistoric canals have been disclosed near the city of Safford, Arizona. Within an area of roughly 450 square kilometers, 12 distinct canal systems, comprised of 41 canals, have been identified originating in the bajada (foothills) of the Pinaleño Mountains. Conveying water from mountain runoff and springs, the longest canal is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brigitte Faugere.

In the North-Center region of Mexico, the Bajio knew its peak of populating during Epiclassic period. From the Preclassic background of the Chupicuaro Culture, emerges a rich ceramic and architectural tradition. Following the fall of Teotihucan, the Bajio covers itself with extensive networks of sites organized around ceremonial centers where appear frequently sunken patios and I shape ballcourts. The ceramic is nevertheless far from being uniform, denoting a will of cultural assertion for each...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alba Tellez-Nieto. Joshua Englehardt.

This is an abstract from the "Regional and Intensive Site Survey: Case Studies from Mesoamerica" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La sierra norte de Hidalgo no está bien documentada arqueológicamente, a pesar de su ubicación entre dos esferas culturales mayores del Postclásico: el señorío de Metztitlán y la Huasteca. Este trabajo busca llenar esta laguna del conocimiento, con dos metas principales: identificar la organización sociopolítica de los...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Hirshman. Matthew Valenti.

This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences 2024" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We examine the traces of production gestures that ceramics producers left behind on the surface of 100 sherds excavated at Urichu, a minor administrative center for the Tarascan (P’urépecha) state (1350–1524 CE), in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, México. These sherds represent the Early and Late Postclassic time periods at the site,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Graham. Scott Simmons.

The Caribbean sea, like the Mediterranean, was a facilitator of travel and communication. In the case of Belize, the relatively shallow waters of the coastal shelf sheltered water-borne Caribbean traffic, and the bevy of coral islands or cayes served as way stations for far-flung coastal trade. Essential to communities in the Maya area, however, was the transfer of goods from the coast to river and lake ports for inland distribution. In this presentation, we endeavour to summarise information...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kailey Martinez.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Gila National Forest/Wilderness comprised of rich mountainous land spanning between western New Mexico and eastern Arizona. This land was once home to the people of the Mimbres culture. The environments within these natural areas vary due to different altitudes and precipitation, which also affect the variety and amount of ecological resources. Two sites...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Rissetto. Kelli Bacon.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As the public increases its influence over how the discipline of archaeology defines its scientific and educational value, state-sponsored archaeological institutions, such as the State Historic Preservation Office, must continue to adapt to satisfy their professional and public audiences. In 2017, the Nebraska State Historic Preservation Office (NeSHPO)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melanie Saldana. James Brady. Robert Schmittner. Cristina Verdugo. Guillermo De Anda Alaniz.

With the discovery of passages sealed behind a blockage in 1959, Balankanche became the preeminent cave in Maya archaeology. Because so many of the intact vessels were incense burners and because of the Maya ceremony recorded as part of the investigation, Balankanche’s ritual function was never questioned even though at that time most caves were thought to be habitational. E. Wyllys Andrews IV’s monograph on the cave has remained one of the field’s best reports. In the summer of 2017, the Gran...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam King. Terry Powis. Sheldon Skaggs. Christina Luke. Nilesh Gaikwad.

This is an abstract from the "Adventures in Beekeeping: Recent Studies in Ecology, Archaeology, History, and Ethnography in Yucatán" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we discuss our recent absorbed residue study of a marble Ulúa style vase found at the Pacbitun site in Belize. In that study, we detected evidence for the consumption of the ritual drink balché dating to Terminal Classic period (800–850 CE). Consumption of balché is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lorraine Williams-Beck.

In the geographic heartlands of the Yucatan Peninsula, academic literature describes the Chenes region as an "archaeological province" with a particular regional cultural character, in which sculpted monuments with glyphs or ballcourts are scarce components in urban systems, and even less frequent in most monumental cores. To date only three ballcourts had been recorded. After field seasons in 2016 and 2017 I confirm another example in Tabasqueño, the only site also to exhibit a free-standing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael L. Loughlin. Christopher Pool.

This is an abstract from the "Los Rituales del Juego de Pelota en la Costa del Golfo / Ballgame Rituals in the Gulf Lowlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although ballgame paraphernalia and figurines depicting ballgame players have been reported from Tres Zapotes and other nearby sites since the 1930s, the identification of ballcourts in the Eastern Lower Papaloapan Basin (ELPB) has been elusive. At Tres Zapotes, the areas between mounds and in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcie Venter. Lourdes Budar. Philip J. Arnold III.

One of the characteristic features of the Classic Veracruz style complex is ballgame imagery on ballcourt panels, molded ceramic vessels, paraphernalia such as yokes, hachas and palmas, not to mention the presence of courts, markers, and stelae or other monuments. Various components of the Classic Veracruz style have been documented throughout the Gulf lowlands and adjoining regions of Mesoamerica. Few examples, however, derive from stratigraphic excavations of in situ deposits. In this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dmitri Beliaev. Alexandre Tokovinine. Milan Kovác.

During the 2017 field season of the Uaxactun Archaeological project new monument was excavated at Buena Vista, a minor center at Uaxactun urban periphery. It is a small carved altar or ballcourt marker, which according to its style dates to the Early Classic. High quality of the carving and the hieroglyphic inscription indicates that the altar/marker itself was a part of the monumental corpus of Uaxactun urban core; uncomplete text provides important new information on the dynastic history of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marijke Stoll.

As a specially marked category of public architecture, ballcourts were both socially-integrative and socially-divisive spaces through hosting games and other important ritual activities. Moreover, research has shown that ballgames in Oaxaca acted as mechanisms of social mediation within and between different ethnolinguistic communities. The distribution of ballcourts is therefore significant and expresses underlying social and political relationships. The Nejapa region is a frontier zone between...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Coppe. Veerle Rots. Marc Pirlot. Valérian Clarenne.

Projectile points have recently taken a prominent position in debates on the complexity of Paleolithic human behavior. While the appearance of hunting weapons in the archaeological record was a central element in early discussions, the debate has shifted towards the appearance of specific projecting modes. Given that the organic propulsion tools (bow, spear-thrower) are only rarely preserved, energy has been invested in experiments to explore how the projecting mode can be identified based on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cherra Wyllie.

This is an abstract from the "Los Rituales del Juego de Pelota en la Costa del Golfo / Ballgame Rituals in the Gulf Lowlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In south-central Veracruz, representations of ballplayers, captives, kings, and queens defy clear categorizations, made more complex by costume and gender designations, hierarchical proportion, natural sexual dimorphism, and symbolic roles versus historic portraiture; distinctions that may be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Antonietta Catanzariti.

Ban Qala, a site located in the mountainous valley of Qara Dagh, was first identified by Iraqi archaeologists in the 1940s. In 2015, a survey performed by the Qara Dagh Regional Archaeological Project determined the archaeological relevance of the site, which was then chosen as subject of an archaeological investigation. A step trench on the southern slope of the site verified the presence of LC 1-2 (4800/4500-3850 B.C.E.) and LC 3-5 (3850-3100 B.C.E.) occupation levels. This paper will discuss...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Stark. Myron Gonzales.

This is an abstract from the "The Vanishing Treasures Program: Celebrating 20 Years of National Park Service Historic Preservation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Preservation efforts at Bandelier National Monument have followed the Vanishing Treasures core mission for nearly 20 years. Today, the Bandelier Preservation Program maintains this tradition by way of numerous and varied preservation projects. Two projects in particular that adhere to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ben Raffield.

During the mid- to late-9th century, historical sources attest to large Viking raiding-fleets and ‘armies’ operating in northwestern Europe. These itinerant groups were not only seeking plunder but also land to settle, and some managed to establish colonies and enclaves with varying long-term success. The size and impact of these groups came under scrutiny during the latter half of the 20th century, when some scholars sought to downplay the influence of warfare as a catalyst of social and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Fitzpatrick.

Centuries ago in western Micronesia, Yapese islanders began traveling to the Palauan archipelago to carve their famous stone money from limestone, which they then transported back to use in a variety of social transactions. While commonly referred to as ‘money’, these disks were not currency in the strict sense, though their value is not dissimilar to other traditional and modern objects where worth is arbitrary based on both real and perceived attributes (e.g., size, shape, quality, pedigree,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Tritsch.

A striking example of the sophistication of the vitreous materials industry at the time it was produced, a faience bead depicting Tutankhamun drinking from a white lotus chalice possesses tremendous symbolic meaning that reflects the mores of the ancient Egyptian culture of the time. Although a published piece from the Eton College Collection, this is the first time extensive research has been performed on this unprovenanced artifact bought on the antiquities market in the late 1800s. Production...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sabrina Stempfle. Jörg Linstädter. Decio Muianga. Martina Seifert. Nikola Babucic.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology in Mozambique: Current Issues and Topics in Archaeology and Heritage Management" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2016, a research cooperation between the Eduardo Mondlane University and the German Archaeological Institute was started. Since then, this cooperation performed various surveys and geomagnetic prospection and developed with Hamburg University a dedicated research project which this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Akshay Sarathi.

This is an abstract from the "Islands around Africa: State-of-the-Art and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of urbanism in East Africa have tended to focus on the medieval “stone towns” that dot the coast. However, studying these more traditional expressions of urbanism produces an incomplete picture of the settlement patterns of precolonial East Africa. In islands such as Zanzibar, settlement patterns are unique due to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Curt Carbonell. Marie Hopwood. Laura Carbonell.

This is an abstract from the "Experimental Pedagogies: Teaching through Experimental Archaeology Part II" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bappir (Sumerian: "beer bread") was a ubiquitous ingredient in ancient Mesopotamian beer brewing for millennia. However, little is known about exactly what bappir was or how it was used. Nevertheless, the scant evidence available from contemporary texts, such as the second-millennium BCE "Hymn to Ninkasi," have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Smith.

As riverine and lacustrine environments expanded across north tropical Africa at various times in prehistory, humans developed special methods for fishing or "aquatic hunting." Barbed bone "harpoon" points, used across much of Africa north of the equator during early Holocene times, represent an especially compelling innovation. Studying barbed bone points from Turkana Basin, NW Kenya can shed light on hunter-gatherer technology, tool use, and resource acquisition in a context of environmental...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aslan Gasimov.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The city of Barda was especially notable due to its political and economic position in the Caucasus in the Middle Ages. In addition to being the capital of the Albanian state, it was the center of the local administration of the Sassanid Empire and later of the Arab Caliphate. Middle Ages sources inform about Barda, calling it the mother of Arran and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ben Raffield. Neil Price. Mark Collard.

The surge of violent raiding that traditionally marks the beginning of the Viking Age at the end of the 8th century ushered in a period of turmoil and change across much of Europe. Though the factors that might have triggered this have been repeatedly debated, no hypothesis has thus far provided a convincing explanation for this important historical phenomenon. One of the oldest arguments, discussed in this paper, was that proposed during the 11th century by Dudo of St. Quentin in Gesta...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Traci Ardren.

This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While bark cloth and paper are well known in the ethnographic and artistic records of Pacific and African cultures, due to preservation concerns these important plant based products have been challenging to investigate in the precolumbian cultures of the New World. Often our only proxy for bark...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dhillon Tisdale. Jonathan Flood.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The bark Canada was a cargo ship that was grounded near Skagway, Alaska, in 1898. The site has been a local tourist destination for over a century but has suffered over time from repeated exposure at low tides and altering environmental conditions. The purpose of the current project was to plot the history of the ship’s degradation, identify specific areas...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Santos Ceniceros-Rodríguez. Paul Collins. Amira Ainis. René Vellanoweth.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Non-cultural deposits and animal accumulations have been important for reconstructing past environmental conditions. In western North America, packrat middens have been analyzed to infer past vegetation communities, precipitation rates, and other environmental variables. In this poster, we analyze owl-generated pellets deposited over a 1,500-year period at...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bonnie Clark.

This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The sourcing of lithic raw material often challenges preconceived notions of the relationships between people, places, and objects for time periods prior to written records. But what of historic obsidian? What can sourcing reveal about the more recent past? This paper presents the case study of a most amazing historical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arthur Townend.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This thesis proposal considers the Barree Forge and Furnace site located at the Greene Hills Methodist Camp near Alexandria, a town in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. The manufacturing structure participated in Pennsylvania’s Juniata Iron District as one of the top producers of iron throughout the 19th century, reaching peak production during the 1860s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Sampeck.

While much scholarship has focused on indigenous-Spanish relationships in the construction of colonial Mesoamerica, a substantial and growing part of the population of colonial settlements were people of African descent. This trend was equally true in the Izalcos region of colonial Guatemala, what is today western El Salvador. This region was a crucial center in the developing trans-colonial economy because of its early leading role in the production of cacao, the tree whose seed is the main...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Catherine Frieman. James Lewis.

The idea of the journey is central to many narratives of European Bronze Age social structure, economy, and cosmology, but the mechanics of journeying in the Bronze Age are rarely discussed. We know that objects and raw materials travelled great distances, we think that exotic things and ideas were sought after, and it appears that Bronze Age people maintained ties with kin and trading partners over very great distances. Much of this distance was inevitably traversed on water; and riverine...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juan Fernandez Diaz. Ramesh Shrestha.

The Fundación Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Maya (PACUNAM), a non-governmental-organization (NGO) from Guatemala, works for the promotion and preservation of cultural and natural patrimony contained within the Mayan Biosphere Reserve (MBR) in the department of Petén in Guatemala. To aid with their preservation and promotion goals, PACUNAM, has developed a plan to perform an airborne lidar and hyperspectral survey of nearly 14,000 km² of the MBR and neighboring regions over a three year period....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Clay.

This is an abstract from the "Storeroom Taphonomies: Site Formation in the Archaeological Archive" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Galways Plantation collection, consisting of 28 boxes of artifacts excavated on Montserrat during the 1980s, was temporarily on loan in the United States when the Soufrière Hills Volcano erupted in July 1995. This catastrophic event led to the creation of an exclusion zone covering two-thirds of the island that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Allison Grunwald.

Thirty years ago, the Paleoindian bison bonebed at Carter/Kerr-McGee, located in northwest Wyoming, was interpreted as a winter kill-butchery locale with possible frozen meat storage. The recent complete analysis of these 9,000 year-old bones, originating from about 50 Bison antiquus, and comparisons of the bone fragmentation patterns at this site with those of experimentally broken bones, supports this initial assessment. Preliminary results confirm the presence of 15 regular spiral (fresh)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Fournier. Cynthia Otis Charlton.

This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of The Basin of Mexico: The Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization, Part 1" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Basin of Mexico book elucidated for a broader audience the work and philosophy of William Sanders and his first generation of collaborators and students and has influenced many generations of Mesoamerican scholars since. We draw on the broad studies of long-term work carried out...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mari Carmen Serra Puche.

This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of The Basin of Mexico: The Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization, Part 1" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cuando llegó a nosotros el contenido The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization se nos abrió un horizonte nuevo para explorar una región fundamental de nuestro patrimonio arqueológico como es el sur de la cuenca de México. Guiados por las enseñanzas...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Deborah Nichols. L.G. Gorenflo. Ian Robertson.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Mesoamerican Population History: Demography, Social Complexity, and Change" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Basin of Mexico Survey and the Teotihuacan Mapping Project were landmark projects in the history of archaeology. One goal of both projects was reconstructing prehispanic population history to improve our understanding of cultural evolution in this region. The population histories and estimates...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Bewley.

The competition for funding is increasing, as demand increases but the sources of funds diminish, especially if there is a research element in any proposed project. This paper will explore the possible routes for funding and the potential and pitfalls of using a "basket" approach to raising funds for archaeological projects in the public sector (i.e., charities and non-commercial), including universities. It will also look at different approaches for funding significant heritage-based projects...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Law Pezzarossi.

This is an abstract from the "Thinking with, through, and against Archaeology’s Politics of Knowledge" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. How can we learn from an object? How is that different from learning about an object? In a class project, I asked students to undo institutionalized silences and challenge dominant narratives with museum objects that appear to be mute. We studied three O'Odham baskets housed at the Syracuse University Art Museum...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Glenna Nielsen-Grimm. Diana Christensen Hawks.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Research in Montezuma Canyon, San Juan County, Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cave Canyon Village is a large, multi-component site investigated through survey and excavation by Brigham Young University Archaeology Field School in 1975-78. Two years of excavation in the Basketmaker component of the site uncovered 5 large pit structures, and associated small slab-lined cists that date to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Till.

This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most current archaeological narratives for Early Pueblo period occupation in southeastern Utah perpetuate the idea of in-situ cultural development across the span of the Basketmaker III and Pueblo I periods, often with the term "transitional Basketmaker III-Pueblo I." There is an implied,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Grant Coffey. Mark Varien. Kyle Bocinsky.

This is an abstract from the "Adopting the Pueblo Fettle: The Breadth and Depth of the Basketmaker III Cultural Horizon" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Basketmaker III period (A.D. 500 to 725) in southwestern Colorado was a time of fundamental social and demographic change. The area witnessed dramatic population growth after A.D. 600 that was due to immigration and increases in fertility. This growth was accompanied by changes in settlement...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Kearns.

This is an abstract from the "Adopting the Pueblo Fettle: The Breadth and Depth of the Basketmaker III Cultural Horizon" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The centuries-long Ancestral Pueblo Basketmaker period occupation of the Chuska Slope in northwest New Mexico was marked by intervals of relative stability punctuated by long and short distance residential moves. Basketmaker settlement and material culture data are examined relative to key aspects...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Camila Alday.

This is an abstract from the "Histories of Human-Nature Interactions: Use, Management, and Consumption of Plants in Extreme Environments" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study presents the results of an archaeobotanical analysis of the hunter-gatherer’s plant-fiber technologies of South America’s west coast. Due to the extreme aridity of the Atacama Desert, the preservation of organic technologies is exceptional. I analyze a unique assemblage...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cristina García-Moreno.

Our work conducted in 2009 and 2010 in Batacosa, an archaeological site first recorded in 1967 by William Wasley, and later visited by Victoria Dirst, allowed us to determine their full extent and material culture, in addition to date this site to the Batacosa (200 -700 AD) and early Cuchujaqui phases of the south branch of what Richard Pailes defined in 1973 as Río Sonora culture, geographically located in the Sonoran lower foothills. In this paper we present the results obtained by Proyecto...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandre Tokovinine.

This is an abstract from the "Heat, Steam, and Health: The Archaeology of the Mesoamerican Pib Naah (Sweat Baths)" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maya hieroglyphs are an invaluable source of data about the Classic period religion. However, when it comes to sweat baths, only a small subset of archaeologically investigated structures contains inscriptions. Therefore, any attempt to study this particular aspect of Maya ritual life should consider a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Wyatt.

This is an abstract from the "Digging Deeper: Pushing Ourselves to Engage the Public in Our Shared Heritage through Outreach and Education" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Every spring, the Battle Mountain BLM, Mount Lewis Field Office, puts on a presentation for 6th graders from the local elementary school. The presentations are conducted at the Mill Creek Campground, approximately 30 minutes south of Battle Mountain. It is an all-day event, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jocelyn Palombo.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As universities, federal curation facilities, public museums, and private collections struggle to create space on their shelves, curators and archaeologists have to evaluate what must stay and what will have to go. Utilizing a collection housed at the University of Montana I will explore strategies for combating this issue. This collection was obtained...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Genevieve Mielke.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn cost the U.S. army 268 men, which accounted for just over one percent of its entirety. Many of the men were killed during battle by Native American firearms and bow and arrows (Scott et. al, 2002, pg. 12). It is possible that some men perished by their own hand or by friendly fire. Through osteological data provided by the State Historic Preservation Office of Montana as well as historical documentation, this presentation will provide an analysis of gunshot wound...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Junker.

Archaeological studies of 'warfare' in their cultural settings have multiplied over time and include analyses of fortifications, military equipment, warrior paraphernalia, and human skeletal trauma, usually spanning broad time scales and including diverse archaeological contexts (e.g. town walls, weapons production workshops, cemeteries) that are often remote from the actual locales where warfare is carried out. In contrast, 'battlefield' archaeology focuses on relatively temporally compact...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gina Dezi. Kevin McBride.

The Calluna Hill Site (59-73) is a small Pequot Village burned down by the English allied forces during their withdrawal from the Battle of Mystic Fort. Recent excavations and metal detector surveys indicate the site was occupied for only a few weeks prior to its destruction on May 26, 1637. The site’s setting and faunal assemblage suggests the site was re-located away from the coast in anticipation of an English attack on Pequot territory. The artifact assemblage of re-processed brass and iron...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Nolan. Christine Thompson. Shelbi Long. Erin Donovan. Erin Steinwachs.

The Applied Anthropology Laboratories has conducted five years of research at the site of two of the most significant battles in the Northwest Territory: Battle of the Wabash (1791) and the Battle of Fort Recovery (1794). A recent survey and GIS analysis has shed new light on the Battle of the Wabash and particularly the Native American Confederacy’s (NAC) strategy and actions. Using visibility weighted cost paths we were able to predict the locations of survey finds. The survey results were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin McBride. David Naumec.

Conflict archaeology can offer a unique perspective into the nature and evolution of warfare in Native American and Euro-American societies in colonial contexts and how these societies shaped warfare and were in turn shaped by them. The Battlefields of the Pequot War Project, funded by the National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program, seeks to move beyond documentation of battle-related objects associated with Pequot War battlefields and place the conflict in a broader cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margo Schwadron.

Massive shell midden mounds were once common in the Canaveral region, but since the 1880s an estimated 68% of these sites have been destroyed. The shell mounds preserved within Canaveral National Seashore include one of North America’s tallest shell mounds (Turtle Mound), one of the last remaining vestiges of an extensive shell mound culture that inhabited the region. Recent investigations of Turtle Mound, Castle Windy and Seminole Rest inform about interactions and influences between people,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Jefferies. Christopher Moore.

More than a decade of archaeological investigations at Mission San Joseph de Sapala and its associated Guale village of Sapala on Sapelo Island, Georgia have provided significant new insights into the nature of Spanish-Guale interaction and negotiation. Some of these cultural transactions are reflected by items of clothing or personal adornment that were worn by the Spanish and/or Native Americans who lived in that 17th century Spanish Mission community. This poster explores the nature of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Reinaldo Morales.

This is an abstract from the "From the Plains to the Plateau: Papers in Honor of James D. Keyser" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Alexander Baumgarten’s *Aesthetica gave birth to modern aesthetics. He had in mind a specific relationship between human cognition and sensory perception. Originally, aesthetics was the “science of sensitive knowing” (*scientia cognitionis sensitivae), or the study of how we know the world through our senses (sensing it)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Catherine (Katie) Cottreau-Robins. Jacob Hanley. Paige Fleet. Christopher McFarlane. Brandon Boucher.

We used non-destructive laser ablation inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) to compare trace element concentrations in 50 copper artifacts from a variety of pre-contact sites in the Maritime Peninsula (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Maine), to natural copper samples from 16 geological sources in Michigan, Ontario, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the western and eastern regions of the Bay of Fundy. Of particular note is the contrasting composition of Lake...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter G. Roe.

Recent trace analysis of Greater Antillean culinary implements finds a paucity of evidence for manioc until late times. This is anomalous since it was believed that manioc accompanied the first truly horticultural and ceramic-producing groups, the Saladoids, from the Orinocan lowlands of South America through the Lesser Antilles to Puerto Rico at 800-500 B.C. Such late occurrence also contradicts the fact that manioc is a lowland cultigen, spanning northern tropical South America. Actual tubers...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gina Buckley. David Carballo. Daniela Hernandez Sariñana. Kenneth Hirth. Douglas J. Kennett.

A high-resolution chronology of two residential compounds (17:S3E1, 18:S3E1) recently excavated in the Tlajinga district of Teotihuacan has been developed using high-precision AMS 14C dating and artifact seriation datasets. The Tlajinga district is located along the southern Street of the Dead and was a possible entrance for migrants and visitors to the densely populated urban center of Teotihuacan during the Classic Period. Ceramic evidence suggests this district was occupied during the height...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jose Raul Ortiz. Takeshi Inomata. Barbara Arroyo.

The application of Bayesian analysis on radiocarbon dates from key sites in southern Mesoamerica has contributed to chronological revisions, which are leading to a re-evaluation of social processes among major political centers. Main challenges in this analysis include long occupation and mixing of old carbon in construction fills; poor preservation in the tropical environment; and the paucity of short-lived plant remains. Key steps in our application of Bayesian analysis on Mesoamerican...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia Furlong. Jerry Galm. Stan Gough.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bayesian analysis of eight calibrated radiocarbon dates from the Sentinel Gap site (central Washington) are presented. Application of a Bayesian framework provides a method of reassessing uncertainty in the age-range provided by this suite of assays. The Bayesian chronology generated through this analysis establishes a higher resolution temporal placement for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carlton Gover. Douglas Bamforth. Kristen Carlson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper uses a Bayesian approach to existing and new radiocarbon dates to examine the chronology of three distinct 13th through 15th-century occupations on the Central Plains. First, we present new dates from the Lynch Site (25BD1) on Ponca Creek in northeastern Nebraska and examine them in relation to dates on related sites along Ponca Creek. Second, we...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaeyong Lee. Youngseon Lee. Jangsuk Kim.

The goal of the study is to investigate the uncertainty of radiocarbon dating measurements. To study the variability of the measurements, the samples from the same specimen were sent to different radiocarbon dating labs and the estimated dates from various labs were obtained as data for analysis. Through a Baeysian analysis of the data, we could estimate the variability of the labs as well as variability between labs. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Druggan.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The emergence and decline of Cahokia, the largest Indigenous settlement north of Mexico, have long captivated archaeologists. Population reconstructions are a major line of evidence for unraveling the story of Cahokia. Current models hinge upon reconstructions derived from architectural data which estimate population by tracking the quantity of observed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jo Osborn.

Zooarchaeology offers a rich source of data for exploring a number of important questions, from domestication and subsistence to ritual practices and political economy. However, issues of equifinality frequently arise, making it difficult to interpret faunal assemblages as different agents and processes may create similar archaeological signatures. Researchers are often forced to make subjective choices when suggesting preferred explanations for their data. Such approaches are subject to human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathaniel Kitchel. Bryan Shuman. Joseph Gingerich. Erick Robinson.

Research on the Paleoindian colonization of the northeastern US suffers from numerous chronological problems. These problems are exacerbated by the use of summed probability distributions, which do not take into account the unique sampling issues and specific probability distributions of individual dates and their particular relationships to archaeological contexts. This paper introduces a Bayesian statistical approach to clarify some of these problems and raise new questions about early...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Utting.

This is an abstract from the "The Expanding Bayesian Revolution in Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. By studying stone tool technology, archaeologists and anthropologists shed light on big questions in human prehistory, including how ancient peoples adapted to changing environments, moved throughout landscapes, and interacted with other groups of people. There are many methodological approaches for characterizing stone tool technology,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julie Hoggarth. Brendan Culleton. Claire Ebert. Jaime Awe. Douglas Kennett.

Chronology-building in Maya archaeology has long been dominated by relative ceramic typologies based on excavations conducted in the 1950s, with date ranges temporally grounded by long-count calendar dates and a small number of imprecise radiocarbon dates. Higher-precision chronologies based on more recent methodological innovations in radiocarbon dating, including Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) 14C dating, Bayesian statistical modeling of radiocarbon dates, and ultrafiltration and XAD...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Rieth. Robert DiNapoli. Carl Lipo. Terry Hunt.

This is an abstract from the "Supporting Practical Inquiry: The Past, Present, and Future Contributions of Thomas Dye" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tom Dye was an early adopter and advocate for the application of Bayesian chronological modeling in Pacific archaeology. Since the 1990s, this chronology-building method has advanced our understanding of key cultural and demographic events through improved and diverse software options, better...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anthony Krus.

Bayesian chronological modeling is used to investigate the origins and causes of warfare during the Mississippian Period (AD 1000-1500) in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. Radiocarbon results from seven Mississippian centers are presented within an interpretative Bayesian statistical framework. The results indicate that bastioned palisades were built and maintained primarily in AD 1200-1400. While there are a number of reasons for the origins of widespread intensified...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Andrews.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paleodemographic reconstruction is an essential prerequisite for understanding human ecology of ancient societies. In the US Southwest several studies have employed Bayesian statistical methods to improve population estimates. This paper compares two alternative implementations of Bayesian statistics to demographic reconstruction in the US Southwest –...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Li-Ying Wang. Ben Marwick.

This is an abstract from the "Bayesian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Burials provide valuable information to study social structures and discuss social inequality. The relationship between prestige goods among burials may reflect the social relations between individuals, since prestige goods usually relate to social practices of trade, exchange, and gifting. We ask whether European colonial activities in seventeenth-century Taiwan...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Cabaniss. Kristen Mann.

Twentieth century excavations contributed greatly to our knowledge of domestic contexts throughout the Aegean. These excavations occupy a broad spectrum in terms of sampling strategy, data collection quality and publication extent. Architectural studies of household behavior have received particular attention, and explorations of settlement social organization through household archaeology are ongoing. Yet few methodologies explicitly address this issue of diverse publication levels and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bill Buhay. Yadira Chinique de Armas. Mirjana Roksandic. Roberto Rodriguez Suarez.

Reconstructing paleo-diets from bone-collagen isotope values (carbon and nitrogen) requires proper knowledge of diet-collagen isotopic fractionations (∆d13Cdiet-col, ∆d15Ndiet-col). While these isotopic fractionations vary considerably among previous human paleo-diet reconstructions, some more recent studies have successfully employed "non-static" dietary offsets. New research suggests that non-static diet-collagen isotope fractionations is best when attempting to reconstruct paleo-diets of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claire Ebert. Julie Hoggarth. Brendan Culleton. Jaime Awe. Douglas Kennett.

Sedentary agricultural villages, ceramic technology, and evidence for institutionalized socio-economic inequality first appeared in the Maya lowlands during the Preclassic Period (1200 cal BC – cal AD 300). The chronological details of these significant cultural developments between different regions of the lowlands remain unclear in many cases because of an emphasis on local ceramic typologies that are often difficult to correlate. We use a Bayesian framework to model high-resolution AMS 14C...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Birch. Sturt Manning.

An oft-cited problem in Iroquoian archaeology is that radiocarbon dating offers weak support for chronological estimates. These concerns focus on short durations of site occupation and multiple intercepts in the radiocarbon calibration curve. This logic has led researchers to rely on relative dating methods such as ceramic seriation—overlooking the assumptions and unverified step-wise logic transfers involved in these methods. Refinement in laboratory procedures and the application of Bayesian...