Society for American Archaeology

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Hodge. Camilla Mazzucato.

GIS-based data visualization offers a dynamic, compelling tool not only for promoting on-campus collections, but also for studying and managing these resources within frameworks of engagement, openness, and reflexivity. The Stanford University Archaeology Collections (SUAC) cares for over 30,000 archaeological and ethnographic artifacts from campus lands and around the world. These items manifest a range of complex histories and present-day significances. The collections were recently...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonah Augustine.

In this paper, I examine ceramic vessels, primarily serving wares, from the site of Tiwanaku, the preeminent city in the Central Andes between AD 500 and 1100, in order to examine the political effects of visual media in the ancient Andes. The paper’s empirical focal point is a comparison of ceramics recovered from the monumental core and from a residential sector at Tiwanaku. My analysis is based on both attribute and iconographic data I collected during fieldwork that sought to examine the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emiliano Bruner.

Cognitive archaeology is based on the assumption that behaviors can reveal cognitive capacities, and that archaeology can provide inferences on behaviors. Additional information comes from the fossil record (paleoneurology) and from methods in neuroscience (neuroarchaeology). Visuospatial functions can be investigated from all these perspectives. In archaeology, visuospatial capacity can be investigated in terms of space and geometry according to information on tools, tool use, and space...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Agni Prijatelj.

Caves are regularly portrayed as a blank stage upon which the social – including ritual activity – is enacted. This paper, however, takes the opposite approach: in discussing a number of selected Antique and Medieval ritual cave sites in Slovenia that are associated with Roman, Christian and Slavic religious systems, it demonstrates the vibrant, hybrid, participant and continuously-changing nature of underground places in which multiple symmetric and fluid connections exist between people,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcela Bernal. Lucero Aristizábal. Carl Langebaek. Freddy Rodríguez. Luz Pérez.

This paper studies the relation between feasts and other issues that are traditionally related the power of Muisca chiefs in their communities. The research question deals with the linkage between different dimensions of the social stratification in the La the Muisca site of Tibanica, including: feasting itself, health, kinship and nutrition. It is argued that there is no lineal relation between such variables, and that Muisca social organization is best understood from a multidimensional and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Osiris Quezada. Camila Pascal.

Este trabajo presenta los términos constructivos que se aplicaron en época prehispánica para nombrar elementos arquitectónicos, algunas técnicas constructivas, así como a los individuos que colaboraron en las actividades relacionadas con la edificación, particularmente en edificios del Posclásico en el Altiplano Central. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha Stone. Samuel Burns.

This is an abstract from the "Documenting Demographics in Archaeological Publications and Grants" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Academic research is comparable to a conversation. As in all conversations, certain voices are amplified while others are underrepresented. Much of this academic conversation happens in peer-reviewed journals and academic books, but informal conversations outside of these arenas are often overlooked. We are studying the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ronald Bishop. Socorro Jiménez. Erin Sears.

Knowledge about the movement of pottery with volcanic constituents throughout the northwestern Maya Lowlands, from Preclassic through Postclassic times is closely tied to sub-regionally specific resources of the Usumacinta Drainage—from its origin in the highland to the Gulf delta. Following pioneering work in the region by Blom, Berlin, Ochoa, and Rands, we focus on sites in the greater Palenque subregion and their links to sites along the Usumacinta and in the Chiapas Sierras. Although Karl...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jamie Forde.

In this paper I present data from recent excavations at the highland Mixtec site of Achiutla, Oaxaca, Mexico, to shed light on how indigenous residents there negotiated changes and continuities in exchange relationships from the Postclassic (AD 900-1521) to Early Colonial (AD 1521-1650) periods. Various lines of evidence demonstrate that Achiutla had significant economic ties to both the Basin of Mexico and the Oaxaca coast, and that the site was an important locus along trade routes between the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jose Luis Macias. José Luis Arce. Paul W Layer. Ricardo Saucedo.

The Tacaná Volcanic Complex consists of four volcanic edifices: Chichuj, Tacaná, and San Antonio volcanoes, and Las Ardillas dome. It began its formation ~225 ka yr ago at Chichuj, followed by Tacaná ~50 ka, and San Antonio volcano and las Ardillas Dome during late Pleistocene. Its volcanic history recorded during the past 50 ka yr indicates that the complex has experienced major flank failures at Tacaná (~15 ka) and San Antonio (~2 ka). The latter destroyed the southern flank of San Antonio...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Josephine McDonald. Gregory Haverstock. David Lee.

The Volcanic Tableland north of Bishop, California has been the focus of significant previous research (e.g. Bettinger, Basgall, Giambastiani), which has been mobilized by proactive BLM Archaeologists (E. Levy, K. Halford, and G. Haverstock) to generate a predictive model for managing cultural sensitivity against recreational impacts. Further innovation has been the use of specialized rock art recorders (represented by Western Rock Art Research) to document the petroglyphs and petroglyphs of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julien Riel-Salvatore. Fabio Negrino.

There has been a lot of focus on the disruptive effects of dramatic climatic shifts on Paloelithic population dynamics, but the topic of cultural continuity across such events has been less intensely investigated. This paper presents data from some of our recent research projects in Liguria, especially from the site of Riparo Bombrini, to investigate the nature of the apparent resilience of the proto-Aurignacian in the face of events like the Phlegrean Fields eruption and the reasons why the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Egan.

Payson Sheets’ seminal work on the Tierra Joven Blanca (TBJ) eruption of the Ilopango Caldera, El Salvador was one of the first projects to address the impact of large-scale disasters in Mesoamerica. The on-going research on this eruption has been important for understanding the event as well as developing method and theory for reconstructing the cultural impact(s) of sudden massive stresses. While originally dated to AD 290±110, the TBJ eruption has been re-dated to the mid 5-6th century and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Errin Weller.

Over multiple field seasons, Dr. Payson Sheets has led the Proyecto Prehistorico Arenal in the Northwest corner of Costa Rica. A landscape characterized by repeated volcanic eruptions has resulted in the preservation of prehistoric footpaths. Dr. Sheets established a methodology combining satellite imagery and archaeology that could differentiate between erosional, historic, and prehistoric footpath features. This paper will focus on this methodology and Dr. Sheets’ contribution to remote...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Sutherland. David Chicoine.

This contribution explores feasting practices discernible from the pottery assemblage at three Early Horizon archaeological complexes in the lower Nepeña Valley, north-central coast of Peru: Caylán (800 - 1 BCE), a large town or city interpreted as the primary center of a multi-tiered polity; Samanco (500 - 1 BCE), a small coastal town involved in production and exchange of maritime resources; and Huambacho (600 - 200 BCE), a ceremonial center associated with agricultural production. In feasting...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kandace Hollenbach.

In January 2015, we instituted a monthly "Volunteer Day" at the Archaeological Research Laboratory at the University of Tennessee. Originally conceived as a way to increase outreach to the general public as well as prepare a large number of artifacts for curation, this activity has developed into a "citizen science" opportunity, where participants help collect data. Here we reflect on the positives and negatives of the program as we have implemented it over the past two years, with feedback from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Dobereiner. Rebecca González Lauck.

This paper reports on the first stage of a regional settlement study initiated in 2016 by the Proyecto Arqueológico La Venta (PALV). Previous work beyond the primary site core of La Venta, Tabasco, Mexico has primarily focused on a limited subset of regional features. PALV’s inaugural season of field reconnaissance, alongside analysis of 5-meter resolution LiDAR and historic aerial photos, demonstrates that Formative and Post-Classic period occupations beyond the main La Venta "island" were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elise Alonzi. Barra O'Donnabhain.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Diet, mobility, and trauma are key factors in the performance of social identities and the maintenance of social boundaries between groups. In medieval Ireland, burial at monasteries also provided an opportunity for both lay and ecclesiastical communities to represent the religious identities of deceased individuals. In this study, mobility, trauma, and diet...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alistair Paterson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In recent centuries, Southeast Asian commercial trepang (sea cucumber) traders established seasonal outposts on the shores of the coasts and offshore islands of northern Australia. This southernmost extremity of a network of maritime trade and travel connected Australia and Aboriginal Australia to people from Southeast Asia and indirectly to emerging...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jette Arneborg.

The Norse colonies in SW Greenland were established in the late 900’s and depopulated in the middle of the second half of the 1400’s. The traditional Nordic Temperate Zone pastoralism clearly was at its limits in Sub Arctic SW Greenland. Still, adaptation to the new environment has been described as successful, and the depopulation in the late Middle Ages is considered a consequence of the specialization the successful adaptation leaving the Norse Greenlandic society less resilient and more...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margaret Nelson.

Vulnerability to climate change is a central issue in contemporary policy at local, state, national, and global scales. Facing an uncertain future, public and private organizations, policy makers, and resource managers are concerned about our ability to develop social-ecological systems resilient to climate change. "Long-term sustainability" in the face of present and anticipated climate impacts is a national and international goal. However, planning for long-term sustainable management is a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anne Jensen.

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Triage: Prioritizing Responses to Climate Change Impacts on Archaeological Resources" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological sites are threatened in various ways by accelerating environmental change. The scale and urgency of the threat requires new models for funding, education and recruitment of staff, engagement with the public, and long-term curation of rescued samples. One critical issue is how to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claudia Nuñez. Sofia Chacaltana Cortez.

It has been suggested that Inca colonization strengthened kin bonds between ayllu members while at the same time requested tribute by means of establishing "fictive" kin affiliations. Therefore, subjugated populations response to Inca imperialism caused the consolidation of local and regional identities. However, what occurred in the Colesuyo? Colesuyo region of southern Peru, inhabited by multi-ethnic small-scale groups –the Cochunas from the upper Moquegua Valley and the Coles and Camanchacas...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Howe. Nancy Gonzalez.

This is an abstract from the "The Big Bend Complex: Landscapes of History" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Millington letters from 1910 to 1913 described military actions along the Rio Grande in Presidio, Texas, at the start of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). These letters are handwritten accounts of the Mexican Revolution and what was occurring across the U.S.–Mexico international border and how this unfolded in the Big Bend region. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Denton.

Traditionally, Waapushukaamikw (‘house of the hare’) was a sacred site for Cree and closely related Northern Algonquian people in subarctic Quebec. Its use as a place of prayer was noted in the early 18th century CE by Jesuit missionaries, and some elements of this tradition have continued to modern times. Waapushukamikw, known by archaeologists as the Colline Blanche, was also an important lithic source in subarctic Quebec, used for some 6,000 years. Artifacts of Mistassini quartzite from this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriel Hrynick. Susan Blair. Katherine Patton. Jesse Webb.

In the context of rapid social or environmental change, foodways offer a way to track how identities are negotiated amid new realities. The Protohistoric period (550–350 BP) in the Northeast was an early site of sporadic and often indirect Indigenous-European contact in North America and the Wabanaki of Maine and the Maritime Provinces were early participants in the world economic system. Analyses of the Devil’s Head and Birch Cove sites in Passamaquoddy Bay indicate that Wabanaki diets were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Blakey.

This paper concerns the development of an interdisciplinary Project which studied 419 human remains at the 18th century cemetery for Africans enslaved in New York. The first World Archaeological Congress (1986) and Inter-Congress (1989) facilitated conversations among archaeologists and Indigenous peoples that would inspire change in archaeological practice. The African Burial Ground Project carried forward specific ideas of that encounter, joined with the activist scholarship and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Bates.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Located in the southern region of the Virginia Piedmont, the Randy K. Wade site (44CH62) is identified as a Late Woodland, Amerindian community which exhibits expected pit storage technology, boundary features, and material culture (Dan River Series ceramics, diagnostic lithics, dietary remains). However, high-status mortuary treatments and the village’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Deborah Olszewski. Maysoon al-Nahar. Daniel Schyle. Brian Byrd.

Wadi Madamagh, a small rockshelter in the Petra region of the Western Highlands of Jordan, contained high-density deposits of the Late Upper Paleolithic and the Early Epipaleolithic periods. It was first excavated in 1956 by D. Kirkbride, who placed two trenches into the site and briefly reported on the lithics, which have since been studied in detail (B.F. Byrd). A small test along one of Kirkbride’s trenches was conducted in 1983 (D. Schyle), and more intensive excavations were pursued in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edward Banning. Kevin Gibbs. Philip Hitchings.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During 2012 and 2013, a survey of Wadi Quseiba's drainage basin in northern Jordan employed Bayesian search methods to find late prehistoric, and especially Neolithic sites that often escape more conventional surveys. This resulted in the discovery of some definite and "candidate" sites, one of which is a Yarmoukian site up to 0.5 ha in size that was the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua J. Wells.

Archaeology’s disciplinary engagement with big data is confounded by the variety of information types recorded, variability of data due to differential preservation of materials and theoretical orientations of observers, and complexity of archaeological concepts daring to be caged in explicit digital expressions. The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) is a linked open data hub, centered around the theoretically, practically, and interpretively fraught definition of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Gurevitz. Scotti Norman.

Burial practice in the Central Andes was transmitted continuously from the Middle Horizon (AD 700-AD 1000) onward, if not earlier in some areas, reflecting an agreed-upon understanding of Andean social identity throughout time. However, when the Spanish colonized the Andes, they drastically altered this continuity, forcing indigenous populations to bury their dead under the Church in idealized Catholic tradition. This sudden change in burial practice ruptured Andean identity as indigenous...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anne Jensen.

Walakpa is an iconic Arctic site with spectacular preservation, due to frozen conditions. Although many believe it to have been fully excavated, Stanford was only able to reach a third of the way to sterile soil due to permafrost, so earlier occupations of the site remain unstudied. Long considered stable, Walakpa began eroding rapidly in 2013. A single recent storm removed over 30 meters of cultural stratigraphy along a 100+ meter front. Need for rapid response prompted a large volunteer...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nancy Olsen. Ann Brierty. John Fryer.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. SAA is comprised of many educators and a special interest group that conducts research on rock art. The emphasis now is to raise awareness regarding cultural sensitivity of rock art panels, including protection and preservation. That Pueblo people think of rock art panels as part of their cultural heritage, is not a new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Autumn Painter. Jeffrey Painter.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Method and Theory: Papers in Honor of James M. Skibo, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During this paper, we will reflect on the impacts that Dr. James Skibo has had on our lives and careers. From childhood to graduate school, Dr. Skibo has been a major influence on how we think about and approach archaeological research. Thanks to his Yooper wisdom, he has also taught us many life lessons, such...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Neil Puckett.

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Global Submerged Paleolandscapes Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The high desert basin surrounding Walker Lake, Nevada, has been subject to multiple landscape shifts since the lake reached its Late Pleistocene highstand, 15,679 cal BP. Research has identified at least four lake transgression and regression events postdating 5000 BP, and after its nineteenth-century historic highstand, the lake has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Niels Rinehart.

This is an abstract from the "Public Lands, Public Sites: Research, Engagement, and Collaboration" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Histories are typically drawn up linearly, with events laid out in chronological order and often separated into periods of Early, Middle, and Late to illustrate the processes that make one event lead to another. But when you walk through your hometown, the landscape is a text written with the stories of one’s life, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Emili Aura Tortosa.

The lapse of time between the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the Holocene 8.2 cold event, can be considered as a Long Transition, in which global diachronic changes and regional processes are combined. Between 17 - 10 ky cal BP important ecological changes (increased temperatures, forestry and presence of some species of herbivores, variations in sea-level and coastline , etc), techno-economic transformations (abandonment of osseous weapons, active and passive grinding stones related...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Selin Nugent. Hannah Lau.

Tracing the mobility patterns of pastoralists and their herds is a critical part of illuminating the lifeways of people who inhabited the southern Caucasus in the past. During the 2014 season, the Naxcivan Archaeological Project excavated several Middle Bronze age kurgans overlooking the Şərur Plain. In these burials humans and animals were interred together, speaking to the significance of the animals in the lifeways of the people inhabiting the area during the Middle Bronze Age. We correlate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Goldstein.

In the absence of living interlocutors for the Andean Tiwanaku state society (AD 500-1000),we ask how Tiwanaku peoples imagined and reproduced themselves as social beings. A conventional view poses that Tiwanaku civilization at its apogee was unified by common membership in, or allegiance or aspiration to, an elite political culture, as evidenced by a high culture of specialized craft production, elite ritual functions, and religio-political iconography. This paper instead applies practice...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sonia Machause López.

The power of the underground has attracted ritual practitioners over the centuries. Natural places, such as caves, have some intrinsic sensorial power which helps to create a ritual atmosphere. In the Iberian Iron Age (6th–1st centuries BC), ritual production has been recognized in some caves through the identification of the material patterns, along with other physical and sensorial particularities. Although each cave is different, those cavities in which we find evidence of ritual practice...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Gilmore. John Ives.

This is an abstract from the "Approaches to Archaeological Footwear" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Franktown Cave (5DA272) on the Palmer Divide south of Denver contains an assemblage of perishable artifacts unrivaled on the western Great Plains, and among these perishables is footwear from occupations dated 3300 BC–AD 1280. The footwear has proven to be the most useful for determining regional and cultural associations. Most of the analysis of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Horn. Dianna Doucette.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although restricted to confined, linear study corridors, archaeological surveys of new and existing utility easements provide an opportunity to take a closer look at Pre-Contact settlement patterning across the interior regions of Southern New England. Cultural Resource Management (CRM) identification surveys and site evaluations within these linear project...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Magda Mankel.

This is an abstract from the "Contested Landscapes: The Archaeology of Politics, Borders, and Movement" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents an archaeological ethnography of the Migrant Trail and a very recent past associated with the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border. Composed primarily of U.S. citizens, the Migrant Trail is a seven-day walk that protests U.S. immigration and border enforcement policies and commemorates...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Hare.

I present a preliminary analysis of movement through the Postclassic political capital of Mayapán. The architectural features at Mayapán are some of the most densely concentrated of sites in ancient Mesoamerica, but its organizational principles defy explanation. Almost two decades of fieldwork, including using electronic total stations, RTK survey-grade GNSS, UAV-based aerial photography, and an aircraft-borne LiDAR survey of a 40 sq km area centered on Mayapán's defensive wall, allows mapping...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steve Mills.

Walking with Ruth Tringham has always been a social and intellectual adventure. I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to muse on past ways of life while walking with Ruth at a range of different heritage sites in the U.S., Bulgaria and Turkey. Important themes we engaged with during these walks included: exploring different ways to approach contemporary senses of place, thinking about how senses of place may have been significant to prehistoric people, and how to (re)mediate these ideas...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Hanscam. Brian Buchanan.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For archaeology to survive in the current political environment and for critical discourse on the past to thrive, archaeologists need to be proactive and advocate for our subject’s contemporary relevance. We illustrate the problems and potentials of this advocacy by examining popular perceptions of Roman border zones like Hadrian’s Wall, and how these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Christie.

This is an abstract from the "Navigating Imperialism: Negotiated Communities and Landscapes of the Inka Provinces" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper analyzes early state formation and integration of local groups at two royal estates, Tipon and Pisaq. Tipon, southeast of Cusco, began as a Killke period settlement before 1400. It functioned as outpost in the buffer zone between the Muyna and Pinagua in the Lucre Basin and the growing Cusco...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lance Pursey.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of Medieval Eurasian Steppe Urbanism" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the course of its 200+ year tenure the Kitan-Liao dynasty (907–1125) saw large migrations, intensification of settlements, and widespread construction of walled sites of varying sizes north of the Great Wall (N41°+) across the grassland ecotones of North Asia. The remains of some 650 such walled sites are distributed across Inner...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Spring. Jessica Smeeks.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This project uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyze Late Intermediate Period (LIP) spatial organization and defensibility practices in the Huamanga Province, Peru. The Peruvian LIP (AD 1000-1450) is the period between the collapse of the Tiwanaku and Wari States and the rise of the Inca Empire. This is an ideal time period to study the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Harkey.

In the Yanamarka Valley in central Peru, the Late Intermediate Period saw dramatic changes. Whole villages moved from the valley floors to dense, defensible hilltop settlements, and were still living there when the Incas colonized this region a century later. The remote locations of many of these sites – both those forcibly abandoned under Inca rule, and those which continued on into the early Colonial Period – mean that numerous domestic round houses, storage spaces, patio walls and pathways...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Hernandez.

A critical facet of studying past warfare is the analysis of fortifications. Fortifications are often visible on the surface, making these archaeological features identifiable through surface reconnaissance. Moreover, test pits and trench excavations into gated areas or across various sections of fortifications can be used to establish the martial functions of these archaeological features. Yet, the study of past warfare and fortifications often stumbles in the interpretive stage. How do we know...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Davis.

Soapstone was a valuable raw material for the production of items used in food preparation, including cooking vessels, in eastern North America before the development and spread of ceramic technology. Durable, waterproof, fireproof, nearly impervious to thermal shock and, at the same time, soft and very easy to extract and then sculpt into a desired shape the demand for this raw material was high but supply was geographically constrained. Designated a Connecticut State Archaeological Preserve in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Billman.

This is an abstract from the "Warfare and the Origins of Political Control " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The central Andes has a long history of the rise and fall of centralized political organizations, beginning with construction of the first large-scale ceremonial centers in the New World between 3000 and 1800 BC. Some see these early centers as pilgrimage centers, lacking significant political power, while others argue they were urban...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Clay Mathers.

Although conflict and conquista campaigns characterized many of the earliest encounters between Native and European groups in New Spain and La Florida, the transformation of objects, communities, and strategic policies in these areas was locally variable and changed dramatically by the close of the sixteenth century. Materials characteristic of these changes and variegated responses are found widely in the archaeological record of the American Southwest, but have seldom been explored for the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aurelio López Corral.

This is an abstract from the "Landscapes: Archaeological, Historic, and Ethnographic Perspectives from the New World / Paisajes: Perspectivas arqueológicas, históricas y etnográficas desde el Nuevo Mundo" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Antigua Cienega de Tlaxcala is an area of wetlands located at the core of the Puebla-Tlaxcala valley in central Mexico. Historically, these marshlands have been exploited agriculturally using drained field...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Seibert.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the 280 years since July 7th, 1742, the exact locations of Gully Hole Creek and Bloody Marsh have been speculated and debated without resolution until now. Fort Frederica National Monument partnered with the Frederica Baptist Church regarding private metal detecting finds found on a property near Gully Hole Creek on St. Simons Island, Georgia. National...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Johan Ling.

War related social and ritual traits are common features in European Bronze Age rock art and native North American rock art. There are some general similarities in the material that needs to be stressed between the North American images and those from Bronze Age Europe, fighters depicted with spears and shields etc. This resemblance speaks of how far un-connected human groups may build similar imageries, given only a set of rather superficial social similarities in general terms. Moreover, the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tyler Ferree. Gregory Wilson. Amber VanDerwarker.

This is an abstract from the "Warfare and the Origins of Political Control " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper considers the impact of warfare-induced settlement nucleation on the sociopolitical organization of the thirteenth-century Central Illinois River Valley. Concurrent with the beginning of a period of intense warfare, Mississippian groups in the region abandoned their small, dispersed farmsteads and aggregated into the region’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle Cathcart.

This is an abstract from the "Navigating Ethical and Legal Quandaries in Modern Archaeological Curation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The cultural resource management (CRM) industry, emerging from the passage of landmark national and subsequent state-level legislation, is arguably one of the largest generators of archaeological collections in North America. Project-specific deadlines, budgetary constraints, variations in state agency guidelines,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Veronica Williams.

Results obtained from fabric analysis using thin-section microscopy (TSM) and various other analytical strategies (e.g. Raman micro spectroscopy, FTIR, XRD –microX ray diffraction- XRF, SEM-EDAX, and INAA) provide insights into production technology and the provenance of selected pottery sample from Prehispanic archaeological sites in Northwestern (NW) Argentina, North of Chile, and Bolivia (AD 900-1530). Iconographic and morphological analyses sustain the idea of interregional contacts that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Verano. Khrystyne Tschinkel. Helen Chavarria. Gabriel Prieto.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Depictions of combat and the capture and killing of captives are well known in Moche (ca. AD 200-850) art. Since 1995, the iconographic record has been joined by archaeological evidence of the practices themselves. The most dramatic discoveries were made in Plazas 3A and 3C at the Pyramid of the Moon between 1995 and 2001, with scattered deposits...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Suárez Calderón. Yahaira Núñez-Cortés. Francisco Corrales-Ulloa.

This is an abstract from the "Warfare and the Origins of Political Control " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Southern Central America is rich in examples of early complex societies, and yet, the timing and mechanism for the emergence of social complexity and differentiation are still not well understood. Recent works are moving archaeologists in the region to question, on the one hand, the definition of social complexity itself, and on the other...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rod Campbell.

This is an abstract from the "Warfare and the Origins of Political Control " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Intercommunity conflict and sociopolitical complexity are both complicated topics, not only because of their large literatures and diverse approaches, but because of the multifaceted nature of the phenomena involved. For my talk I would like to focus on what I see as two key variables relevant to both warfare and political community. These...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nam Kim.

This is an abstract from the "Warfare and the Origins of Political Control " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists have long been interested in the development of social complexity and associated institutions of governance and political control. Within Southeast Asia, historical societies such as Angkor provide insights around premodern state societies. This paper deals with evidence from the late prehistoric era, addressing the role of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Clark.

The Missouri River Valley is a unique landscape for horticulturist settlements. The semi-arid Great Plains have wildly fluctuating weather patterns and resulted in a difficult growing environment with frequent changes in productivity. The terraces of the river valley offered relatively flat areas for village planning, the terrace-forming flood waters refreshed the flood plains with nutrient rich sediment for village gardens, and the terrace breaks provided protection from both wind and invaders....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mallorie Hatch.

Warfare during the Mississippian Period (ca. AD 1000-1500) of the U.S. Midcontinent and Southeast has been hypothesized as an important political and social practice throughout the region. This paper will explore diachronic and synchronic evidence of warfare, comparing and contrasting evidence between large and small sites. Particular emphasis will be placed on observations of warfare patterns in the Central Illinois Valley of west-central Illinois. Skeletal remains with warfare-trauma have been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only D. Shane Miller.

The complex hunter-gatherers of the Middle and Late Archaic periods in the Tennessee River Valley of the American Southeast are well-known for displaying evidence of intergroup violence, including scalping and trophy taking. On the other hand, these time periods are also known for the emergence of exchange networks centered on items including bone pins and bifaces. I argue that the co-occurrence of exchange networks and intergroup violence was likely the result of iterated "live and let live" or...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Catherine Cameron.

This is an abstract from the "Warfare and the Origins of Political Control " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Raiding and captive-taking were common activities in small-scale societies prior to the modern era. A majority of captives were women and children; some were enslaved while others were incorporated into the societies they joined. Ethnohistoric accounts make it clear that regardless of their social position, captives created power for the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Hernandez. Josuhé Lozada Toledo.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper musters archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic data to highlight that a greater focus on formation processes and sampling bias is necessary in the archaeology of warfare and study of martial architecture. Fortifications are some of the most important archaeological indicators of past warfare. For example, the myth of a peaceful Maya...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Reff.

When examined separately, the archaeological record and early Spanish accounts of Sonora are seemingly insufficient or ambiguous with respect to culture continuity and change. However, critical juxtaposition of the two "data sets" suggests that the late prehistoric period in Sonora was a time when competing chiefdoms or "statelets" embraced slavery and territorial expansion , contributing to processes of ethonogenesis that have confounded previous interpretations of the archaeological and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Jennings. Matthew Biwer. Christina Conlee.

This is an abstract from the "A New Horizon: Reassessing the Andean Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) and Rethinking the Andean State" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The coast of southern Peru from the Nasca to Moquegua has played a pivotal role in distinct interpretation of the Wari polity. A hard imperial frontier, for example, ran through the region in 1960s models. Nasca and Moquegua were home to important administrative centers in the “mosaic of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Vazquez De Arthur.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For ancient civilizations with no form of writing, proper iconographic interpretation is an important tool for accessing the past. This is certainly true of ancient Andean civilizations, especially the Wari who produced some of the most captivating visual imagery of their time. However, Wari depictions of supernatural composite figures are so stylized that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Ryan Williams. Donna Nash. Anita Cook. William Isbell.

Between 500 and 600 AD, the first expansive state of the central highlands of Peru emerged in the Ayacucho Basin. This state, known as Wari after its capital city located in the same region, established far flung colonies covering much of the mountainous region of modern day Peru. Research in the heartland sites of Conchopata and Wari and in the provincial sites of Cerros Baul and Mejia have yielded new insights into the economic production of the early imperial state, including significant new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Moore.

This is an abstract from the "Almost 100 Years since Julio C. Tello: Research at Huaca del Loro, Nasca, Peru" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Emerging evidence increasingly suggests that D-shaped structures were a tool of Wari imperial and cultural expansion throughout the Middle Horizon landscape. Analysis of their construction, geographic distribution, regional context, and specific orientations reveals that their use and purpose was not...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Silvana Rosenfeld. Matthew Sayre.

This is an abstract from the "Seeing Wari through the Lens of the Everyday: Results from the Patipampa Sector of Huari" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The advances in food studies have revealed significant new information about life during the Middle Horizon (AD 600-1000) in the central Andes of Peru. Botanical and faunal data from Wari affiliated sites shows differential use of at least two items: molle (Schinus molle) and guinea pigs (Cavia...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Grace Alexandrino Ocaña.

Evidence of looted tombs from Conchopata and Huari -the capital of Wari- have allowed archaeologists to identify up to three formal types of funerary structures. Researchers also point out that variants of these types of funerary enclosures identified at both sites might have held local chiefs and provincial governors. Evidence of such elite Wari funerary contexts has also been found in Espítiru Pampa, in the high jungle of Vilcabamba, and Batan Urqo, in Cusco, among others. Although the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Ryan Williams. John Janusek.

In this paper, we focus on the relationships between landscape places viewed as ancestors to Andean communities and things that further political agendas in imperial contexts. We explore how objects and people work together to create or deconstruct political power in Wari and Tiwanaku societies. In particular, we focus on objects, including ceremonial ceramics and lithic monuments, as examples of things that participate in building power relationships with local communities. We argue that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Chirinos Ogata.

The Wari empire built at least two main centers in the Cajamarca region as part of its expansion to different regions of the Central Andes. One of them, Yamobamba, 25 km southeast on the road to Huamachuco, presents an architectural pattern that corresponds to Wari canons, including square patios, narrow corridors, and peripheral galleries. In particular, its distribution, size, and orientation show a strong resemblance to Jincamocco (Ayacucho), almost 900 km away. Recent research at Yamobamba...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Reid. Veronica Rosales Hilario. Miguel Vizcarra Zanabria. Kevin Ricci Jara.

This is an abstract from the "Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This project investigates the social mechanisms behind culture change and contact in Peru’s southern coastal valleys through the lens of road infrastructure: i.e. the built networks of communication, travel, and commerce. Here we present recent investigations of a pre-Inca road network in the Majes/Chuquibamba region of Arequipa....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rosa Maria Varillas. Francesca Fernandini.

Some pre-Hispanic textiles were complex masterpieces made with labor-intensive techniques and high quality raw materials. Nevertheless, the vast majority of textiles, those used by the population at large, were plain, simple and without any decoration. This study will present a comparative analysis between a sample of plain weaves obtained from domestic contexts and a sample of high quality textiles excavated in an elaborated Wari tomb, all of them registered at the pre-Hispanic settlement of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Splitstoser. Milosz Giersz.

Archaeological evidence suggests that khipus—devices made of wrapped and knotted cords—were used by people living in the Wari Empire at least as early as Middle Horizon 1B. These Wari-style khipus, like their later, more famous, Inka descendants, likely carried and conveyed information using color and knots. Wari khipus differ from Inka khipus, however, in many respects including their use of colorful wrapping to make bands and patterns to convey information. Wari-style khipus survive in far...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Umberger.

A fascinating aspect of Frances Berdan's new text, Aztec Archaeology and Ethnohistory (2014), is the section in Chapter 8 on warrior regalia as inalienable possessions. This topic is explored by Berdan in a rich discussion that merges Annette Weiner's framework with Berdan's own exhaustive knowledge of written and pictorial manuscript sources on the Aztecs. I would like to take this exploration into the realm of material evidence, by examining particular sculpted examples in the Aztec World. ...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Glowacki.

The Wari settlement of Huaro, located southeast of the Cuzco Valley in the Southern Highlands of Peru, contains a mortuary complex known as Cotocotuyoc. This towering plateau site, which overlooked the entire Huaro Wari settlement, was one of several urban components that made up a more than nine hectare Wari center, occupied for over 500 years. Excavations at Cotocotuyoc generated telling evidence for who built and occupied this settlement and how they were treated upon their deaths and in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Leslie. Kevin McBride.

Previous research on Block Island, Rhode Island, indicates that during the Woodland Period, the island was likely occupied year-round and maritime resources accounted for a significant portion of peoples’ diets. Native American sites on the island include semi-permanent villages near the Great Salt Pond and fishing, temporary seasonal, and task specific camps away from villages. Season of occupation for these sites is important to frame our understanding of a developing maritime economy. Several...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Dye. Timothy Rieth.

Archaeologists sometimes claim that the refined chronologies yielded by Bayesian calibration make it possible to distinguish between Levi-Strauss's "hot" and "cold" societies. Historians of Hawai`i leave little doubt that Hawai`i was a "hot" society in the early historic period. A review and comparison of chronologies for the tempo of change in pre-Contact Hawai`i distinguishes the "cold" society reconstituted by ad hoc methods from the "hot" society reconstituted by the Bayesian method. We...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Gajewski. Corry Laughlin.

Throughout two field seasons (2015-2017), the University of Montana and GAI Consultants (UM-GAI) conducted a Section 110 archaeological survey and evaluation project at Warren Grove Gunnery Range (WGGR), Burlington County, New Jersey (9,911 acres). The UM-GAI team completed archaeological survey of all accessible areas of the range making it one of the most expansive survey projects within the New Jersey Outer Coastal Plain. The study identified and evaluated a total of ten sites and recommended...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Bamforth.

This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Indigenous Plains warfare is one of the anthropological archetypes of tribal war, often seen as just as much of a status-related game as real violence directed toward larger social and political ends. This view misrepresents colonial-era warfare by focusing on only one aspect social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pamela Stone.

This is an abstract from the "Women of Violence: Warriors, Aggressors, and Perpetrators of Violence" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Engaging social theory with bioarchaeological analyses offers provocative ways of re-examining (pre) historic populations. With regards to violence and conflict, the research continues to be driven by androcentric notions that this is a man’s arena, and that females, when associated with violence, are only victims....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nelda Issa Marengo.

En Mesoamérica las representaciones gráficas sobre guerra, violencia y conflicto, son una constante que se encuentran en diversos sitios y en diferentes periodos. Para el Epiclásico (650-900 A.D) en el centro de México, y para el Clásico Tardío/ Terminal (600-900 A.D) en el área Maya, esta temática comienza a presentar cambios, tiende a ser más explícita y a compartir algunos elementos entre sitios contemporáneos. Chichén Itzá floreció durante este momento de cambios y muestra de ello es la...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kunihiko Wakabayashi.

Several lines of archaeological evidence indicate that numerous battles took place during the Yayoi Period or Japanese Bronze and Early Iron Age. So far, Japanese archaeologists have argued that these battles occurred as results of competition for agricultural lands or taking initiatives over exchange system. Many of the Japanese archeologists have speculated that wars were a part of the social process for evolving toward an early state society. However, archaeological evidence for wars, such...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Britta Spaulding.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Industrial archaeology has been defined in the anthropological literature of the last several decades to analyze the period, related archaeological record, and resultant and surrounding socioeconomic changes of western industrialization—the establishment of large-scale manufacturing—from 1800 CE to the present. In considering a "movement" such as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander Safronov.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The last quarter of the seventh century was marked by the intensification of military and political struggle in the Ususmasinta Basin. Loss of control over the Western Lowlands by Kaanu’l power at this time led to wars between the largest political centers of the region—Piedras Negras, Palenque, Yaxchilan, Tonina, and Saktz’i. The Lacandon Selva (Chiapas...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Paige. Charles Perreault.

Acheulean large cutting tools were made across Africa and Eurasia for ~1.5 million years, and show surprisingly little variation for a technology so spatiotemporally vast. One explanation for this puzzling degree of conservatism is that Acheulean tools were not culturally transmitted but rather genetically determined. If this hypothesis is true, then Acheulean tools are more akin to animal technologies such as bird nests than to modern human tools. Here we examine the extent to which the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bruce Benz.

This is an abstract from the "Subsistence Crops and Animals as a Proxy for Human Cultural Practice" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Excavation of Coxcatlan cave recovered remains of Setaria cf. macrostachya. Analysis suggested early increase in abundance of florets (so-called seeds) in deposits associated with El Riego Phase contexts and later decrease in Coxcatlan Phase deposits. Callen observed a size increase of Setaria florets recovered from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Payson Sheets.

This is an abstract from the "Ceremonial Lithics of Mesoamerica: New Understandings of Technology, Distribution, and Symbolism of Eccentrics and Ritual Caches in the Maya World and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Many decades ago Stanley Boggs discovered a particularly elaborate chert eccentric from San Andres, El Salvador, yet he never published the find. Here we compare it to the set of more elaborate eccentrics manufactured by "El...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian Hutchinson. Sarah L. Sterling. Virginia L. Butler. Carrie Garrison-Laney.

The northern segment of the Cascadia subduction zone has ruptured at least four times in the last 2000 years. Each of these giant earthquakes triggered a tsunami that potentially inundated the Tse-whit-zen village site to depths of 3-6 m and exposed it to currents of ~10 m/s. We compare the timing of these tsunamis, as recorded by wash-over deposits at Tse-whit-zen and sand sheets in the marshes at Discovery Bay, some 50 km to the east of Tse-whit-zen, with the palaeodemographic history of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Coon. Julia Furlong.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The field of archaeology, and especially the cultural resource management (CRM) industry, faces ongoing systemic inequalities in access to training and employment. The gaps between demand, recruitment, and retention of archaeologists continue to widen annually. One way that this problem manifests is through a lack of networking opportunities and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bethany Mathews.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Homestead Act of 1862 enabled feme sole—women who were legally single, widowed, divorced, or deserted—to claim up to 160 acres of land. In Washington State 8.5 million acres (20%) of lands were claimed through the Homestead Act; and although feme sole were a minority of these homesteaders, their homesteading experiences illustrate important themes of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Palus.

This is an abstract from the "Unsettling Infrastructure: Theorizing Infrastructure and Bio-Political Ecologies in a More-Than-Human World" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cultural resource management projects in and around Washington, DC, have documented the episodic and nearly complete displacement of the city’s first exurban Black communities in areas that would become metropolitan suburbs. This recurring theme illuminates a posture of...