Society for American Archaeology

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Brighton.

In Ireland, historical, post-medieval, or modern world archaeology as a discipline is located on the margins. The time period and material comprising our research is argued by many to be relevant only to the pursuits of historians and folk studies. In this paper I discuss the importance and relevance of a discipline on the margins and the study of Ireland’s impoverished class during the last decades of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This marks one of the most dynamic periods in Ireland’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meghan Dudley.

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community-Based Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For several decades, stewardship programs have proven to be a successful way to engage citizen scientists in the preservation of the archaeological record. From California to Florida, archaeologists have trained members of the public who are passionate about preserving the past to monitor sites, document private collections, and assist at...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Crowley-Champoux. Zoe Jopp.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Maine’s island communities are the primary stewards of archaeological heritage. This project connects archaeologists, island communities, and natural and cultural heritage organizations in their shared concerns for preserving Maine’s shell midden sites, as these sites are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and development. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert O'Boyle. Erich Longie. Dianne Desrosiers.

Not long ago, the Spirit Lake Oyate and Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate were a single band, part of the Dakota Nation, living in the homeland we had occupied for millennia. Manifest Destiny, greed, and racism led to war and the establishment of reservations. Over the decades, the US Government separated our people as they divided the land for settlement. Today, we are working together to bring our people back together based on the places that matter the most. Together the Spirit Lake Tribe and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Whyte. Michael Callaghan. Brigitte Kovacevich.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent research has demonstrated that Handheld (portable) X-ray fluorescence spectrometers (pXRF) have difficulty in consistently and accurately determining chemical composition of non-homogenous cultural materials such as ceramics. This is unfortunate as pXRF instruments have proven to produce accurate and consistent compositional data for other...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zev Cossin. Ariel Charro. Jane Poss. Siobhan Boyd.

This is an abstract from the "Working with the Community in Ecuador" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Pambamarca Archaeological Project (PAP) has conducted research in the Cayambe region of Ecuador for nearly two decades. In that time, PAP has trained scores of national and international students and actively incorporated local community stakeholders in efforts like the development of small-scale heritage tourism projects. It became clear that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Hadel. Dr. Terendagva Yadmaa. Dr. Joan Schnieder. Jennifer Farquhar.

The creation of an exportable indigenous heritage management program for developing nations responds to a growing concern about the rapid effects of globalization and industrialization on the natural and cultural landscape. In 2010 an international partnership was formed between the Mongolian Institute of Archaeology, Denver Zoo, Anza-Borrego Foundation, and California State Parks with the goal of establishing a cultural heritage management program in the Ikh Nart Nature Reserve in the Northern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ray McAllister. Sharon McAllister.

This is an abstract from the "Touching the Past: Public Archaeology Engagement through Existing Collections" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Avocationalists are a valuable asset for museum curators and collection analysts. Budget-strapped institutions can benefit from a structured program of volunteers trained to clean, sort, analyze, and catalog artifacts for inclusion into museum collections. From an existing strained relationship, archaeology...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Mitchell.

I was not involved directly with Scotty’s Ayacucho project (1969–1975), but from 1965 to 1968 I worked in the town of Quinua, engaged in dissertation research. Its territory included part of the site of Huari. After completing my dissertation, I returned to continue work in 1973, 1974, and 1980, and later, focusing on its ecological system, especially irrigation. Scotty invited me to prepare a paper on the ways farmers used ecological zones. The research, while more detailed, complemented what I...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rodrigo Solinis-Casparius. Anna S. Cohen. Florencia Pezzutti. Christopher T. Fisher.

Ejido communities became common after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) as a way of dividing land and leadership among an equal number of individuals. The Ejido of Fontezuelas in the eastern Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, controls the rugged landform known as the Classic through Postclassic period (AD 200-1521) site of Angamuco. Since 2009, the Legacies of Resilience Project has negotiated and worked with Fontezuelas community members. Here we discuss some of the obstacles that we encountered...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin Walker. Thaddeus Bissett.

Sea-level curves have been one of the main tools used within archaeology to understand human settlement patterns in coastal environments. Questions remain, however, about which curve (or curves) are most appropriately used both at different geographic and temporal resolutions. In order to evaluate these differences in resolution, we examine 161 radiocarbon dates from 32 shell rings from across the lower Atlantic and Gulf coasts. We then plot them against a regional high-resolution reconstruction...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claira Ralston. Debra Martin. Maryann Calleja.

This is an abstract from the "Cooperative Bodies: Bioarchaeology and Non-ranked Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pueblo groups living in the Kayenta region of northern Arizona differ remarkably from their contemporaries in adjacent regions. At Mesa Verde and Chaco to the northeast and southeast respectively, there is compelling evidence for rigid hierarchical and political systems of trade, governance, and decision-making that generated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bernadette Cap.

Marketplace exchange among the Classic Maya is frequently inferred from the degree of homogeneity in consumption practices among households of differing statuses. The actual presence of marketplaces among the Classic Maya has been a point of debate, but recent empirically based investigations at a few Lowland sites have provided evidence for their existence. The Late Classic marketplace located in the East Plaza of Buenavista del Cayo, Belize is such an example. Examination of marketplace...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Lowry. Shawn Patch. Lynne Sullivan.

Under contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), New South Associates, Inc. conducted comprehensive geophysical surveys of five Mississippian sites in the Tennessee River Valley between 2013 and 2017: the Bell Site (40RE1), the Cox Mound (1JA176), Hiwassee Island (40MG31), Ledford Island (40BY13), and Long Island (40RE17). The Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted salvage excavations on all of these sites in the 1930’s and the information available from their notes and limited...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sharon Debowski. David Doyel.

This is an abstract from the "Pushing the Envelope, Chasing Stone Age Sailors and Early Agriculture: Papers in Honor of the Career of Alan H. Simmons" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our journey with Alan Simmons began in Tucson, Arizona as graduate students at different institutions working for the Arizona State Museum. Through time we grew together personally and professionally and maintained contact even though often separated by space. Alan...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arlene Fleming.

The World Bank provides loans, credits and technical assistance to governments of its client countries. The importance and value of cultural heritage on international, national and local levels are reflected in the Bank’s investment operations as well as in its Operational Policy 4.11 – Physical Cultural Resources. Investment for cultural heritage has totaled over four billion U.S. dollars in the past two decades. The Bank’s safeguard policy requires that an Environmental Impact Assessment...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Peterson.

Nan Madol monument in Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia was inscribed on the World Heritage list in July 2016. The same day it was listed on the Endangered List for World Heritage sites by the Committee. The designation was meant to insist on the seriousness of conservation and management planning and it has had a profound impact. A Conservation Plan has been launched, supported in part by UNESCO, and fine-grained monitoring with geocontrols, 3-D mapping, UAV structure-in-motion...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Hayden. Suzanne Villeneuve.

Secret societies are one of the most under-theorized and ignored aspects of prehistoric societies in archaeology, yet they may be pivotal in understanding major developments in sociopolitical complexity in the past. Probable prehistoric examples of secret society remains include the elaborately painted caves of Upper Paleolithic France, the communal structures or caves of the Early Near Eastern Neolithic (Gobekli Tepe, Jerf el Ahmar, Nahal Hemar, and others), and the kivas and caves used in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ursula Brosseder.

This is an abstract from the "From Campsite to Capital – Mobility Patterns and Urbanism in Inner Asia" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Bronze Age landscape in Mongolia is characterized by valleys with regularly arranged groups of monuments which are believed to represent the focus of a community. Depending on the ecology of the area the distance between such site clusters varies. This even distribution is punctuated by large concentrations of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Nowak.

Throughout the American Southeast, prehistoric and contemporary indigenous groups have conducted ritual acts of wrapping and binding sacred objects in spirit and medicine bundles. Previous researchers have also noted the concept of ritual encapsulation in other cultural expressions such as: settlement design, mound building, pottery, and cosmology. This presentation will focus on the apparent bundling of iconographic motifs and designs present on a ceramic vessel from the Gilcrease Museum in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chris Scarre.

The origins of prehistoric archaeology as a discipline lie in the New Learning of the 16th and 17th centuries and derive from a number of sources: antiquarian researches in northwest Europe; European exploration and the encounter with non-European peoples; and speculative accounts of human origins and development. It was only in the 19th century that these strands first began to be woven together to create a global narrative of human prehistory. Such a narrative raises a number of problematic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robyn Cutright.

This is an abstract from the "From Households to Empires: Papers Presented in Honor of Bradley J. Parker" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Andean household archaeologists have sometimes been slow to adopt a range of specialized methodologies that have become commonplace in regions such as Europe and the Near East. Dr. Bradley Parker’s recent work brought microartifact studies to the attention of archaeologists working in the Andes. In this paper, I...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren Hosek. Katelyn Bajorek.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Medieval diets may have differed in preparation rather than composition, with certain classes, genders, or age groups eating more abrasive and/or more cariogenic preparations of the same foods (Beranová 2007; Esclassan et al. 2015). This study is a bioarchaeological examination of dental attrition at the 9-11th century site complex of Libice nad Cidlinou in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristine Martirosyan - Olshansky. Alan Farahani.

This is an abstract from the "Thinking Big in the Andes: Papers in Honor of Charles Stanish" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Evidence of woven materials such as baskets, mats, cordage, string, and rope rarely preserve in archaeological contexts, but when these plant-based artifacts do preserve, they provide important insight into the social, technological, and environmental practices involved in the creation and use of such objects. At many...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michelle Knoll.

In spite of the broadly recognized importance of associated records, they are often the last part of a collection to be organized, catalogued, and stabilized. Disorganized, or "lost" associated records are a source of frustration for researchers and collection managers alike. Conversely, well-organized and accessible associated records have many benefits to artifact collections including an increase in research potential, a legal foundation for ownership and control, and greater interpretive...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Gearty. Rachel Freer-Waters. Gwenn Gallenstein.

In 2014 the Flagstaff Area National Monuments received funding to conserve and re-house more than 300 non-burial related prehistoric cotton textiles from Navajo, Walnut Canyon, and Wupatki National Monuments housed at the Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA). The textiles were woven in the 1100s A.D. and range from expediently constructed objects to technologically complex clothing with dyes. These prehistoric remnants of cloth were excavated by archaeologists in the 1930s and 1960s, and many...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Josalyn Ferguson.

Despite the fact that images of Maya scribes in Classic period art are not uncommon, the identification of scribes and their households within the archaeological record remains elusive. The association of several utensils typically correlated with Maya scribal toolkits, and a prominent house mound at the Terminal Classic Maya community of Strath Bogue, has prompted the identification of this structure as a scribal household. This identification is of particular significance given that the site...

DOCUMENT Citation Only India Kotis.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research examines 2,400 samples of desktop graffiti (pictures or words that are drawn or etched into the wood of a writing desk) collected from a liberal arts college study space in Ohio, establishing chronology when possible. Much of what is written in the graffiti approximates patterns of discourse on social media websites like Reddit and Twitter. I...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristen Jeremiah. Dianna Doucette.

The Acushnet LNG Site is a multicomponent Native American campsite located along the Brayton Point peninsula in southeastern Massachusetts. Brayton Point extends into the Mount Hope Bay, at the confluence of two major rivers - the Lee and Taunton rivers - an area with numerous documented Native American campsites and ceremonial sites. Cultural resource management investigations identified an extensive archaeological site, measuring a minimum of 71,000 square meters, that was occupied from the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristen Jeremiah.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Acushnet LNG Site is a multicomponent Native American campsite located on the Brayton Point peninsula in southeastern Massachusetts. Brayton Point extends into Mount Hope Bay and is at the confluence of the Lee and Taunton rivers, an area with numerous documented Native American sites. The Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc. (PAL) identified the Acushnet...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Whitcher Kansa. Shawn Graham. Eric Kansa.

Digital data play increasingly prominent roles in archaeological research. At the same time, the Web has become the key medium for professional and public communication including the transmission of research data. The "Web of Data" represents a fundamental paradigm change. Increasingly, data are no longer packaged in discrete files (spreadsheets, database files) for download. Instead, many datasets come from dynamic information services (APIs, or Application Program Interfaces) and link with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Purcell.

The Museum of Northern Arizona and National Park Service, Flagstaff Area National Monuments conducted a cooperative baseline documentation and condition assessment of four sites in Wupatki National Monument 2014-2017: Crack-in-Rock (WS831), Middle Mesa (WS833), Horseshoe Mesa (WS834), and WS835. The fieldwork component of the project comprised high resolution film and digital photography of 374 petroglyph panels and 4,004 elements, completion of narrative and tabular data collection forms for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristen Baker.

A central tenant of military philosophy is "adapt, improvise, and overcome". Navigating battlefields requires constant adaptation to dynamic surroundings due to the interplay of several variables such as 1) pre-existing landscape and terrain, 2) enemy defenses, 3) enemy opposing forces, and 4) friendly and enemy fire. To successfully navigate the archaeology of a historic or prehistoric battlefield, archaeologists must attempt to understand the variables (such as those listed) that contributed...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alejandro Figueroa. Whitney Goodwin.

This is an abstract from the "I Love Sherds and Parasites: A Festschrift in Honor of Pat Urban and Ed Schortman" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pat Urban and Ed Schortman instilled in us the inability to think small. Their big picture, long-term approach to research, teaching, and mentoring is the greatest of all the many gifts they have shared with us. In research, it means we dig in. We have chosen our research sites carefully, with the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marieka Arksey. Greg Pierce. Paddington Hodza.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Both the Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist (OWSA) and the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office are shifting towards digital-only submissions for professional archaeological projects through two new and interconnected database-and-web-interface systems going live in 2018/19. This talk will focus on the benefits and drawbacks to the various public...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marieka Arksey. Paddington Hodza. Greg Pierce.

The University of Wyoming Archaeological Repository (UWAR) is the largest archaeological collection and the only federally-regulated repository in Wyoming, providing an unprecedented centralized location for researchers and the public to discover and engage with the 16,000 years of human occupation in this part of North America. However, the current collections management system at UWAR does not facilitate public dissemination of this data, nor does it enable curatorial staff the ability to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Bies.

This poster presents superimposition sequences of Dinwoody Tradition Rock Art. The sites discussed are located in west central Wyoming. The superimpositions include those of styles within the Dinwoody Tradition and with styles that predate and postdate the Dinwoody Tradition. The poster also addresses difficulties associated with the evaluations of superimpositions within the Dinwoody Tradition. The sequences establish a relative chronology for the images.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kirsten Tharalson.

The seasonality of the kill events from Certain site in Beckham County, Oklahoma is determined through x-ray analysis of bison mandibles. The distribution of bison dentition at archaeological sites has been studied extensively to provide information about seasonality, age, diet, and migration patterns. Because bison calf at roughly the same time during the year, understanding the age at death determines the seasonality of the kill. Knowing the seasonality of a bison kill reveals when a site was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Fitzpatrick. Matthew Napolitano. Elliot Blair.

Glass beads have long played an important role in Micronesian societies. Oral histories and ethnographic accounts describe how clay and glass beads ("udoud") in Palau functioned as traditional forms of currency in exchange relationships and were apparently used by islanders from Yap several hundred miles away to negotiate access to limestone quarries that enabled them to carve their famous stone money disks ("rai"). Evidence shows that both stone money quarrying and the exchange of high-valued...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda R. Manzanilla.

In corporate societies such as Teotihuacan, it is not easy to detect the places where the ruling elite dwelt, made decisions, managed goods and labor, or participated in cult activities. Teotihuacan is very different from the Maya urban sites: no royal tomb has been found, rulers are not depicted or easily recognized. The corporate organization may have permeated the ruling elite, where a possible council of lords may have headed the Teotihuacan state. Xalla, with a surface of ca. 50,000 m2, is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elihud Castillo Leal.

This is an abstract from the "Aproximaciones arqueológicas y paleontológicas en Santa Lucía, México" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Se presentarán los resultados preliminares del análisis cerámico, lítico y osteológico de los materiales obtenidos durante las excavaciones en los sitios registrados en la interconexión de la construcción del nuevo Aeropuerto Felipe Angeles en el municipio de Nextlalpan en la localidad de Xaltocan, que es un...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Theresa Heindel.

Research on ancient Maya agriculture has historically been focused on seed crop cultivation, but the recent discovery of a Classic period manioc field near the site of Ceren, El Salvador has shed new light on the possibility of intensive root crop cultivation by the ancient Maya. Another root crop, however, Xanthosoma violaceum (colloquially known as "malanga"), was also encountered in a household garden. Through the use of multiple lines of evidence, I have compiled a summation of malanga’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Oswaldo Chinchilla.

This is an abstract from the "A Celebration and Critical Assessment of "The Maya Scribe and His World" on its Fiftieth Anniversary" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An enduring contribution of “The Maya Scribe and His World” was Michael Coe’s call for attention to the Popol Wuj as a source for the interpretation of ancient Maya deities. Developed in subsequent works, this approach has yielded important insights on ancient Maya art and religion, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremias Pink. Ronald K. Faulseit. Erica Ausel.

Imagery related to the deity Xipe Totec is well-recognized in Late Classic Zapotec iconography, most notably on a few large ceramic figures known as "Xipe Statues." Unfortunately, the majority of these objects lack detailed contextual information, limiting our ability to fully understand their ritual or ceremonial significance. Our excavation of an elite residential complex has yielded numerous Xipe statue fragments, as well as painted and incised human bones, including two drilled mandibles...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Frauke Sachse.

This is an abstract from the "The Role of Women in Mesoamerican Ritual" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Popol Vuh, the creation of the world and humankind is conceptualized as a process of birth. The old creator couple Xmucane and Xpiyacoc are described as the first diviners, just like their counter parts Oxomoco and Cipactonal who are the first calendar priests in Central Mexican mythology. This paper explores the relation between human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Monica Dyer.

Little documentation exists of the trade exchange occurring in the central Piedmont during the 18th and 19th century at wealthy plantation sites or at surrounding sites of lower economic status. In this historical archaeology research, I focus on understanding the socio-economic patterns of settlers in the more rural areas of the region at two plantation sites and wasters from a local kiln site from same time period. Using pXRF data of lead glazed earthenware I attempt to map ceramic regional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Crise.

Hanna’s Town in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania played a pivotal role in the history of the state prior to and during the American Revolution. Archaeological excavations at Hanna’s Town have yielded a vast assemblage of domestic artifacts including various types of historic ceramics, the majority of which are redware. An x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) analysis of redware artifacts from Hanna’s Town provides more detailed information on the character of raw ceramic materials and the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonah Augustine. Brandi MacDonald.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the results of a combined XRF and Raman spectroscopic analysis of pigments used in the production of Middle Horizon ceramics from Arani, Cochabamba, Bolivia, that are currently housed at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The two central questions that this analysis investigates are (1) which of these materials were produced in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Turnbow. Robert Forrester.

The XSX Ranch site (LA 50702) is a multicomponent occupation located on the East Fork of the Gila River in Grant County, New Mexico. Between 1980 and 1992, Robert E. Forrester, a chemist from Texas, excavated 10 pithouses, 32 pueblo rooms in five roomblocks, and 91 burials at the site. In his little-known excavation reports, Forrester suggested the site was a Classic Mimbres occupation reoccupied by a Reserve/Tularosa population; however, in a review of his data, the site may best be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diane Slocum. Doug Tilden. Jaime Awe.

Recent excavation of Structure A9 at the site of Xunantunich, Belize, confirmed that the mound represents the remains of a medium-size temple dating to the Late Classic period. Sub-surface excavations along the central axis of the mound revealed a large, vaulted chamber containing the remains of an elite individual. Two hieroglyphic panels flanking the building’s front staircase identify a link between Xunantunich and three other Classic Maya polities: Caracol, Naranjo, and Calakmul. Exploration...

DOCUMENT Citation Only María Antonia Aguilar Pérez.

El municipio veracruzano de Playa Vicente es fundado oficialmente en 1873 a partir de un caserío que se desarrolló alrededor de una playa formada a orillas del río Tesechoacán, el asentamiento es producto de la ruta que seguían los comerciantes de madera que bajaban de la sierra de Oaxaca hacía las costas veracruzanas. Sin embargo antes de que se establecieran allí los nuevos lugareños el área estuvo habitada tiempo atrás, pero de aquellos pobladores poco se ha sabido. En la última década se han...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Floyd Aranyosi. David Davis. Ashley Garrett. Caroline Hartse.

Olympic College has created a field school around the historic Japanese immigrant site of Yama Village, on Bainbridge Island, WA. A field school associated with a community college offers access to professional training to a selection of students who would otherwise not have access to this education. Our multidisciplinary approach provides students with comprehensive field experience in the effort to recover this "hidden chapter" in Washington State history.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Khadene Harris.

Caribbean ‘yards’ and their associated structures have long been of interest to archaeologists determined to understand how the domestic spaces of enslaved laborers both embodied and reflected kinship ties, labor arrangements, and socio-political shifts. Often regarded as an elemental feature of Caribbean society, houseyards are the spaces where the repeated acts of daily life took place, as a result, understanding how enslaved laborers utilized and altered their domestic space over generations,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Rogers. Sileshi Semaw.

Tentatively dated to MIS 5/4, the YAS-1 (Ya’alu South 1) site at Gona, Ethiopia is a high-density open-air archaeological site preserving classic Middle Stone Age (MSA) stone tools such as Levallois cores, points, and blades in addition to a variety of fossil fauna, some with bone modifications including cut marks. While most of the archaeological material has been found on the surface over the last ten years, recent excavations have documented both lithics and fauna in situ. Though the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ken Seligson. Melissa Galvan. William Ringle.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The second season of the Yaxhom Valley survey, conducted during the summer of 2018, continued its assessment of LiDAR imagery collected by an NSF-sponsored mission flown over the eastern Puuc region of Yucatan, Mexico. Our focus shifted to Muluchtzekel, which LiDAR revealed to be the dominant site of the entire valley. We covered approximately one square...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luisa Esther Diaz Arriola.

This paper presents the results of a typology and iconographic analysis made on ceramic and textiles artifacts recovered at the Ychsma settlement of Armatambo. The Ychsma cultural affiliation of this archaeological site, which is located on a dense urban area south of Lima, is recognized in the literature (especially with the aerial photographs published by Kosok in 1965) but little detail has been published on the evidence of its affiliation and character of occupation. We can confirm that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kimball Banks. J. Signe Snortland. Linda Scott Cummings. Donatella Usai. Maria Gatto.

WK26 is a Late Paleolithic occupation consisting of a sparse lithic scatter, hearths, postholes, storage features, a possible living floor, and faunal remains in which fish predominate. The site lies on the west side of Wadi Kubbaniya, north of Aswan, Egypt, and opposite the Late Paleolithic dune field the Combined Prehistoric Expedition investigated in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Radiocarbon dates and stratigraphic position indicate that WK26 dates to the end of the Late Paleolithic. Few...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Metin Eren. Brian Andrews. Michelle Bebber. Ashley Rutkoski. David Meltzer.

The Paleo Crossing (33ME274) Clovis site in Northeast Ohio was discovered in 1989, and excavated in the early 1990s. Analysis of the collections over the past 27 years has shed light on Clovis technology, mobility, raw material transport, and forager colonization behavior. Now, armed with several new questions involving the site's chronology, Clovis tool function, and the possible presence of a Clovis "structure", we re-opened excavations at the site during June 2017. While more excavations...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Enah Montserrat Fonseca Ibarra. Sharon Herzka. Miguel Téllez. Miguel Santa Rosa del Río. René Vellanoweth.

Knowledge of patterns of subsistence and seasonal settlement strategies on the northwest coast of the Baja California Peninsula is still scarce. In order to identify shellfish harvesting patterns from Middle to Late Holocene, oxygen isotope determinations from 66 California mussel shells (Mytilus californianus) from three archaeological sites in the coastal area of Bajamar-Jatay were analyzed. The results suggest that mussels were collected mainly during the fall and winter seasons (63.6%);...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesper Nielsen. Christophe Helmke.

This is an abstract from the "Teotihuacan: Multidisciplinary Research on Mesoamerica's Classic Metropolis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We offer a new look at a series of carved monuments and examples of rock art from Classic Teotihuacan culture (ca. AD 100–500) of highland central Mexico, all of which bear single calendrical dates in the 260-day calendar. Monuments such as those of Cerro Xoconoch and the Plaza de las Columnas serve as records...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Morehouse. Sara Rivers Cofield. Erin Wingfield.

Eighteen years ago, the State of Maryland’s archaeological collections were moved into the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory (MAC Lab) at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum in Southern Maryland. This was an important step towards improving the storage conditions of the Maryland collections, but it did little to make the collections more accessible. Understanding the need for better access to archaeological collections, MAC Lab staff spent years rehousing, inventorying and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Palus.

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Collections: Federal Archaeology and "New Discoveries" under NAGPRA" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Vast, but not vacant, the 256 million acres of public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management offer are an incredible laboratory for archaeological research with 400+ academic and CRM permittees annually conducting thousands of surveys and hundreds of excavation projects. BLM manages these lands for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Matthew. William Fowler.

The first Spanish foothold in Guatemala took root during the first invasion of Guatemala led by Pedro de Alvarado in 1524 at the Kaqchikel city of Iximche. Historians regard this as the first capital of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala. After its location at Iximche, Santiago had two sequential locations near Olintepeque and in Chimaltenango. The ruins of the first permanent Santiago de Guatemala, founded in 1527 in the Valley of Almolonga and destroyed in 1541, lie beneath the modern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melanie Fillios.

Most zooarchaeologists are familiar with the uncertain feeling when faced with identifying material in the absence of a physical comparative collection. In response to this challenge, numerous photographic atlases have been produced to provide researchers with access to collections while in the field. Unfortunately, 2D images are constrained by their inability to be ‘handled’ and measured in the same way as a physical specimen. The UNE Archaeology virtual bone project was initially developed as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mara Horowitz.

Ceramics are intimately tied to both foodways and normative behavior within a culture. The appearance of a new shape or the long-term persistence of an old shape must be contextualized by first investigating the use to which the vessel was put, a use that can be inferred through multiple lines of evidence and explored using a variety of approaches. Recent excavations at Alalakh have illuminated the site’s Late Bronze I period, especially the troubled 17th-16th century BC transition from the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Philippa Jorissen.

Social position, ethical origin, cultural background and diet are found to be strongly intertwined, therefore faunal remains provide a unique opportunity to explore differences in diet between different ethnical groups and/or social classes. Hence we studied the zoological remains from the pre- and post-emancipation of three archaeological sites on Saba (late 18th to the early 20th century), which were inhabited by different groups of people, such as impoverished people of European descent,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroline Antonelli. Timothy Hare.

This is an abstract from the "Provisioning Ancient Maya Cities: Modeling Food Production and Land Use in Tropical Urban Environments" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In Mesoamerica, recent scholarship emphasizes the importance of urban smallholders, or intensive production by urban residents. The acquisition of regional lidar imagery of urban centers and surrounding landscapes reveals that the spatial limitations of production were often far more...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pete Sinelli.

This is an abstract from the "Advances in the Archaeology of the Bahama Archipelago" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Palmetto Junction site on Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands provides an abundant and diverse ceramic assemblage. These artifacts help describe movements of people, goods, and ideas among Lucayan Taino groups in the Bahama archipelago and affiliated Greater Antillean settlements to the south. The assemblage includes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David S. Anderson.

This is an abstract from the "Digitizing Archaeological Practice: Education and Outreach in the Archaeogaming Subdiscipline" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From the very origins of tabletop roleplaying games, creators like Gary Gygax turned to scholarship of the ancient world as a wellspring for fantasy worldbuilding, in-game quests, and tradition-rich non-player characters or legendary creatures. Through this lens, gamers took an active role in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrea Balbo. Jasmin Link. Jürgen Scheffran. et al..

Following the introduction of agriculture, domestication and permanent settlement in the early Holocene, patrilinear and patrilocal models have become more common than matrilineal and matrilocal ones. While patrilocality is observed at the worldwide level, matrilocality has been associated to specific areas, e.g. sub-Saharan Africa. Matrilocal and patrilocal residence patterns indicate whether as a rule, a newly formed couple settles with or near the female’s or male’s parents respectively. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Larkin Hood.

Ideally, exercises and activities for an open textbook should encourage students to engage with and apply the information beyond a single course. This session provides a reflection on the process of designing resources that activate student motivation to engage with content, and provide checks on student understanding (for students and instructors). Activities are also a means for students to practice retrieving what they have learned so they can use it in other situations, and provide ways for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hali Thurber. Justin Uehlein.

Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, hobos and other transient workers crisscrossed the nation, taking temporary jobs wherever capital demanded labor that exceeded local resources. Despite their contingent status as surplus laborers, hobos were cast as morally bankrupt deviants, insane, and sexually ambiguous men by media outlets across the nation. State laws and county and town ordinances were summarily passed barring hobos from entering towns, cities, and otherwise populous...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Genevieve Woodhead.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Corrugated vessels are ubiquitous in the northern U.S. Southwest, and yet their research potential is often overlooked. This study examines corrugated pottery to determine how much uniformity or variability goes into the process of manufacturing these everyday, utilitarian objects. The sample comprises Ancestral Puebloan and Mogollon corrugated vessels from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only C. Michael Barton. Julien Riel-Salvatore.

Mobility is a phenomenon of importance across all past and present societies. For hunter-gatherers, mobility structures ecological strategies, social organization, and response to environmental change. For prehistoric societies, we cannot observe mobility but it is possible to study it through a proxy record of discarded material items and biological remains that form the archaeological record. Increasingly archaeological practice has shifted from proposing intuitive links between mobility and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Tune. Heather L. Smith. Stephen Yerka.

The transition from Clovis fluting techniques to the variety of later Paleoindian fluting methods and fluted-point morphologies represents one of the earliest major technological shifts currently known in North America. This transition generally coincides with the beginning of the Younger Dryas, and much speculation exists concerning potential correlations between changes in environmental factors and Paleoindian technologies. Some researchers argue that late Pleistocene ecological transitions...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristine Richter. Roshan Paladugu. Cleia Detry. Cristina Barrocas Dias. Christina Warinner.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Horses (Equus caballus) and donkeys (Equus asinus) play essential roles in human culture and economy. Unlike most other domesticates, horses and donkeys can produce hybrids. Mules, offspring of female horses and male donkeys, have been found in archaeological contexts across the Old World. Written sources describe the choice of horse, donkey, or mule as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Khristin Landry-Montes. Daniela Angélica Garrido Durán.

This is an abstract from the "Braiding Knowledge: Opportunities and Challenges for Collaborative Approaches to Archaeological Heritage and Conservation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeology, and to greater extent academe in the Western world, is evolving from a past couched in the comfort of objective truths and universal knowledge focused on static places and societies. However, now more than ever, there has been a push towards...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Sparaga. Kelly Eldridge. Forrest Kranda.

This is an abstract from the "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: A National Perspective on CRM, Research, and Consultation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Alaska District conducts numerous undertakings in the Arctic regions of the United States. Many of these undertakings, such as coastal erosion protection and small navigation improvement projects, require Memorandums of Agreement (MOAs) among the USACE, the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Sears.

The multi-year study of the ceramic figurines of Tres Zapotes recovered from archaeological explorations at the site center and the surrounding area indicate patterns of interactions throughout the development of the region. Supplemental museum specimens from past excavations at Tres Zapotes, residing in the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution, were also incorporated into laboratory analysis. The data are examined for evidence of exchange with other communities,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Anne Melton. Emily Liu. Jeff Calder. Katrina Yezzi-Woodley.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is widely accepted that angle measurements taken on lithic artifacts form a crucial part of lithic analysis. Thanks to advances in 3D-scanning technology, researchers now have virtual angle-measuring options. However, since these new virtual tools were created independently and thus are utilizing their own “suite” of algorithms dependent on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaime Awe. Claire Ebert. Julie Hoggarth.

This is an abstract from the "The Movement of People and Ideas in Eastern Mesoamerica during the Ninth and Tenth Centuries CE: A Multidisciplinary Approach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological investigations in western Belize have recorded a growing body of evidence that is indicative of non-central lowland Maya influences in this Maya subregion during the Terminal Classic period. Evidence for Yucatec and non-Maya influence in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jorge Flores.

Archaeology as an academic practice in the northern Ecuadorian Andes has concentrated on a constant exploration of hypothesis about the past with the intention to acquire better and more accurate understanding about the origins and development of complex societies. Since the 1970’s, scholars have produced valuable outcomes directed to those goals analyzing evidences concerning to the dynamism of Prehispanic societies in terms of regional distribution, social relations, environmental constrains,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dougless Skinner.

This is an abstract from the "Temyiq Tuyuryaq: Collaborative Archaeology the Yup’iit Way" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tool analysis is a foundational component of archaeological research and site interpretation. Methods for analysis include a rigorous set of categories including, but not limited to, raw material type, tool type, use-wear, retouch, etc. Although these categories are informative, telling us about a specific set of criteria and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aleksander Borejsza. Arthur Joyce. Jon Lohse. Isabel Rodríguez López.

We report the discovery and excavation of a site radiocarbon-dated to 3000 BC near the village of Yanhuitlan in Oaxaca. The site is buried under alluvium at a depth of 5m. At the time of its occupation it was situated on the floodplain of a large seasonal stream. The excavation of 30m2 revealed several superimposed features, including hearths, small refuse pits, and a bell-shaped pit. Debitage of different varieties of chert is ubiquituous, as is heat-spalled rock of different lithologies....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Lohse. Aleksander Borejsza. Arthur Joyce.

Yuzanu 50 was discovered during a reconnaissance of the headwaters of the Yuzanu River as a scatter of debitage eroding from a barranca cutbank, from a palaeosol formed under wet meadows that lined the stream from the Terminal Pleistocene into the Holocene. Excavations exposed 15m2 of an occupation surface buried 13.5m below modern ground surface. An excavated assemblage consisting almost exclusively of biface reduction debris made of materials that crop out further upstream indicates that this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Walker. Leah Minc. Christina Elson.

The site of Jalieza, during the Late Classic, was the second largest community in the Valley of Oaxaca. But in spite of its position in the regional settlement hierarchy, the position of this site in the regional economic system is largely unknown. To ascertain this, we have examined patterns of ceramic consumption and exchange utilizing three contexts of an elite house, a semi- elite house, and a systematic surface survey to obtain 250 samples of ceramics from household and ritual vessels....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ellen Hoobler.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The precolumbian site of Monte Albán in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, presents a continuing challenge for scholars because the earliest scientific excavations at the site, conducted in the 1930s by noted archaeologist Alfonso Caso and his collaborators, were only partially published. This is particularly disappointing since many of the tombs of Monte Alban were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ricardo Higelin Ponce De Leon. Pedro Guillermo Ramón Celis. Alex Elvis Badillo.

This is an abstract from the "Living and Dying in Mountain and Highland Landscapes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The state of Oaxaca, southern Mexico has a very diverse topography, from highlands to floodplains, where mortuary and funerary patterns have been practiced by the prehispanic indigenous Zapotec for at least 3000 years. From simple graves to very complex and elaborate tombs, the Zapotecs used and reused their mortuary space within the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Stark. Alondra Flores. Fernando Gonzalez.

This is an abstract from the "Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Earth-oven processing of agave food and drink has a time depth in Colima, Mexico, of more than 7,000 years, providing a notable example of localized socioeconomic intensification processes throughout the Holocene. The cultural setting for this research is observant of contemporary Agave Culture, a term used to describe...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Darby.

This is an abstract from the "Female Firsts: Celebrating Archaeology’s Pioneering Women on the 101st Anniversary of the 19th Amendment " session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1886 Zelia Nuttall began work at the Peabody Museum for Ethnology and Archaeology under the tutelage of Frederic Putnam. Nuttall became a specialist in precolumbian Mesoamerican cultures and conducted archaeological fieldwork in Mexico for the Peabody, where she was “Honorary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Darby.

It’s been almost two score and four hundred years since Francis Drake and his company in two ships, the Golden Hinde and a small ship only known as Tello’s Bark, landed somewhere on the west coast of American. This interlude was during what became known as ‘The Famous Voyage’ (1577-1580). Seventy to eighty men-- and a pregnant black woman named Maria—disembarked, built a rough fort, and remained for five or six weeks. The geographical location of this landing has been the subject of much...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alina Karapandzich. Paul Nick Kardulias.

Adulation of heroes, including the flawed, militaristic, authoritative men of Homeric epic was an important feature of ancient Hellenic culture. This phenomenon is reflected in cults and shrines built in the Archaic period. How did these so-called "hero cults" form, and can Early Iron Age (EIA) elite burials form a connection between the tomb cults of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) and the hero cults of the Archaic and later Classical periods? The purpose of this study is to examine EIA burials whose...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claire Smith.

This presentation focusses on Larry Zimmerman’s contributions to world archaeology through his leadership roles within the World Archaeological Congress. This includes his various roles on the WAC Executive and Council and his convening of the first Indigenous Inter-Congress, held at Vermillion, South Dakota in 1989 and the subsequent development of the Vermillion Accord on Human Remains.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Acabado.

The origins of the extensive wet-rice terrace complex in Ifugao, Philippines have been recently dated to ca. 400 years ago. Previously thought to be at least 2,000 years old, the recent findings of the Ifugao Archaeological Project show that landscape modification for terraced wet-rice cultivation started at ca. 1600. The archaeological record implies that economic intensification and political consolidation occurred in Ifugao soon after the appearance of the Spanish empire in the northern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joni Manson.

Archaeologists often wring their hands and bemoan the lack of regulations or guidelines designed to protect archaeological sites from destruction during development. Section 106 of the NHPA applies only to projects receiving federal funding, licenses, or permits. ARPA applies only to federal and Indian lands. Several states have State Historic Preservation Acts that apply Section 106-like regulations to state projects. Some cities have adopted legislation to protect cultural resources. However,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alice Diaz.

The Zooanthropomorphic beings present on some artifacts of the cultural areas Tairona (Colombia), Gran Coclé (Panama) and Gran Chiriqui (Costa Rica) dating back to pre-Columbian times have often been identified as shamans. But what are the iconographic elements that are in favor of such a precise interpretation? To begin with, we did a thorough iconographical analysis aiming to determine taxonomically the animal component, the ratio between human and animal, and the precise anatomical elements...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erik Otárola-Castillo. Max Price. Jesse Wolfhagen.

Zooarchaeologists address some of today’s “big-questions” related to human evolution, social competition and exploitation, big-game hunting and the origins of domestication. These questions are frequently answered by systematically observing the appropriate zooarchaeological assemblages and quantifying and analyzing suitable data. Techniques used throughout data collection and analysis include sampling, frequency distributions of bone counts, butchery marks , taphonomic modification, and GIS...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erik Otárola-Castillo. Jesse Wolfhagen. Max Price.

Zooarchaeologists evaluate fundamental and challenging questions about human nature. Many of these questions are answered through statistical modeling and hypothesis testing. However, statistical software tailored to answer zooarchaeological questions remain unavailable. To alleviate this problem, in 2016, we unveiled "zooaRch", a statistical software designed with zooarchaeological statistical problems in mind. ZooaRch is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for Zooarchaeologists who wish to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Silvana Rosenfeld.

Chavín de Huantar (1000-500 BC Peru) has long has been considered a major center in the central Andes given its complex architecture and art. Mostly based on art depiction, ritual at Chavín has long been associated with psychoactive plant ingestion. Stone sculptures show the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus, as well as the representation of monstrous animals and supernatural beings interpreted as priests transforming into animals during hallucinogen consumption. Inspired by Diane...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Klemmer. Valentina Martínez.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Rio Chico site on the central coast of Ecuador was occupied almost continuously for 5000 years (ca. 3500 BCE to 1532 CE) in a region of coastal South America that is heavily influenced by climatic events such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Archaeological records and historical documents written by the Spanish provide evidence that by the Manteño...