Society for American Archaeology

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leigh Hayes. Elizabeth Hannigan. Paige Schmitt. Paraskevi Tritsaroli. Anna Karligkioti.

This is an abstract from the "The Bioarchaeology of the Phaleron Cemetery, Archaic Greece: Current Research and Insights" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Phaleron cemetery dates to the Greek Archaic Period (700–480 BCE), a time of great political and social upheaval. Textual accounts from the Archaic period are limited, making bioarchaeological analysis integral to understanding the lived experiences of everyday ancient Athenians. This project...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Xu Zhang. Xiangqun Wu. Hong Zhu. Yidilisi Abuduresule. Wenying Li.

The archaeological site of Xiaohe cemetery (Cal. 3980 to 3540 years BP), one of the earliest sites in Lop Nur Desert of Xinjiang, China has attracted considerable attention in recent years due to its well-preserved organic materials, such as mummified human remains. However, questions of the regional diversity of populations are still not well understood, as few detailed researches have been undertaken. This study utilizes 17 dental morphological traits to assess the phenetic relationships...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jordan Krummel.

On the platform between the triadic group on the Tigre pyramid at the site of El Mirador, Guatemala, the Mirador Basin Project discovered human remains scattered over the upper platform of this pyramid associated with hundreds of projectile points, in both local chert and obsidian from Central Mexico. Additional artifacts included shell, bone, and large quantities of Early Classic ceramics. This presentation will focus on the osteological remains from this deposit. Skeletal analyses of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kate McElroy. Darlene Applegate. Brianna Brown.

Site 15Wa916 is a prehistoric burial ground in northern Bowling Green is located immediately south of the pumping station on Barren River along Highway 957 opposite Beech Bend Park. Dr. Jack Schock of Western Kentucky University excavated several prehistoric grave features at the site in May 1973. One uncalibrated radiocarbon date of 910 BC indicates the site dates to the early part of the Early Woodland period. Schock’s excavation yielded, among other artifacts, hundreds of human bones and bone...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jared Beatrice. George Leader. Kimberlee Moran. Anna Dhody.

The inadvertent discovery of the historic First Baptist Church of Philadelphia cemetery resulted in the recovery of a large sample of human skeletons composed of commingled remains as well as discrete individuals associated with intact coffins. Analysis of the skeletal remains prior to reburial provides insight into demography, behavior, and living conditions among members of this congregation interred circa 1700-1860. While preservation of the remains is variable within the cemetery,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dana Kollmann.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Multidisciplinary Investigations in the Mirador Basin, Guatemala" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the preliminary findings pertaining to the exhumation and bioarchaeological examination of a collection of Preclassic period human remains recovered from a lime kiln in El Mirador Basin, Guatemala. The disarticulated and fragmented skeletal remains of nine individuals were compressed into a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only José Luis Punzo Díaz. Miguel Alberto Ibarra López. Jakob Sedig.

This is an abstract from the "Looking to the West: New insights into Postclassic Archaeology in Michoacán" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster will present the first results from the bioarchaeological analysis of more than half a ton of human skeletal remains recovered from the ossuary of the ancient city of Tzintzuntzan on the shores of Lake Patzcuaro in the state of Michoacán, Mexico. In addition to conventional morphological analysis,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Baustian.

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. The Mimbres culture of the American Southwest is most recognized for its beautiful black-on-white ceramics but recent research is revealing greater understanding of social organization, community interactions, and the response to social and cultural change. Bioarchaeological and mortuary data are contributing important evidence...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Horvey Palacios. J. Marla Toyne. 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. In the Maya area, bioarchaeological and mortuary analysis can help identify patterns of mortuary ritual and social experience of past peoples. However, there is very little bioarchaeological and mortuary evidence for the developing complexity and social experience of the Preclassic period. Major ceremonial centers like Naranjo, Tikal, and Yaxha surround...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Colin Quinn. Jess Beck.

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. In this paper, we introduce the agenda for the session Living and Dying in Mountain and Highland Landscapes. Mountains and high altitude areas are ideal spaces where archaeologists can examine the relationship between social action and the environment. As this session will show, the study of human remains must be situated with a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aubree Gabbard. Emily Sharp.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During eras of heightened, intergroup conflict, noncombatants may experience increased risk of death, either as a direct result of targeted killings or from more indirect means stemming from resource stress and inadequate nutrition, for example. Documenting whether changes in mortality during violent time periods deviate from expected demographic patterns...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Miller.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Copan is uniquely situated to address the question of migration and culture contact in ancient Mesoamerica. The city is nestled at the southeastern frontier of the Maya region and the western edge of culturally diverse Honduras. Copan was a dynamic urban city populated by peoples of various places of origin, affiliations, and identities. Research focused on the Copan human skeletal collection, the largest yet recovered in Mesoamerica, to explore the lives of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Marsteller.

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 Huarochirí Manuscript has made legendary the social relationships of pre-Columbian groups inhabiting the Andean mountain landscape that ascends steeply from the present-day coastal capital city of Lima, Peru, to the high-altitude Huarochirí Province. In this famous collection of ethnohistoric narratives, authored in the indigenous...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Marsteller. Kelly Knudson. Gwyneth Gordon. Ariel Anbar.

Archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence indicates that, for the Inca Empire and the Spanish Viceroyalty, the Rimac and Lurin Valleys on central Peruvian coast served as a key regional hub for religious and administrative activities. The nature of regional interactions prior to Inca imperial influence in this area, however, remains unclear. Well-known historical narratives claim populations from the adjacent Huarochirí highlands defeated coastal Ychsma populations for agricultural land, but...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Damien Huffer. Shawn Graham.

During the Colonial era, numerous "trophy skulls" from various Indo-Pacific cultures entered Western museum and private collections, and continue to be sought as "authentic" collector’s items. However, very little bioarchaeological research exists investigating their provenience, intra-cultural variation in decoration and manufacture, and how examples created for Indigenous ritual use differed from those created for sale to Colonial explorers at the beginning of ‘curio’ trade, let alone what...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Waller. Adrianne Offenbecker.

Variation in cranial and dental non-metric traits provides a unique method for investigating prehistoric biological variability at Paquimé, Chihuahua, Mexico. Previous biodistance analyses have demonstrated patterns of long-distance gene flow with both Southwestern and frontier Mesoamerican groups, while stable isotope analyses have suggested a pattern of immigration into the site. The primary goal of this study is to determine what the pattern of biological variability tells us about social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bright Zhou.

Porotic hyperostosis, manifested as pittings on the outer table of the cranial vault, and cribra orbitalia, the analogous porosities that form on orbital roofs, are two commonly observed pathologies used extensively by bioarchaeologists to understand past health and nutritional conditions. Yet the etiologies of porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia are largely varied and not well understood, with proposed explanations ranging from diet and nutrition to chronic and infectious diseases. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Schrader. Michele Buzon.

Nubia, once colonized by the Egyptian Empire during the New Kingdom Period (ca. 1550-1070 BCE), became increasingly independent and powerful with the rise of the Napatan State during the Third Intermediate and Napatan Periods (ca. 1070-664 BCE). This research addresses the social impacts of the New Kingdom/Napatan political and economic transition via the bioarchaeological examination of diet (carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis) and dental health (ante-mortem tooth loss, caries). We...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Newton. Kate Domett. Siân Halcrow. Korakot Boonlop.

This paper identifies the ethical and conservation challenges of working with skeletal remains from mainland Southeast Asia, a region including Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar. Due to the increasing political rest experienced over the past decades, researchers have had better opportunities to work in these countries, with relatively easier access to appropriate permissions to excavate archaeological sites. The first-hand accounts of bioarchaeological research conducted by the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jayne-Leigh Thomas. Krystiana Krupa.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The last few decades have brought changes to archaeology through the establishment of ethics codes, repatriation, and community-based, participatory research. However, established ethical codes are often unfamiliar to researchers and the treatment of human remains continues to be unequal, while scientific justifications for doing bioarchaeological research are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Olivia Franklin. John Dudgeon. Amy Commendador. Rebecca Hazard. Michael Dega.

Garapan, a Latte Period (A.D. 1000-1521) archaeological site in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, was excavated under mitigation efforts by Scientific Consultant Services, Hawaii in 2015. The recovery produced over 400 sets of skeletal remains, of which forty-eight were submitted for dietary bioarchaeological analysis in the Center for Archaeology, Materials and Applied Spectroscopy. This research focuses on the importance of marine versus terrestrial protein sources and introduced plant...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Gowland.

The elderly are the most neglected demographic in archaeology. In today’s youth-obsessed society the elderly are consistently denigrated, particularly those perceived to be physically or mentally frail. This negative construction is partly a consequence of an unprecedented ageing population, often conceptualised as problematic and burdensome to society. A related and growing concern in contemporary populations is the physical abuse of the elderly, believed to be an escalating, demographically...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Boyd. Terry Melton. Donna Boyd.

The 13th Century Late Woodland Shannon site (44MY8), located near Blacksburg in Montgomery County, Virginia, was excavated in the 1960s. Excavations identified palisade lines, several circular structures, refuse-filled pits, and over 130 burials. Most burials were single, primary interments located around structures or between structures and palisade lines. Researchers have assumed that individuals buried close to one another around structures were genetically related, or at least shared clan...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arion Mayes.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological site of Spiro Mounds was a ceremonial complex with an associated village of artisans and priests. Located on the Arkansas River, a tributary of the Mississippi River, the site is situated in a natural corridor between the Southeast, the Plains, and the Southwestern United States. Long considered a quintessential Mississippian site (AD...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alex Garcia-Putnam. Melissa Murphy. Christopher T. Fisher.

Little is known about the impact of Purépecha Empire formation on the skeletal health and well being of communities within the core zone of the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, during the Postclassic period (AD 1000-1500). Here we report on recent bioarchaeological investigation of 19 mortuary contexts from the ancient Purépecha city of Angamuco located within the imperial heartland. We have identified at least seven different mortuary treatments from Angamuco and we compare these contexts with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amber Joliz Steinbruchel. Aaron Chang. John Kribaum. Adam Lauer.

The Ifugao Archaeology Project (IAP) investigates the sparse prehistoric and colonial archaeological record of the Philippine Cordillera. The biological anthropology of the area is almost completely unknown. A single adult human skeleton has been recovered from primary archaeological context in the Ifugao area. The paucity of skeletal remains is largely due to cultural practices that include the processing and collection of juvenile and adult skeletons for ritual storage. One adult human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ricardo Higelin Ponce De Leon.

Archaeological, iconographic and ethnohistorical sources have been used to examine diverse cultural practices of Zapotec society before European contact. Cultural practices related to violence and warfare, such as captive taking for ritual sacrifice and slave labor, played an important role in Zapotec imperial expansion during the Late Formative through the Classic period. In the Valley of Oaxaca research has been done to understand these cultural practices. Whatever, bioarchaeological data to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wieslaw C. Wieckowski. Kelly Knudson. Lars Fehren-Schmitz.

The Wari imperial mausoleum, discovered in 2012-13 at the site of Castillo de Huarmey, Peru brought to light remains of 64 individuals buried within the main chamber underneath and additional seven in the contexts directly associated with the mausoleum. The upper layers of the building also yielded a collection of human and animal remains. The collection of human remains brings a unique set of data for bioarchaeologists. The research performed so far include standard analyses like taphonomy,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Giovanni Castillejos González. Estela Martinez Mora. Daniel Valtierra Vega.

In this paper we present a synthesis of the osteological analysis of recovered individuals in this project, considering that social change can be studied on the basis of the biology of individuals in their social environment and lifestyle. Prehispanic social groups inhabited this region in northwest Mexico between 200 AD and 900 AD. The analyzed sample originates from funerary contexts excavated in two sites of a second order and one first order site. The samples are dissimilar, but correspond...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Judyta Bak. Angela Lucia Rojas Bergna. Juan Carlos La Rosa.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2010, the archaeological research project in the Los Huacos area of Hualmay discovered a funerary bundle that was named "The Weaver of Hualmay". It is believed that it corresponds to an adult woman, since associated with the bundle there was a reed basket filled with spinning tools, needles and cotton, among other items for textile production. The study...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Allisen Dahlstedt. Jane Buikstra.

Recent studies of pre-Columbian Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) genomes identify pinnipeds as a source of human tuberculosis in South America (Bos et al. 2014). These results raise questions regarding the timing of this zoonotic transfer and the subsequent human host adaptation and dissemination of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Here we present a survey of skeletal tuberculosis throughout the Osmore Drainage of southern Peru, where the pinniped to human "jump" had occurred by ~AD 1000....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eszter Bánffy.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The short paper focuses on Early Neolithic continental Europe, with presenting new archaeological results compared to similarly recent ancient DNA and stable isotope studies. I shall address various scenarios from selected regions in the Balkans, in northern Germany before zooming in the eastern and western part of the Carpathian basin. Here again,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chin-hsin Liu.

This is an abstract from the "Paradigms Shift: New Interpretations in Mainland Southeast Asian Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologically, Metal Age sites in northeast and central Thailand exhibit different patterns in site formation, size, and mortuary practice. With geophysical characteristics of each region in mind, these differences have led to an on-going discussion on, for example, the origin of metallurgy and cultigens,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Jones. Ana B. Marín Arroyo. Michael Richards.

The Cantabrian Region of Northern Spain was an important refugium during the harsh conditions of the Last Glacial Maximum, when ice sheets covered much of Northern Europe and populations were pushed further south. Late Upper populations in the Cantabrian region thrived at this time, and there is an increase in the density of archaeological sites is seen, in addition to cultural changes such as the creation of rich cave art assemblages. Understanding the climatic and environmental conditions...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pamela Geller.

This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The future of bioarchaeology requires a robust sub-disciplinary bioethos. The concept refers to consolidation of a habit that gives rise to moral, normative practices related to exhumation, documentation, analysis, and posthumous treatment of dead bodies. Conversations in bioethics—about consent, anonymity, vulnerable populations, legislation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Tsosie.

This is an abstract from the "Social Justice in Native North American Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines the theme of "discovery," used in relation to Indigenous lands and peoples to designate the respective claims of Indigenous peoples and the European peoples that colonized North America. In particular, I look at the domain of "bioarchaeology" and the construct of "genome justice" to explore how DNA science attempts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Kinkopf. Jess Beck.

Disturbing the dead has been considered a criminal activity in the Nile Valley since the trial of Egyptian tomb robbers in 1100 BCE. Looting is one of the most destructive forces at archaeological sites; grave robbing, in particular, leaves human remains and cultural heritage irreparably damaged. During 2007-2008, the Oriental Institute Nubian Expedition (OINE) worked to identify, record, and preserve important archaeological sites that have since been destroyed by the Merowe Dam. Al-Widay, a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexis Boutin.

This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper reflects on bioarchaeology as archaeology (after Armelagos 2003) by tracing the discipline’s past and identifying current research trends. Bioarchaeology’s roots run deep into the 20th century, but it was only in the late 1970s that it received its name in the U.S. and began to blossom as a discipline. The first generation of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Watson. Rachael Byrd.

Investment in cultigens and early irrigation in the Sonoran Desert (circa 3600 BP) signal a major shift in subsistence strategy identified as the Early Agricultural Period (EAP). The EAP is also recognized as a period of significant social transformation, and Las Capas (LCA) has played a critical part in our redefinition of this period. We examine how biocultural signatures from the LCA mortuary sample compare over the site’s occupation and within broader patterns of the EAP. Our results...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Jastremski. Valentina L Martinez.

Bioarcheology is slowly being integrated into research programs in Ecuador. Ubelaker’s 1981 groundbreaking excavation and analysis of the Ayalán Cemetery, along the southern coast, was the first attempt at incorporating bioarchaeology in this region; however, since then, relatively little work has been done. We seek to investigate human skeletal remains found at different archaeological sites in the Manabí province. The sample comprises diverse burial type, age, and contextual information. Some...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Van Voorhis. Ellen Lofaro. Neill Wallis. Donna Ruhl.

This is an abstract from the ""Re-excavating" Legacy Collections" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Legacy collections can prove quite valuable in research, but may bring with them additional ethical and legal concerns and challenges. Known for the intricate wooden effigy carvings on a mortuary platform above a charnel pond, the site of Fort Center, 8GL13, also contains more than 24 earthworks dating from 800 BCE to 1700 CE. This paper explores the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaroslav Bruzek. Kevin Salesse. Petr Velemínský. Pascal Sellier. Dominique Castex.

The new evaluation of the skeletal remains and the archaeological documentation from the Saint Benedict cemetery in Prague is a unique opportunity for a bioarchaeological analysis of past mortality crises. The rescue archaeological excavation (held in 1971) and the first osteological analysis (Hanakova et al., 1988) showed in the baroque phase V (1635-1786) the presence of several multiple graves (approximately 30 with 190 individuals) and also many other simultaneous individual burials...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brittany Hill. Laurel Engbring. David Grant. Monica V. Arellano. Alan Leventhal.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation applies Tilley and Cameron’s 2014 Index of Care to the mortuary population of three ancestral Muwekma Ohlone sites that were excavated in the San Francisco Bay Area between 2016- 2022 (CA-ALA-565/H, CA-ALA-677/H, and CA-ALA-704/H). These sites include the remains of 147 individuals dating between approximately 2200-110 cal BP. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ingris Pelaez-Ballestas. Karla Rodríguez-Rodríguez. Miguel Ibarra. Patricia Rodriguez. Carlos Karam-Tapia.

This is an abstract from the "Tzintzuntzan, Capital of the Tarascan Empire: New Perspectives" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Otitis and mastoiditis are conditions that produce deafness and disability in the pre-antibiotic era, especially in the fishing community. This study describes lesions on temporal bones in the Western Culture from Mexico living near Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. A sample (n = 41) of temporal bones from Tzintzuntzan sites was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Miller Wolf. Timothy Pugh.

The Spanish established the San Bernabé Mission in the heartland of the Itzá Maya area at Tayasal in the Petén Lakes region around 1710. Census data suggest that the mission was at the center of a multi-cultural community of 126 individuals in 1712, yet within three decades the population size had reduced by 70% potentially due to epidemics and flight. Excavations by the Tayasal Archaeological Project have recovered 46 individuals from 33 graves in the mission’s cemetery that shed light on what...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Poniros.

This poster presents a new project to explore migration—the geographic movement of people—and diversity—the intersection of different types of people—in imperial Rome. In Bioanthropology, migration is often perceived in oversimplified terms. Researchers seek to determine if an individual or group migrated, and when in their lifetime this occurred. Furthermore, many scholars treat diversity in equally simplified terms. Traditionally, individuals are assigned to an ancestral population of "best...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sian Halcrow. Nancy Tayles. Gail Elliott.

Until relatively recently, fetuses, along with infants and children, were largely overlooked in bioarchaeological research. Over the past 20 years there has been increasing recognition of the importance of research on immature individuals in the archaeological context. However, although fetuses are now sometimes included in analyses of population health and isotopic studies of infant weaning and diet in the past, most research focuses on postnatal individuals. This paper reviews some of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Smith-Guzmán.

Greater Chiriquí, the pre-Columbian cultural sphere encompassing western Panama and southern Costa Rica, has been subjected to intense looting activities since the mid-19th century. Nevertheless, archaeological exploration of the area to date has successfully contextualized the nature and transitions of non-perishable material culture. However, organic remains rarely survive in funerary contexts due to the high acidity of the soil, high humidity, and high precipitation in this region. Human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Valda Black. Danielle Kurin.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An empire expanding into a previously established community can have significant impacts on the identity and culture of the conquered, depending on the negotiations set into place between the invaders and native communities. A prominent example of these negotiations of imperial control occurred in the prehistoric highlands when the Inca rose to power...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Patterson.

Analysis of human skeletal remains has made significant contributions to the understanding of the history of La Corona and its interaction with the wider Maya world. The skeletal sample has now grown to include nearly thirty individuals, and includes single and multiples burials, non-burial deposits, and individuals from the site center and outlying sites. The study, one of the most comprehensive in northwest Peten, has focused on establishing demographic information and examining osteological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gwen Robbins Schug. Nicola Carrara. Cinzia Scaggion.

This is an abstract from the "The Future of Bioarchaeology in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The invention of the Ospedale (hospital) in fourteenth-century Italy marked a turning point in human relations. The othering process of medicalization began as an attempt to provide respite for incurable strangeness, delirium, or transgressive and foolish behavior, particularly for those without family to care for them. The disordered mind...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Black.

In the spring of 2013, the office of the Georgia State Archaeologist was contacted by personnel from Fort McAllister State Park in Richmond Hill, GA, concerning what appeared to be an historic coffin eroding out of the marsh edge. Emergency salvage excavation was conducted to recover the remaining portions of the coffin. Initial field analysis indicated a sharp shouldered, hexagonal style coffin. Neither the lid nor any mortuary hardware was recovered. The coffin’s location is within the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chin-hsin Liu. Emily Darlington. Michael Mathiowetz.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past three millennia, West Mexico’s complex cultural developments and social transformations have characterized it as a unique entity pivotal in the histories of population admixture and cultural transmission, producing long-lasting effects still evident in Mesoamerica. During the Early to Middle Postclassic periods (850/900–1350s CE), polities in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Baustian.

A comprehensive bioarchaeological assessment of Mimbres health, activity, and interpersonal violence was completed using data from a sample of 248 human burials from 17 Late Pithouse (AD 550-1000) and Pueblo (AD 1000-1300) sites in the Mimbres region. The findings presented here demonstrate broader patterns for interpretation of community experiences that have not been as well described in previous case studies from individual site samples. This larger sample of all available adult burials...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Toussaint. Debra Martin.

Tell Abraq is an archaeological site from the Arabian Bronze Age, located near the Persian Gulf Coast of the modern-day country of the United Arab Emirates. A sealed, two-chamber mud-brick tomb on site, in use from approximately 2200 – 2000 BC, yielded a 1.4-meter-thick matrix of commingled human remains, soil, and artifacts, representing a MNI of 403 individuals, of which nearly three quarters are adults. Although the remains are fragmentary, they still offer rich insights into the biocultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arthur Joyce. Arion Mayes. Bethany Weisberg. Chris Morgan.

This paper discusses preliminary bioarchaeological findings from the Late Formative cemetery at Cerro de la Cruz in the lower Río Verde Valley on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca. The Cerro de la Cruz cemetery has figured prominently in a long-running debate over the hypothesized conquest of the region by Monte Albán. We discuss the results of detailed bioarchaeological analyses of four individuals from the cemetery in the context of an ongoing regional study. Although taphonomic processes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brittany Jackson. Jacob Bongers. Susanna Seidensticker. Terrah Jones. Gail Kennedy.

This paper considers evidence for population health and lifestyle in the Chincha polity during the Late Intermediate Period (LIP) (c. 1000-1400 AD) and Late Horizon (LH) (c. 1400-1532 AD). Beginning with the Chroniclers, scholars have described the Chincha as a large complex society with population organized into distinct economic sectors (e.g., coastal fishermen, merchant core, and inland agriculturalists). Previous archaeological studies have demonstrated evidence for fishermen and artisans in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Diana Simpson. Keith Jacobi.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although many prehistoric shell burial mound sites within the Pickwick Basin of the Tennessee River Valley of Alabama have been the subject of extensive archaeological and osteological analyses, The Little Bear Creek Site (1CT8) was excluded from such modern study until recently. However, the most recent skeletal inventory of the site revealed high levels of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffany Hansen. Steve Hackenberger.

Bioarchaeological studies have grown in sophistication and are now helping test assumptions about island garden agriculture (palm, cassava and/or maize) and the relative contributions of marine proteins. Bone and teeth samples from five sites on Barbados were processed by Center for Applied Isotopic Studies, University of Georgia and data are reported for δ13Cco, δ13Cca, δ15Nco, and δ18Oap. Stable isotope ratios, adjusted ratios, and apatite-collagen spacing correspond with results from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Berger.

This paper will explore the links between bioarchaeology and human ecology, and how they can contribute to studies of ancient Chinese subsistence. Both fields deal with similar types of data, including measures of nutritional status, fertility, disease burden, food production, and human-environment interaction. However, the two fields differ widely in both the time scale and the resolution of their data. Can models from human ecology inform bioarchaeological research? Can the long time scale...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Xiaofan Sun. Sen You. Jinping Wang. Quanchao Zhang. Qian Wang.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Therapeutic craniotomy is a kind of artificial trepanation used for treating head injuries. In this study, a skull with signs of trauma and trepanation from a young adult female who lived 3,000 years ago was assessed in the context of medical care systems and a policy of benevolence during the time. A blunt force assault on the left temporal bone induced a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren Reinman. Katie Zejdlik. Nyárádi Zsolt. Andre Gonciar.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Unusual treatments of the dead frequently merit extensive archaeological attention as they provide windows on a society’s concepts of personhood, use and manipulation of symbolic representations, and cosmology. In this work, we examine the use of millstones placed atop funerary contexts at the Papdomb site located in Văleni, Romania (A.D. 1100-1800). The site...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heidi Miller. Christopher DeCorse.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This project utilizes a biocultural approach to assess the demographics and health of the West African population from Elmina, Ghana. Elmina, selected by the Portuguese in 1482 as the site of the first European trade fort in sub-Saharan Africa, grew from a small coastal fishing village to a large settlement over the course of more than 400 years. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cecil Lewis. Christina Warinner.

Anthropological population geneticists often attempt to explain the pattern and distribution of human genetic variation globally. Central to this pursuit is understanding the degree to which cultural, biological, and geographic variation impact migration of people, and the genetic traits (alleles) they bear. Gene flow, the transfer of alleles from one population to another, flows in the path of least resistance. All other things being equal, this means that topology creates resistance, and we...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Watson. Ivan Munoz. Bernardo Arriaza.

Indigenous groups have inhabited and exploited the coastal valleys of the Atacama Desert since Paleoindian times. Contact with the altiplano began early on but marine-based diets were eventually supplemented by agricultural adaptations as influence turned to population movement over time. We propose that the oral complex was likely subject to some degree of selection early in the sequence in response to dietary demands, but would have been relaxed as diet diversified and softened. This trend...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Sutter. Gabriel Prieto.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Here we report dentally derived biodistance results for 120 Chimú-era (AD 1000–1450) children from three of six temporally discrete sacrificial events—specifically events 1, 4, and 5, at Pampa la Cruz (PLC), Huanchaco, Perú, which we compare with a late Chimú-Inka affiliated skeletal sample (n = 44) from the nearby cemetery at Iglesia Colonial, Huanchaco,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mercedes Okumura. Thomas Kohatsu.

This is an abstract from the "“The South Also Exists”: The Current State of Prehistoric Archaeology in Brazil: Dialogues across Different Theoretical Approaches and Research Agendas" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Biodistance studies (craniometrics and aDNA) have been very useful tools to unravel the biological diversity of human populations in the past. In this abstract, we present biodistance analyses based on cranial measurements in order to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tommy Budd.

Ongoing archaeological investigations at the Shang capital of Yin Xu in modern Anyang have contributed much to the understanding of the Shang Dynasty (~1600-1046 BCE) and Bronze Age China. Bioarchaeological investigations of the thousands of sacrificed individuals recovered from the royal cemetery at Yin Xu has historically been somewhat limited, but is becoming an important component of current research at the site. Earlier work focused mainly on collection of craniometric data and the typology...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gustavo Neme. Adolfo Gil. Laura Salgan. Miguel Giardina. Clara Otaola.

This is an abstract from the "Patagonian Evolutionary Archaeology and Human Paleoecology: Commending the Legacy (Still in the Making) of Luis Alberto Borrero in the Interpretation of Hunter-Gatherer Studies of the Southern Cone" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Northwest Patagonia late Holocene human occupation was almost a "barrier" against farmer dispersion, at least during the last 1500 years BP. The causes for this remain unclear and are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Omar Reyes. César Méndez.

This is an abstract from the "Patagonian Evolutionary Archaeology and Human Paleoecology: Commending the Legacy (Still in the Making) of Luis Alberto Borrero in the Interpretation of Hunter-Gatherer Studies of the Southern Cone" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The last decade of archaeological research in the coast of northwestern Patagonia, specifically in the Chonos Archipelago (43°-46° S), has been profoundly influenced by theoretical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Miikka Tallavaara. Joseph Burger. Trevor Fristoe. Miska Luoto.

This is an abstract from the "Three Sides of a Career: Papers in Honor of Robert L. Kelly" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For long, anthropologists have recognized latitudinal pattern in hunter-gatherer diet, where plant use increases toward tropics. However, causes of the dietary variability remain unclear reflecting the fact that ecology in general lacks robust theory for predicting geographical variation in the balance of plant and animal foods...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Knox.

Most research on the Middle Paleolithic in southern Italy has focused on the region of Apulia. This research has been extensive and productive, and so it stands to reason that other less researched regions of southern Italy hold similar potential. This paper uses predictive niche modeling to identify Neandertal niche from site location and environmental variables in Apulia, and applies the modeled niche to under researched regions to predict locations of new Middle Paleolithic sites. The model...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martti Veldi.

Since the 1990s, landscape biography as a research method has diversified. The biographical approach expects a thorough study of a certain region in various fields of landscape research, which span far beyond just geography or archaeology. In contemporary approaches to landscape, the limits of the concept of landscape biography are being explored, but also tested. What exactly is a landscape biography? What does it constitute? Is landscape biography just a narration of a specific defined place...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian Armit.

The papers in this session explore the extended biographies of prehistoric enclosures, bringing together researchers from several geographical areas and periods. Although archaeologists have been drawn by the often monumental qualities of prehistoric enclosures, the act of enclosure was frequently just one episode in long-lived and/or recurrent patterns of human activity at significant places in the landscape. The European focus on the concept of the ‘hillfort’, for example, has tended to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lenore Thompson. R.C.P. Doonan.

This paper explores indigenous use of copper metal on the Northwest Coast of North America, and the impact of colonial contact on established cultural practices. Prior to contact (late 17th to early 19th century), native copper was collected, traded, and manipulated by indigenous communities that considered the material animate and powerful. Following the introduction of foreign trade materials, copper continued to be used to create culturally significant artifacts, however, strict frameworks of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Szumilewicz. Izumi Shimada. Carlos Elera Alvarado. César Samillán Torres.

Simple cotton cloths primed as canvases and painted with complex imagery are the rarest group of fiber arts found in the Andes. Long-term excavations of Middle Sicán (900-1100 CE) elite cemeteries at the site of Sicán on the North Coast of Peru, however, have shown that high quantities of these paintings, often in polychrome and over 10m in length, decorated the interior surfaces of elite tombs. In this paper we present evidence for their manufacture and use, as well as approaches to preserving...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ronald Lippi.

This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Yumbos, Barbacoan peoples of the western flank of the Andes in northern Ecuador’s Pichincha province, have been the principal object of my studies for the past four decades. I draw upon archaeological research by myself and my team (especially including Alejandra...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Moore.

This is an abstract from the "Breaking the Mold: A Consideration of the Impacts and Legacies of Richard W. Redding" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The domestication of llamas and alpacas in South America resulted in compelling similarities to sheep and goat pastoralism in Western Asia, but the underlying biology of the wild ancestors of camelids provided distinct challenges to human control and selection. The pastoral economies of South America...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Corey Ragsdale. Corey S Ragsdale. Heather JH Edgar.

The people of the Huasteca region have a shared language history with the Maya region. This connection has long been of interest to Mesoamerican archaeologists and linguists. They also traded with other populations along the Gulf Coast, such as those in Veracruz. To date, biological evidence for these connections remains limited. We compared Huastec (n= 62), Veracruz (n= 47), highland (n= 29) and lowland Maya (n= 63) groups to evaluate the effects of shared language and economic exchange on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elissa Bullion.

This paper examines the expression of community during the Qarakhanid period (9th- 12th century CE) through a study of patterns of phenotypic diversity at medieval sites across Uzbekistan. The Qarakhanid dynasty is argued to be an integral period in the shaping of population, linguistic, and religious frameworks that shaped the social and ethnic landscapes of Central Asia up through the modern day. Historical sources suggest that the Qarakhanid rise to power instigated an in-migration of Turkic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Prendergast. Michael Buckley. Heidi Eager. Alison Crowther. Nicole Boivin.

The Swahili coast, stretching from Somalia to Mozambique, has a long history of engagement in western Indian Ocean trade, from at least the first century CE according to documentary evidence. One result is the widespread use of animals of Asian origin – particularly zebu cattle (Bos indicus) and chicken (Gallus gallus) – in African subsistence systems today. However, tracing these animals’ arrival and spread is complicated by their osteological similarities to indigenous taxa and by poor...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tommy Budd.

The social significance of large kinship structures such as clans and lineages has been demonstrated throughout Chinese history, and kinship has in part determined social ties and participation in various social activities. Clan emblems appear on artifacts from as early as the Shang Dynasty, and kinship remains an important element of social identities in modern China. In relation to mortuary practices, kinship identities may affect factors such as mortuary assemblages and burial location. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Hannigan. Shintaro Suzuki. Felipe Trabanino. Boris Beltran.

Micro and macroscopic bioarchaeological analyses enable archaeologists to generate biological profiles of past individuals, including characteristics such as diet, sex, age, occupational stress, pathologies, and social status, among others. In this paper, we discuss the significance of a Maya individual by constructing a biological profile from both micro and macroscopic analyses. The individual of interest was excavated during the 2012 field season at Xultún, Guatemala in a patio situated in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Sutter. Gabriel Prieto. Jordi Rivera. Celeste Gagnon.

This is an abstract from the "Peering into the Night: Transition, Sociopolitical Organization, and Economic Dynamics after the Dusk of Chavín in the North Central Andes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following the demise of the Early Horizon (800–200 BC) and Chavín influence in the Central Andes, archaeologists—historically—have hypothesized that cultural changes on the north coast of Peru, such as the “White-on-Red” cultural traditions, as well...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Litschi.

Throughout human history, many cultures have told stories about people who turned to stone in death. What is the inspiration for these myths? How do they relate to taphonomic processes that affect deceased organisms? This paper addresses these questions in an Andean context by comparing pre-Hispanic narratives of lithification to post-mortem biological processes. In the Andes, tales of lithification focus on ancestors and local heroes, who, in their petrified state, continue to interact with the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mara Schumacher. Susan M. Mentzer. Cynthianne Debono Spiteri. Mihriban Özbasaran.

Suspected fecal matter from the Aceramic Neolithic site of Aşıklı Höyük was analyzed using biomolecular and micromorphological approaches to study behavioral and environmental processes. Aşıklı Höyük provides the earliest evidence for sedentism and domestication in Central Anatolia. The main goal of this study is to identify the origin of suspected fecal deposits to gain a better understanding of the use of space and waste management strategies in this early Neolithic settlement. Suspected fecal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Thornton. Kitty Emery. John Krigbaum. Camilla Speller.

The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is the only domesticated vertebrate to originate from North America. Accurate reconstructions of turkey husbandry and use are thus critical for understanding the domestication process in the ancient Americas. Isotopic and genetic (aDNA) research has yielded substantial insights into the history of turkey use and domestication in the American Southwest, but such methods have not been widely used in Mesoamerica to date, despite the fact that all modern domestic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Courtney Hofman. Brian M. Kemp. Cecil Lewis. Christina Warinner. Krithivasan Sankaranarayanan.

The field of biomolecular anthropology has been transformed in recent years by new technological and methodological approaches, including DNA, protein and small molecule characterization. At the Laboratories of Molecular Anthropology and Microbiome Research (LMAMR) at the University of Oklahoma, we have successfully expanded these approaches to study past populations, for example through the investigation of: 1) ancient animal use, translocations, and domestication, 2) human dietary adaptations,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sterling Wright. Nihan Kilic. Karissa Hughes. Nawa Sugiyama. Courtney Hofman.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient DNA in Service of Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Classic Period (AD 1-550), thousands of people migrated to the ancient city of Teotihuacan. This population growth forged Teotihuacan into a center for economic, political, and religious activities for the Mesoamerican region. While archaeological evidence has provided a wealth of information about the state, little is known about its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Pargeter. Metin Eren.

Lithic miniaturization, the systematic production and use of small tools from small cores, was a consequential development in Pleistocene lithic technology. Bipolar reduction is an important but often overlooked and misidentified strategy for lithic miniaturization. This experiment addresses the role of axial bipolar reduction in processes of lithic miniaturization. The experiments answer two questions: what benefits does axial bipolar reduction provide, and can we distinguish axial bipolar...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeanne Binning.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past 20 years, the recognition and implications of bipolar reduction debitage in the archaeological record have finally been accepted as an important consideration in lithic analysis. Although, this was far from a straight path. In some prehistoric contexts, it is critical that bipolar debitage be recognized to prevent a misinterpretation of aspects...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julia Brenan.

Archaeology has the ability to bring people together and assist communities in creating their own historical narrative so it can be passed on and acknowledged, corrected and recorded, within and outside of their community. My work in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador on an archaeological site that only ended occupation in the late 1960s facilitates the formalization of the historical narrative of the former Birch Island community through archaeology, historical research and personal interviews....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandon McIntosh.

The archaeofauna of Isla Cilvituk, a Postclassic (A.D. 900-1520) Maya site in the state of Campeche, Mexico, offers a unique opportunity to understand differential subsistence and economic strategies across the Postclassic Yucatan. With significant ecological diversity found throughout the peninsula, the production of empirical data from the zooarchaeological record can provide a contextual framework through which the evolution of prehistoric human behavioral ecology may be interpreted in terms...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katelyn Bishop.

As one of the only classes in the animal kingdom capable of flight, birds are privy to a realm of movement that humans can only partially control. Birds possess specific traits and engage in a variety of behaviors that directly affect the mechanics of capture and use, such as gregariousness and flock size, preferences in nesting and feeding locations, wing strength and readiness to flush, and aggressiveness and territoriality. Human-bird relationships also move beyond the semantics of capture to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelley Esh. Allison Campo. Kimberly Maeyama. Anthony Hewitt.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) is responsible for the recovery and identification of missing US servicemembers from past conflicts, including the Vietnam War. This case study involves over 25 years of investigation efforts that led to the recovery of an O-1 Bird Dog pilot shot down over Laos in 1967. The long investigative history for this case...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katelyn Bishop.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Birds have remained one of the most symbolically valued animals in human cultures, from prehistoric past to ethnographic present, and across the globe. Especially in the North American Southwest, whole birds and their parts have been an integral part of Pueblo ceremonial life for centuries. Their ritual and symbolic value has been demonstrated both...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Catherine West.

Gulf of Alaska islands provide habitat for substantial populations of both seabirds and migratory waterfowl, which have been under threat from mammal introductions and landscape degradation for more than 200 years. Bird management drives decisions in this island region and focuses on the eradication of invasive species and restoration of island landscapes to their "natural" state. However, given that people and climate have influenced these landscapes for thousands of years, we ask: how do we...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lia Kitteringham. Caroline Graham. Abhishek Sathiakumar. Edward Henry.

This is an abstract from the "Advances in Geoarchaeology and Environmental Archaeology Perspectives on Earthen-Built Constructions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pinson Mounds is a large Middle Woodland monument complex centrally located between two other mound centers in west Tennessee. Despite intermittent archaeological research, the Eastern Precinct of Pinson Mounds has remained understudied compared to earthen monuments situated throughout...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marne Ausec. Patricia Urban. Jacob Griffith-Rosenberg. Reagan Neviska. Chelsea Katzeman.

Ongoing design description and analysis have revealed commonalities in the decoration of diverse ceramic artifact classes. Here we outline the specifics of these design features, focusing on depictions of monkeys and birds, geometric designs such as crosshatching and dots, and how these are used individually and in combinations. The use of similar designs on diverse pottery artifact classes suggests a commonality of accepted design elements, although there are differences between classes in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jack Treichler.

This is an abstract from the "Historical Archaeologies of the American Southwest, 1800 to Today" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following the invention of the airplane in 1903, the early 20th century saw the rapid development of aviation technology, both for commercial and recreational purposes. As early pilots struggled to effectively navigate during an era characterized by unruly aircraft and sparse ground support, concrete arrows, beacons, and...