Society for American Archaeology

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ronald Faulseit. Gary Feinman. Linda Nicholas.

Over four decades ago, economic anthropologists recognized the importance of marketplace exchanges in the contemporary Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, but the historic roots of this region’s exchange system were less clear. Was the Oaxaca market system a product of recent capitalism, Spanish Conquest, Aztec imperialism, or were underpinnings even deeper in the past? Here, we examine INAA studies of ceramic assemblages from two Classic-period (ca. AD 200-850) sites in the Tlacolula arm of the Valley of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only M. Elizabeth Grávalos. David Chicoine.

This is an abstract from the "Twenty Years of Archaeological Science at the Field Museum’s Elemental Analysis Facility" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Here we present the preliminary results of geochemical and petrographic analysis of ceramics from the site of Cerro San Isidro, located in the Nepeña Valley of Ancash, Peru. Cerro San Isidro was the principal urban settlement within the Moro Pocket of the Nepeña Valley throughout its history, which...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Destiny Crider.

This is an abstract from the "Interactions during the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic (AD 650–1100) in the Central Highlands: New Insights from Material and Visual Culture" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The interplay of compositional, stylistic, and technological variation of pottery from the Basin provides the framework to assess shifting patterns of regional interaction. The Epiclassic is characterized by Coyotlatelco pottery, although this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yukiko Tonoike. Andrea Torvinen.

Founded in June 2017, the mission of the Ceramic Petrographers in the Americas (CPA) group is the promotion, discussion, and development of ceramic petrography in archaeology. Of principal interest is providing resources for those interested in employing ceramic petrography for their research and those who would like to pursue this method as a specialty. The group consists of archaeologists residing in the Americas who use optical petrography and other characterization techniques to infer the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Ringberg.

Understanding the spatial distribution of pottery styles in combination with pottery composition and raw materials availability can help illuminate networks of interaction among groups at a regional scale. My research focuses on distinct pottery styles of the middle and upper Moche valley that had wide distribution during the Gallinazo and Early Moche phases. The pottery assemblage from three large, high status households at Cerro León (AD 60 to 350, 2 sigma cal.) in the middle Moche valley...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann Cordell. Neill Wallis. Thomas Pluckhahn.

Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery found throughout much of the lower Southeastern U.S. is arguably the premier material for the systematic study of Woodland interactions. The unique impressions of individual carved wooden paddles are often found on pottery at multiple sites, lending an unparalleled level of detail and spatial resolution to social connections. Furthermore, the distribution of vessels potentially reflects a broad range of interactive practices among a large proportion of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Ownby.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Science Outside the Ivory Tower: Perspectives from CRM" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic petrography is best known as a highly specialized skill employed by certain ceramic researchers within academic institutions. The results of this method are utilized to understand the broader culture that produced the pottery studied. However, both the technique and the holistic interpretation of the data are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann Cordell. Neill Wallis. Thomas Pluckhahn.

Swift Creek Complicated Stamped pottery from the lower Southeastern U.S. is a premier material for the systematic study of Woodland period social interactions. Petrographic analysis of Swift Creek pottery was undertaken as part of a research program that integrated materials analyses of pottery, including Neutron Activation Analysis, digital imaging of paddle stamp designs, technological analysis, and absolute dating, to identify patterns of social interaction. Over 200 samples have been thin...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Killick. Edwin Wilmsen.

It may seem counterintuitive that colonists travelling substantial distances on foot into new territory should have carried ceramic vessels with them, but in some cases the evidence from ceramic petrography shows that they did. This case study examines the movements of the first pottery-using migrants into northern Botswana between the first and the fourth centuries CE. Southern Africa was the terminus of the long expansion of Bantu languages from their region of origin in present eastern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Krystal Britt.

As is true today, migration throughout the past had a phenomenal impact on communities through the renegotiation of cultural practices, community and social identity. Using LA-ICP-MS I investigate community formation through shared ceramic production practices in Northern Arizona during the Pueblo III period (1125-1275 C.E.). This paper introduces the preliminary results of ceramic compositional analysis from contemporaneous sites in the middle Little Colorado River valley. During short-term...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Markens. Cira Martínez López. Marcus Winter.

This paper explores the organization of ceramic production and distribution in the Valley of Oaxaca during the Late Classic period (650-850 CE) by considering the evidence for pottery manufacture as well as the results of neutron activation analysis of pottery samples at three valley sites: Monte Albán in the central part of the valley, El Trapiche in the Etla arm and Lambityeco in the Tlacolula arm. More specifically, we examine evidence bearing on the intensity and scale of pottery production...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Allison.

At the 1988 SAA annual meeting in Phoenix, Margaret Lyneis presented a paper with the title Ceramic Production and Exchange among the Virgin Anasazi. In that paper she presented convincing evidence that, despite its abundance in the Moapa Valley of southeastern Nevada, Moapa Gray Ware was produced 70-100 km to the east, near the north rim of the western Grand Canyon. She also defined a new type of pottery, which she was calling Shivwits Brown at the time (later Shivwits Plain). Shivwits Brown...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Womack.

This is an abstract from the "Scaling Potting Networks: Recent Contributions from Ceramic Petrography " session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last 10 years, excavations at the early Bronze Age site of Shimao (2300–1800 BC), in northern Shaanxi Province, have transformed our understanding of the archaeology of early China. What was previously seen as an area that was peripheral to the development of early dynastic centers is now being heralded by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dawn Crawford. Michael Callaghan. Daniel Pierce. William Gilstrap. Brigitte Kovacevich.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The use of provenance studies to answer anthropological questions related to the production and access of ceramics is well documented for the Maya region. Mineralogical and chemical compositional analyses are often used to identify the material origins, or provenance, of ceramics. In this paper, the authors report on Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Isabelle Druc. Roberto Pimentel Nita. Maciej Kalaska. Rafal Siuda. Marcin Syczewski.

The paste analysis of the ceramics found in the Castillo de Huarmey, a Middle Horizon Wari political center on the north coast of Peru brought forth the existence of a variety of production areas and a panorama of multiple producers with different agendas or practices. Much of the ceramics appear to have been made with material available in the Huarmey lower valley, coastal area, and probably the adjacent Culebras Valley. The fine painted Wari ceramics and fine reduced impressed wares present a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Destiny Crider. Samuel Nelson. Ian Gonzales.

This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Epiclassic Central Mexico (ca. AD 550–850) is characterized by competing city-states in which ceramic distribution aligns with a series of neighboring solar market economies. INAA compositional study provides key evidence for assessing multiscalar patterns of production of diagnostic and decorated ceramic wares in the Basin of Mexico and Tula...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Pierce.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Early/middle postclassic period, the Aztatlán tradition grew to be the most influential culture in Western Mexico, creating expansive trade networks that extended far beyond the region. Though these trade networks are one of the most well-known aspects of the Aztatlán tradition, few studies have utilized archaeometric methods to assess trade and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Wackett. Sofia Chacaltana Cortez.

Recent scholarship demonstrates a growth in archaeological analysis of Spanish colonial reducciónes (which is the resettlement of several small villages into one larger Spanish controlled town) in Andean South America. Critical to understanding the impact of reducciones on indigenous populations is examining the ways in which the production and circulation of craft goods was reworked with Spanish conquest. In characterizing the elemental composition of archaeological pottery, Laser Ablation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Russell Skowronek. Ronald Bishop.

In the late eighteenth century Spain occupied the San Francisco Bay Area and rapidly transformed the region through the introduction of agriculture, animal husbandry, Roman Catholicism, the Spanish language and the use of pottery. This presentation focuses on the latter, and considers the questions surrounding local manufacture, importation, and exchange of ceramics among the missions, presidio and pueblos of the San Francisco Presidio Jurisdiction. Through the application of instrumental...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Connie Constan.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research examines the relationship between social violence and ceramic resource procurement. Do people in middle-range societies alter resource use in response to conflict? Specifically, does social strife influence the distance to which potters in middle-range societies will travel to collect ceramic resources? Distance and quality are primary elements...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha Linford.

Tracing complicated social links such as kinship through the material record has fallen in and out of favor in anthropological discourse. The ceramic sociologists of the 1960s and 1970s (Hill 1966; Longacre 1970) focused on tracking kinship through spatial patterning of ceramic designs among Pueblo sites in the American Southwest. The concept of ceramic sociology sparked many critiques within archaeology (Allen and Richardson 1971). These critiques were tied to a need for better understanding of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sneh Patel.

Rita Wright’s pioneering work on the ceramic stylistic and technological traditions of the Indo-Iranian borderlands highlighted the potential of new theoretical approaches to our understanding of cultural boundaries within South Asia. This work highlighted the complex nature of technology and style boundaries within specific contexts of cultural interaction. This paper takes inspiration from Dr. Wright’s work and applies this framework to another frontier of the Indus: the northwestern state of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Boudreaux.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize, Part I" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is now well recognized that Late Classic Maya communities were highly variable politically, economically, and environmentally. Researchers often assume that community and household variation are corollary with the broader political climate— and this remains under problematized. Thus, research that explores differences in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gregory Braun.

The patterned deposition of certain objects, often in association with materials or structures that are seen to have symbolic associations, is an act of memorialization seen in many Neolithic and broadly shamanic societies throughout the world. This paper uses petrographic and contextual data to explore how objects manufactured with certain material qualities may have served as symbolic referents to memories related to Ontario Iroquoian ritual and social practices, both at the object level, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Camilla Sturm. Liam Hayes. Anna Campbell.

This is an abstract from the "Ceramics and Archaeological Sciences" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The past several decades have seen a shift in the focus of ceramic studies in Neolithic China from ceramic products toward ceramic production, as scholars have pushed beyond typological analyses to investigate the people who made, handled, and used these wares. Despite this turn toward process, comparatively little attention is given to the many...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Ownby. Fiona Kidd.

This is an abstract from the "Step by Step: Tracing World Potting Traditions through Ceramic Petrography" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ceramic corpus at Bashtepe, Uzbekistan, is a complex mix of pottery forms, fabrics, and technology. Some vessels are hand-made, while others are wheel-made. Transport vessels, cooking pots, and fine ware are all present. To better understand the acquisition and local production of this corpus, a preliminary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Natalia Lozada Mendieta.

The Átures Rapids in the Middle Orinoco region are mentioned in the historical sources as a key trading center linking the Western Llanos of the Orinoco and the Guyana, where people, goods and ideas were exchanged. A recent study in Picure Island, located in the rapids, present a variety of ceramic temper wares, beads and quartz crystals associated in stratigraphically excavated contexts. The ceramic sherds recovered in Picure are closely related to other archaeological sites in the Middle...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolina Corrales. James Allison.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Alkali Ridge Site 13 is a large ancestral Pueblo village in southeastern Utah dating to the late A.D. 700s. Ceramics from the site consist almost entirely of small gray ware jars and decorated red ware vessels in a variety of forms. Extensive excavations by Harvard at the site in the 1930s recovered more than 100 whole or reconstructible vessels, which...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Hensler.

Spanish colonization of the South Atlantic coast in the 16th and 17th centuries had wide reaching effects on the greater Southeast. The Big Bend region of the Ocmulgee River Valley lies about 160 km from the coastal mission effort. However, Native Americans in the area were in contact with Coastal Native groups both prior to and after European contact, making the area a good case study to better understand how changes in the social structure of Native groups on the coast affected the interior...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Munson. Lorena Paiz Aragón.

Located at the headwaters of the Usumacinta and the confluence of the Salinas and Pasión Rivers, Altar de Sacrificios is uniquely positioned with strategic access to points far beyond its sandy shores. Despite the geopolitical importance of this site, Altar has not featured prominently in recent narratives about the political history of Classic Maya society. After more than fifty years, a new phase of archaeological investigations seeks to bring Altar out of the shadows and reevaluate this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kaylee Gaumnitz. Gabriela Gutierrez.

This is an abstract from the "Exploring Globalization and Colonialism through Archaeology and Bioarchaeology: An NSF REU Sponsored Site on the Caribbean’s Golden Rock (Sint Eustatius)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Exploring Globalization and Colonization Through Archaeology and Bioarchaeology National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) provided ten undergraduates the opportunity to conduct research on the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carol Rodríguez.

This research focuses on the analysis of one of the most common and representative types of bowls identified at the archaeological site of Cerro de Oro (Cañete Valley, Perú). According to prior morphological and stylistic analysis, we have determined that this type of bowl was the preferred support for the display of geometric and figurative iconographic representations recording its variations throughout time. Taking this apparent preference into account, this talk intends to analyze the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fumie Iizuka. Pamela Vandiver. Kazuki Morisaki. Masami Izuho. Mark Aldenderfer.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although conventional thinking has associated the advent of pottery with farming, sedentism, and groundstones, more recent research suggests that emergence contexts vary. Case studies on intra-regional variability are required to better understand the timing and behavioral context of the adoption of pottery. In this study, we provide the case of the first...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Hernandez. Dan Healan.

Sourcing studies conducted over the past 45 years have identified obsidian from the outcrops around Ucareo and Zinapécuaro, Michoacán in archaeological sites located across Mesoamerica including San Lorenzo, Xochicalco, Tula, Chichén Itzá, and Tzintzuntzan. Archaeological investigations including survey and excavation conducted by Tulane University during the 1990s have provided the first detailed information on prehispanic settlement and obsidian exploitation within what is now called the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Breault.

Feasting is a well-documented phenomenon in Mesoamerica as a means of community integration and interaction. Ceramic analysis of Op. B, Pozo 20, Feature 1 from the site of Etlatongo may point to one such feasting event at the site. This Yucuita phase (500-300 BC) feature was a primary refuse deposit of ceramic, lithic, and faunal artifacts intermixed with extremely ashy sediment, probably from a specific event. An overview of the stratigraphy of the feature and an inventory of the assemblage...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lua Salomon Velasco.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An association between the intricacies of sociopolitical complexity and the diversity in pottery production has been discerned within pre-Columbian societies. To illuminate the facets of the Manteño sociopolitical framework, this study undertakes a comparative analysis of pottery assemblages across Manteño Julcuy, Cabo Pasado, Nuevo Manta, Puerto Cabuyal,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Antonia Foias. Jeanette Castellanos. Kitty Emery.

Motul de San Jose entered its Golden Age during the Late Classic. It was located at a critical crossroads in the Central Peten Lakes region, sitting between the east-west San Pedro Martir River that connected it to the Western Peten kingdoms all the way to Yaxchilan, and a north-south route that tied it with Tikal in the north and Dos Pilas and the other Petexbatun centers in the south. The political alliances between Motul and these kingdoms were materialized through the gifting of Ik’ Style...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Byron Estes. Claire S. Barker. Vincent M. La Motta.

RAR-2 is a small Pueblo III period site located on private land outside of Winslow, Arizona. Excavations in 2011-12 by the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Arizona Field School at Rock Art Ranch have revealed the production of local utility ware, Rock Art Ranch utility ware, in addition to a variety of imported, non-local utility wares, including Tusayan Gray ware, Mogollon Brown ware, and Puerco Valley utility ware. This study analyses the technological style of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karla Cardona. Michael Callaghan.

This is an abstract from the "Holtun: Investigations at a Preclassic Maya Center" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we present data from 13 years of pottery research at the Maya site of Holtun, Guatemala. Using results from type: variety classification, attribute studies of paste and form, and chemical composition analysis we outline the sequence at Holtun and relate it to important events in the history of the site and region....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ellen Moriarty. Ron Bishop. Matthew Moriarty. Antonia Foias.

Over the past 15 years, Late Classic ceramics from Motul de San José and surrounding sites in the Central Petén Lakes area have been subjected to a variety of technical analyses. Modal and petrographic analyses of ceramics from sites throughout the Motul area have been used to explore intra-polity patterns of production and exchange for both elite and mundane vessels. At the same time, Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) has been conducted on sherds from Motul to define production...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lorena Garcia. Fernando Almeida.

Ceramics buried in dark earths guard different histories from indigenous groups, including the millenary process of occupation interfluvial and riverine areas of Southeastern Amazonia. These histories are often related to the regional settlement of Tupi-Guarani speaking groups, and the relations they established with their Arawak and Carib neighbors. We argue that some ceramic elements can be interpreted as a materialization of short or long time contacts between these groups. The main objective...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emilee Witte. Emily Schach. Donna Nash.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic vessels have been produced and in use for thousands of years. Ceramicists are tasked with the duty of creating unique wares and transmitting production knowledge through formal or informal apprentice relationships. In this poster, we compare the vessel forms and functions from the Middle Horizon sites of Cerro Mejia and Cerro Baul to the Late...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emiliano Gallaga. Manuel R. Parra.

This is an abstract from the "The Big Bend Complex: Landscapes of History" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite the distance and how isolated the Presidio was, it did not cease to belong to the globalized colonial economic sphere. The paper will present the first results of the study of the ceramic materials of the Presidio de San Carlos Archaeological Project (PAPSC). It is a project of historical archeology on the northern border of the state...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eugenia Robinson. Ron Bishop.

This is an abstract from the "Art, Archaeology, and Science: Investigations in the Guatemala Highlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research on the ceramic collections from Q’umarkaj housed at the Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, provides an opportunity to apply Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis to pottery from the site. This research has the potential to delimit areas of ceramic production and trade in the Terminal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Kerchusky.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Early in the Middle Horizon (c. AD 650-1000), the Wari Empire expanded from its Ayacucho homeland and established at least three colonies in the SNR: Pacheco, Pataraya, and Inkawasi in the northern valley of the Southern Nasca Region. Pacheco, located in the Nasca Valley, was a probable Wari administrative/ceremonial center. Additional Wari-affiliated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Whitney Goodwin.

Prehispanic populations of northeastern Honduras were positioned at the border of Mesoamerica and Lower Central America. Previous research on ceramic style suggests local affiliation shifted over time from north to south as part of an adept strategy to navigate the complex political and social landscape of the region through the promotion of an inclusive group identity. This study explores the actual implementation of that strategy by investigating communal feasting contexts where symbolically...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephennie Mulder.

This is an abstract from the "Identity, Interpretation, and Innovation: The Worlds of Islamic Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper will present a major new analytical study of an important Islamic period archaeological ceramics assemblage produced during 12 years of excavation of Balis, a medieval Syrian city. With over 1,000 photographs and drawings produced over my 10 years as head ceramicist on the site, this study will be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Bruhns.

This is an abstract from the "Centralizing Central America: New Evidence, Fresh Perspectives, and Working on New Paradigms" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cihuatan, El Salvador, appears to have been the southeasternmost Maya city. Dating to the Early Postclassic, it shows clearly the internationalizing tendencies of the time period in its ceramics. Although most are local versions of widespread Early Postclassic Mesoamerican types (or actually...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joanne Baron. Liliana Padilla. Christopher Martinez. Arielle Pierson.

The Guatemalan archaeological site of La Florida, located on the San Pedro River near the Mexican border, was home to the Classic Maya polity known as Namaan. Hieroglyphic inscriptions from La Florida and elsewhere reveal the polity’s widespread political contacts with sites in western Peten, Tabasco, and beyond, as well as a dynastic history spanning three centuries. While known to archaeologists since 1943, the site has only recently been the subject of a multi-year research project. In this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Willis. Clifford Brown.

Since 2009, Florida Atlantic University has been carrying out archaeological survey and excavation in the Department of Chinandega, Nicaragua jointly with the Dirección de Patrimonio Cultural. Objectives of this research include establishing an artifact sequence and studying sociocultural processes such as the evolution of social complexity, interregional interaction, and migration. Found in 2009, the site of San Antonio is located between the cities of El Viejo and Chinandega. A single 2x2 m...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hayward Franklin.

This is an abstract from the "Social Interaction and Networks at the Intersection of Central Mesa Verde and Chaco/Cibola Culture Areas in the Middle San Juan River Valley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic analysis of older collections from the Sterling Site on the San Juan River reveal local and imported types from Cibola-Chaco, Chuska Valley, and northern San Juan districts. Pottery suggests active interaction between populations from three...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Donald Forsyth.

Investigations in the Mirador Basin over the last thirty or so years have demonstrated that the region was one of intense occupation over a long period of time, particularly during the period that has come to be known as Preclassic. This period was marked by evidence of changes in the complexity and increasing uniformity in various cultural characteristics such as architecture, sculpture and iconography. In a similar manner the development of the ceramic industry provides evidence of a process...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Flory Pinzón. Takeshi Inomata. Daniela Triadan.

This is an abstract from the "Aguada Fénix and the Middle Usumacinta Region: Interregional Interactions and Social Transformations in the Middle Preclassic Period" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the beginning of the Middle Usumacinta Archaeological Project, researchers have observed that ceramics from several archaeological sites in the region share similarities with those from the site of Ceibal, located in Petén, Guatemala. After...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Cercone. Mark Golitko.

The Bronze Age in Europe is noted for an increase in foreign interaction and trade, yet some areas show few signs of receiving non-local goods. Using chemical analysis of Bronze Age ceramic pastes from the cemetery of Békés 103 and nearby clay sources, this poster seeks to investigate trade networks and exchange between the people of the site and other areas of the Great Hungarian Plain. Using LA-ICP-MS, we examine the extent of trade and the degree to which the community participated in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Cercone. Kristin Donner.

During the Early Bronze Age at Seyitömer Höyük, ceramics began to be standardized in their shape and size through the use of a mould-making process. Evidence from the archaeological record suggests that this innovative technique was incorporated at the site due to the increase in trade and demand for ceramics from other settlements in Anatolia, from nearby Küllüoba to faraway Troy. The early use of a mould-making process established Seyitömer Höyük’s pivotal role as a ceramic hub and trading...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Craig Jensen. Mark Golitko.

This project explores the provenience of ceramics found at the Bronze Age Békés 103 cemetery. By answering the question of where these ceramics came from, it is possible to hypothesize which Bronze Age communities used the cemetery. To do this, clays were collected throughout Eastern Hungary for chemical analysis. Clay is often found along river banks, but many modern rivers may have been polluted. Instead, paleo-meanders of modern rivers were chosen as collection sites; these were identified...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Krista Eschbach. John Worth.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists frequently have used distinct decorative styles, often found on serving vessels, as indicators of social identity and status. For the Spanish American colonies, focus has been placed on tableware, particularly majolica, as a measure of economic status and socio-racial identity, linked to Spanish-European commensality. Growing research throughout...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Knight.

One result of the intensive, 5-m interval surface survey of the Zaragoza-Oyameles obsidian source area in Puebla, Mexico was the recovery of several artifact classes suggestive of prolonged habitation. Ceramic and ground stone artifacts recovered indicate that domestic activities were an important component of the obsidian procurement and production economy. Ceramics tended to concentrate in areas that also contained higher quantities of ground stone, but did not correlate with any one stage of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Gravlin Beman.

In the summer of 2015, we analyzed ceramics recovered from the site of Cosmapa Oriental in the municipality of Chichigalpa, Department of Chinandega, Nicaragua. The research design calls for the investigation of ethnic identity and migratory processes through the identification, description, and sequencing of the ceramics. Ceramics were recovered from one 1 x 2 m pit, eight stratigraphically excavated shovel tests, and various surface collections. The pottery was analyzed using the Type:...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Weimiao Dong. Guanghui Dong.

Qijia period (4400- 3500 cal yr BP) is the key period for the introduction of wheat and barley originated from West Asia into Gansu and Qinghai Province, northwest China. Based on archaeobotanic and radiocarbon data from Caomaidian, Lajia, Jinchankou and Lijiaping Qijia sites, we discuss change of cereal cultivation through that period. Our results suggest only foxtail millet and common millet were cultivated in Caomaidian and Lajia sites dated to 4300-3900 cal yr BP, which account for 97.19% of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Philippa Ryan.

Nubian agricultural practices are rapidly altering due to infrastructure development, as well as technological and environmental changes. We have been interviewing Nubian farmers about crop choices, land-use and irrigation. Farmer interviews have focused on a car- and electricity-free Nile island, Ernetta, where many 'traditional' practices have continued for a comparatively long time. We are also interviewing farmers in other villages throughout the north to understand variability. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Frank Winchell. Chris Stevens. Charlene Murphy. Louis Champion. Dorian Fuller.

This paper will discuss the new findings of domesticated sorghum along with the ceramics associated with the Butana Group at an archaeological site called, KG23. The Butana Group represents a cultural manifestation in the southern Atbai of the far eastern Sahel that dates around 3500-3000 BC, and was contemporary with other groups such as the Late Neolithic groups in the central Nile Valley, the pre-Kerma culture in Upper Nubia, the A-Group in Lower Nubia, and the Egyptian Predynastic cultures...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cristina Castillo.

Rice is the most important crop in Southeast Asia today. The evidence is that rice was equally important in Southeast Asia’s past. From the Neolithic period to the Middle Ages, rice has been discussed as food, a ritual item, a farming system, a culinary tradition, a tradable commodity and the basis of power. However, was it always the staple crop in Southeast Asia? The archaeobotanical studies conducted in Central Thailand by Weber revealed that in some instances and places, millet was more...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Giacomo Gaggio. Paul Goldstein.

The consumption of psychotropic substances is a ceremonial practice widespread worldwide since antiquity, however, archaeological evidence for the role of plants in rituals is scarce and interpretations are mostly derived from ethnographies and iconography. Among other methods of analysis, Paleoethnobotany is one of the most indicated for the finding of micro and macro remains involved in ceremonies. This paper presents the results of a Paleoethnobotanical analysis conducted at the site of Omo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Forsythe.

Intentional breakage of artifacts proliferates throughout the archaeological record in Eastern North America. Using the case of a Middle Archaic site (ca. 5000-4500 B.P.) from Ontario, this paper seeks to examine and compare the strategies for purposely damaging artifacts, with focus placed on gaining insight into motivations for breakage. Through the refitting of artifact fragments it is possible to identify when breakage was intentional and implemented for purposes beyond subsistence...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yuichi Matsumoto. Jason Nesbitt. Yuri Cavero. Edison Mendoza.

The main theme of this paper is to reconsider the relationship between the ritual activities in public architecture and domestic rituals carried out in the area outside of ceremonial core through the recent data of Campanayuq Rumi, a late Initial Period and Early Horizon ceremonial center in the Peruvian south-central highlands. New data from the domestic areas of Campanayuq Rumi suggest that ritual activities had been carried out before the construction of public architecture. While the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margaret Berrier.

This is an abstract from the "The Art and Archaeology of the West: Papers in Honor of Lawrence L. Loendorf" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Jornada Mogollon region is known for its rich body of rock art. Researchers have suggested that elements such as cloud terraces, masks, goggle-eyed figures, and horned serpents are associated with ceremony. Although hundreds of bighorn sheep images exist in the regional rock art these figures are not...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lynn Gamble.

Shellmounds have not been recognized as prominent ritual features in southern California, despite evidence to the contrary. The largest extant shellmound in the region is on Santa Cruz Island, measures 270 by 210 meters (roughly 45,000 m² in area), is 8 m higher than the terrace it rests on, is covered with 50 house depressions, and dates to 6000-2500 BP. In the 1920s, three cemeteries were excavated at the top of El Montón; one young woman stood out among the over 200 individuals in that she...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Belen Mendez Bauer. Takeshi Inomata.

This is an abstract from the "Humble Houses to Magnificent Monuments: Papers in Honor of Jerry D. Moore" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dr. Jerry Moore’s work has been highly influential not only in Andean archaeology but also in the archaeology of Mesoamerica and other parts of the world. Dr. Moore’s pioneering analysis of the lived experience of the built environment has inspired us to examine ceremonial spaces at Maya sites, including plazas...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Smith.

The Lake Titicaca Basin in the Bolivian Andes was a dynamic place that saw the development of early religious centers like Chiripa and Khonkho Wankane, the subsequent emergence and expansion of the Tiwanaku state, and the incursion of the Inca empire. The Desaguadero River is the only river that drains Lake Titicaca, flowing south and connecting the region to the central altiplano and Lake Poopó some 250 kilometers downriver. This paper examines the ceremonial and political importance of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Donelle Huffer.

Zooarchaeological analyses of faunal bone assemblages often focus on the role of animals in human diet and subsistence and as sources of raw materials. Yet animals also fill social and symbolic roles in human societies, and ceremonially and ritually associated archaeofaunal remains have significant interpretive potential. Recognizing the special emphasis accorded to certain animals and their remains and the social factors that shape faunal bone assemblages permits explanation within broader...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremy Decker.

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. In an effort to better understand the impacts of opening recreational hiking trails near significant archaeological sites, the US Army Corps of Engineers, Albuquerque District, has initiated a study to monitor visitor access to the Cerrito Site, an early historic Ancestral Puebloan site at Abiquiu...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian McKee. Fernando Zuleta. Katherine M. Cera. Christopher D. Taylor.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Coroban site, located on a highly-defensible summit in Morazán, El Salvador, was occupied by the Poton Lenca. The Lenca inhabited most of eastern El Salvador and western and central Honduras during the early sixteenth century Spanish Conquest. They spoke two or more languages with multiple dialects and belonged to distinct, albeit related, cultures. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Ballance. Patrick Mullins. Brian Billman.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cerro Cumbray is a Chimu hilltop settlement located near the modern town of Simbal, Peru. During the 2018 field season, the authors used aerial photography via drone to create a site map and conducted a limited pedestrian survey in order to better understand site chronology and context. While Cerro Cumbray lacks indications of large-scale fortification; the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Manuel Duenas-Garcia. Miriam Campos. Nicola Lercari.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the analysis of the role of violence underlying the settlement pattern at Cerro de En medio, Aguascalientes, Mexico, located in the northern frontier of Mesoamerica. Violence is one of the social forces that shape the decision making involved in selecting a place to settle. This paper focuses on understanding the role of defensibility as a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cherra Wyllie.

This is an abstract from the "Sculpture of the Ancient Mexican Gulf Coast, Part 2" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cerro de las Mesas Monument 2 is a colossal portrait head. Its flattened rear surface contains a relief-carved scene with a ruler in a broad-brimmed hat, vanquished captive with a calendric sign above his or her head, and a worn hieroglyphic text placed between them. In its entirety Monument 2 bridges the site’s Olmec heritage with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francesca Fernandini.

The year AD. 600 seems to be an important turning point in the settlement pattern of the lower Cañete valley. While settlements prior to this date tend to be small sized and located close to the river margin, the period after AD 600 shows settlements tend to be placed a few kilometers away from the river margin. The largest of these is Cerro de Oro, a 150ha densely populated settlement located on top of a mound, 13km away from the river margin. The construction and use of Cerro de Oro seems to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Grace Alexandrino Ocaña. Rosa Maria Varillas Palacios.

The following presentation will compare and contrast two funerary bundles found in the Cerro de Oro site (Cañete Valley, Peru). One from an intrusive Wari funerary structure, with more than 250 offerings, including over 100 textiles which present an unusual variety of manufacturing techniques and iconography. The other, from a local earlier Cerro de Oro occupation; though smaller in size and quantity of offerings, is still impressive being the first bundle of this complexity found for this time...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Stiver-Walsh. Veronica Perez Rodriguez. Antonio Martínez Tuñón.

Current work at the Mixtec urban site of Cerro Jazmín stems from a regional survey of the Central Mixteca Alta led by Stephen Kowalewski. As we refine Cerro Jazmin’s chronology and know more about its history of occupation, we are building upon and sometimes correcting initial understandings of the site gained from that regional survey. We are able to contextualize the new information in relation to the entire Nochixtlan Valley and nearby areas thanks to the work and perspective offered by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Veronica Perez Rodriguez.

In this presentation I provide context for the papers that follow in this session devoted to the Cerro Jazmín Archaeological Project (CJAP). In the last eight years CJAP members have investigated the urban societies that developed at this Formative and Postclassic hilltop city in the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca, México. Investigations have so far focused on the layout and regional function of the city, the timing of its abandonment and later reoccupation, the details of domestic life in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only J. Heath Anderson.

In recent years, scholars interested in the processes and events involved in the formation of the Toltec state have turned their interest toward links that might have existed between the area immediately surrounding Tula Grande, the civic-ceremonial center of the Toltec state, and sites in the Bajío region to the northwest. Although several material culture affinities have been proposed to demonstrate possible ethnic and economic ties between these areas, investigators have not arrived at a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Henry Tantaleán. Carito Tavera Medina. Mauricio Gastello. Ines Uribe. José Roman.

This is an abstract from the "Beyond Borders at the End of a Millennium: Life in the Western Andes circa 500–50 BCE" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Desde el año 2020, el Programa Arqueológico Chicama (PRACH) ha realizado prospecciones sistemáticas y excavaciones en el valle de Chicama y área relacionadas. El objetivo principal es explicar la historia de la ocupación humana y los fenómenos sociales vinculados a tales poblaciones. Nuestras...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Donna Nash.

The Wari-affiliated community on Cerro Mejía is divided by large walls that cut the slopes into vertical strips. These segments of the site may represent divisions of the settlement that the occupants recognized, agreed with, and maintained or these groupings may have been imposed by Wari officials. In this paper, I describe the features of Cerro Mejía and consider this important question. In light of overt differences between houses with regards to form and construction techniques I suggest...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Moseley. Susan deFrance. Patrick Ryan Williams. Donna Nash.

This is an abstract from the "The Legacies of Archaeologists in the Andes: Second Symposium, the Institutionalization and Internationalization of Andean Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 1980 the Pritzker family, major shareholders in Southern Peru Copper Corporation (SPCC), contacted Michael Moseley then a Curator at the Field Museum of Natural History inquiring about establishing a research program in the Moquegua region of southern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marieka Brouwer Burg.

A cornerstone of William Lovis’ career has been the investigation of human land use dynamics, with strong emphasis on methodological rigor and statistical analysis. He has led a generation of students to consider these issues in the Great Lakes and beyond. The modeling of past human decision making is useful as a heuristic for exploring goals and motivations, about which there is certainly a tremendous amount of uncertainty. Instead, modeling past behavior is inherently an exercise in balancing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luis Gomez-Gastelum.

En esta ponencia se describe y analiza la cerámica denominada Atoyac inciso, propia de la cuenca de Sayula, ubicada en la región sur del estado mexicano de Jalisco. Se trata de una manifestación propia de la fase epónima de la región, misma que se ubica entre los años 500 y 1100 d. C. La intención es observarla no sólo como un producto cerámico, sino como un fenómeno social de importancia en la época. Así, se discuten sus contextos, con la finalidad de ubicarla como un producto asociado con las...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yamile Lira-Lopez.

El valle de Maltrata, enclavado en la Sierra Madre Oriental, al centro-oeste del estado de Veracruz, ha tenido una remota y continua ocupación humana, que data desde la época prehispánica hasta nuestros días. Este valle es importante por formar parte de una de las principales rutas de comunicación y comercio entre la Costa del Golfo y el Altiplano Central, con evidencias olmecas, zapotecas, teotihuacanas, cholultecas, aztecas. El asentamiento del periodo Posclásico, ocupó principalmente la parte...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Youri Van Den Hurk.

Zooarchaeology aims to reconstruct the relationship between humans and animals based on the bone remains of these animals. However the field is often primarily concerned with (domesticated) terrestrial mammals, frequently neglecting cetaceans. This can be ascribed to the fact that zooarchaeological cetacean remains are often too fragmented for identification and a general lack of extensive cetacean reference collections for comparison, resulting in poor understanding of early human-cetacean...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriel Sanchez.

Indigenous whale hunting on the Pacific Northwest Coast is predominately associated with whaling cultures north of Oregon in northern Washington and British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. Ethnographic and ethno-historical records from the northern Oregon Coast suggests whaling occurred locally, at least opportunistically. To date the only physical evidence of local whaling is a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) phalanx with an embedded elk (Cervus elaphus) bone harpoon point. A calibrated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nancy Peniche May. Lilia Fernandez Souza.

How does a building become architecture of power? How can this power be release or lost? There are many ways in which a building can be imbued with certain attributes that allow expressing and regulating unequal power relations. Along with the form and style of buildings, ritual is perhaps one of the most important means. Through ritual performance, actors imbue the building with the ch'ulel, ensouling and animating it; obliged the ch'ulel to leave the building, killing the animate construction,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Guengerich.

Recent research among Chachapoya societies, who lived in Northeastern Peru between AD900-1500, has drawn attention to the diversity of material culture associated with different sub-regions spanning this large area. In the face of this diversity, one basis that archaeologists have consistently used for grouping these societies together is domestic architecture. Communities across the Chachapoya region built circular houses out of stone, adorning them with functional and decorative features...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Carlson. John Hoopes.

The unique monumental stone sculptural form known as a "Chacmool" —a reclining human with an offeratory bowl on its abdomen— first appeared in the late Epiclassic period in Mesoamerica, most notably at the Toltec site of Tula in Central Mexico and the Maya site of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan. The form is known across Mesoamerica in archaeological contexts from Michoacán, Mexico to Guatamala and El Salvador. It persisted in Central Mexico to the time of the Aztec empire and European Contact, when...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Mills. Alice Wright.

Chaco and Hopewell are two of the most well studied archaeological regions in North America. Although Chaco is often compared to Cahokia, comparison to Hopewell brings out important ways in which extensive regional connectivities were formed through the intersection of religious, political, and economic networks. Both societies show evidence of periodic, eventful monumental construction; spatial connectivity through roads/causeways; long-distance procurement of materials; production and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ruth Van Dyke.

Two dozen monumental buildings lie at the heart of Chaco Canyon, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Southwest United States. However, ancient Chaco Canyon was not a single locality but a focal point for outlier settlements spanning a region of 60,000 square miles. The canyon-outlier relationship is key to understanding the Chacoan polity. Residents of canyon and outlier settlements within a dialectical relationship gathered periodically to share resources, marriage partners, and ritual...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Field.

Ideas of spiritual landscapes and aligned site orientations are gaining traction within the Chacoan archaeological community, and stand as strong examples of intentionally constructed macro-landscapes in the prehispanic Southwest. In this poster, these landscape relationships are extended towards a better understanding of interregional relationships in the four-corners, particularly to investigate inferred and intended relationships between Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. This analysis focuses on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nancy Akins. John Schelberg.

Part of the Chaco legacy includes early excavations that were under or unreported leaving large gaps in our knowledge of a considerable amount of work, especially during the University of New Mexico field school era. UNM constructed a research station with laboratory facilities and dormitories with the goal of training students and conducting long-term research on a concentration of small village sites opposite the great houses of Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl. One of these excavations was at Bc...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Worthy Martin. Carolyn Heitman.

This is an abstract from the "Openness & Sensitivity: Practical Concerns in Taking Archaeological Data Online" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Chaco Research Archive (CRA, chacoarchive.org) has been available since 2004 and the Salmon Pueblo Archaeological Research Collection (SPARC, salmonpueblo.org) launched in May of 2018. These web-based portals, as their names indicate, were both designed primarily with the academic researcher in mind....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michelle I. Turner.

At the Chacoan outlier of Aztec Ruins in northern New Mexico, the unexcavated Aztec North great house is located on top of a river terrace overlooking the broad Animas River valley. Down below, but out of sight from Aztec North, are two other great houses. The builders of these three great houses enmeshed them in a planned cultural landscape that reflects their cosmology and that intentionally reproduces a portion of the landscape at Chaco Canyon. Aztec North differs from its fellow great houses...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jill Onken.

Depopulation of Chacoan outlier settlements in the Cibola culture area near Zuni Salt Lake ~AD 1130 has been attributed to the onset of a persistent 50-year drought. Prior alluvial stratigraphy studies concluded that arroyo formation near these settlements occurred two centuries after this exodus and therefore was not a contributing factor. The present study used a larger sample of radiocarbon dates, including short-lived, charred plant material from alluvial contexts and tree-rings from several...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Schaefer. Kathryn Turney. Aliceia Schubert. Deborah Huntley. Haley Wilkerson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chacoan culture is well known for its examples of communal building projects and monumental architecture. Chacoan roads, apart from great houses, are perhaps the most well-known yet enigmatic examples of such. In the Red Mesa Valley of Western New Mexico, we examine how several newly identified road segments manifest themselves on the landscape as well as...