Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Nelson.

Ethnographic sources indicate that fire and its alternate forms—smoke and ash—are powerfully symbolic substances for many historic period southeastern Indian groups. The remains of fire are frequently deposited in ways that amplify its power, or alternatively, attempt to neutralize it. This paper examines ash deposition at Parchman Place, a late Mississippi period (AD 1300-1541) site located in the northern Yazoo Basin. Here, and elsewhere in the Southeast, Mississippian people incorporated ash...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Roth.

Throughout much of the Southwestern U.S., ash was an important component of ritual deposition and has ethnographically been closely associated with processes of cleansing and renewal. The presence of ash in ritual contexts is well documented, but it also appears to have played an important role in the closing of domestic structures. In this paper, I present cases of ritual closure of domestic structures and examine the role that ash played in these closures using data from pithouse sites in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cheryl Claassen.

Following the analysis of Newt Kash Kentucky shelter and other ash and sandal shrines in the eastern US as menstrual retreats, the author examines a number of caves and shelters around the Great Basin paying particular attention to their ash and sandal content. Both items may constitute fertility petitions left at retreat and medicine shelters such as Cowboy Cave, Hogup Cave, and High Rolls. The ash may represent the burning of fertility offerings, including menstrual pads and diapers.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marvin Kay.

Sediment of varied textures and colors, ash among them, is highlighted from deliberately burnt Harlan-style charnel houses. These were erected in sub-mound pits. In one rendition that followed an earlier house burning, light gray ash alternates in the superior, or upward, position with the black charcoal layer of a collapsed burnt thatch and cane roof. The ash was levelled as a platform. This completed a mortuary cycle linked lineally to subsequent pyramidal mound construction. In other cases...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Judy Berryman. William H. Walker.

Magic and witchcraft, like many classic topics in the anthropology of religion, involve everyday things such as dogs, plant pollen, ashes, and arrow points. As such the archaeological record offers a rich source of ancient religious practices if we can link formation of its deposits to past ritual activities. For example, strata exhibiting ash and projectile points deposited on floors and in the fill of abandoned houses may derive from protective magic. Rather than haphazardly tossed hearth...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Hardy.

This paper explores the use of assemblage theory, derived from the work of theorists such as Deleuze, Guattari, and DeLanda, as a way of overcoming inherent problems in earlier attempts at understanding sociopolitical change. Exploring the implications of this historical materialist approach involves linking processes operating at different scales of time, and tracing historical genealogies of practice and the ways they were assembled to produce political sovereignty. I argue that not only are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Johansen.

Investigation of the material, spatial and temporal distributedness of large-scale, infrastructure projects holds significant potential to lay bare histories of underlying political rationales and practices that challenge overtly utilitarian narratives of public welfare and economic good. This paper investigates the differential experience and perception of a sample of state-initiated or sanctioned infrastructure projects (e.g., Hydro power lines and substations, pipelines, highways and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Tune.

Various methods have been developed to assess the use-life of Paleoindian bifaces by focusing on morphological attributes. Comparative studies have often proven difficult in part because of the diverse nature of Paleoindian biface technologies in North America. While morphological ratios such as length-to-width vary considerably throughout biface use-lives, technological ratios related to fluting and lateral grinding typically remain more constant. In turn, technological variables may be more...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Devio.

Understanding household plant use can provide a wealth of data about subsistence practices, past agricultural systems, and strategies used to mitigate climatic stress. Plant use may also vary between households. By examining this variation, botanical data may yield further information on personal preference and cuisine differences between households. Aside from consumption for subsistence, plants were used for a wide range of activities conducted by individual households. Botanical datasets may...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Augusto Bazan Perez.

The archaeological site of Pampa de las Llamas-Moxeke in the Casma Valley, Peru is an architectural complex comprising two opposing large platform mounds united by a sequence of aligned rectangular platforms and structures. The site was studied mainly in the 20th Century by various investigators; the most recent of whom carried out intensive excavations in the 1980s aiming to produce exact dates and explain the function of the settlement. This previous work suggested that the complex dates to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Neeley. Craig Lee.

Although archaeological analyses of lithic assemblages generate large quantities of data, it can be difficult to equate the observations with past behaviors. One variable state regularly recorded is that of cortex. The presence/absence of cortex is often linked to reduction intensity with variable cortical frequencies linked to early or late stage reduction and potentially reflective of residential mobility. However, we lack reliable markers or values to support our interpretations. Recently,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ani St. Amand. Alice R. Kelley. Daniel H. Sandweiss.

Coastal archaeological and historic sites increasingly face primary impacts of climate change, including sea level rise, flooding, and erosion. As cultural sites are subjected to destructive processes, action is generally limited to mitigation and salvage of immediately threatened significant sites, while their destruction by the resettlement of affected communities has been given little attention. This secondary impact of climate change threatens sites outside of the immediate zone of flooding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Bergmann. Robert H. Tykot.

Peru is commonly known for having the largest empire in pre-Columbian America, but comparatively little is known about the subsistence practices of the pre-Inca communities that existed in the inland valley of Chincha during the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1000-1476). The Chinchas formed a powerful socio-economic entity within the Chincha Kingdom in part of the southern region of Peru nearest to the Pacific Ocean. Our research tests the hypothesis that individuals relied more heavily on a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eugenia Gayo. Calogero Santoro. Claudio Latorre. Virginia Mcrostie. Jose M. Capriles.

Agricultural communities began to spread over much of the Atacama Desert (18°-29°S) at 3.5 ka BP, triggering unprecedented levels of population growth. In inland areas and particularly along desert oases, this phenomenon featured increasing complexity in food-production systems and sedentary lifestyles with population aggregating in architecturally complex villages. Whereas, littoral populations maintained marine foraging and fishing strategies with limited inland food-resources. Both lifestyles...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremy Pye.

Malaria is thought to have been brought to the Americas by early Spanish explorers. By the late 19th century, malaria had spread through human populations throughout tropical and temperate areas of the Americas, including the American Southwest. Historical documents, maps, and modern GIS data layers (e.g., DEM, soils, vegetation, land use, streams) from the area around Tucson, Arizona, were consulted and entered into ArcGIS (v.10) in order to produce a map of potential vector breeding locations...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah MacIntosh. Levent Atici. Sachihiro Omura.

This paper investigates the production of bone artifacts during the Bronze Age (ca. 3000-1200 BCE) at the central Anatolian site of Kaman-Kalehöyük. At this time, small agrarian societies transformed into more complex polities and states, which gave way to a more centralized and specialized market economy. These transformations in sociopolitical and economic organization resulted in other changes as well. For example, animal exploitation patterns began to reflect a more regulated economy to meet...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ashley Rutkoski. Michelle Bebber.

The earliest known occurrence of limestone temper usage in Ohio began sometime during the Middle Woodland Period, and becomes common in Late Woodland cave sites in the southern part of the state. However, little is known about the overall temporal and geographic distribution of this temper type. Toward this end, we analyze pottery throughout the southern Ohio Woodland period by assessing it with hydrochloric acid (HCl) for the presence or absence of limestone. The results of this examination...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lindsay Shepard.

Methodological advances in the study of fingerprints by criminologists have revived an interest in using dermatoglyphic evidence to conduct archaeological research. The analysis of fingerprint impressions left in ceramics is being used to investigate topics such as craft specialization and social organization. While most impressions left in ceramics lack the completeness needed to identify individual potters, fragmentary prints can be used to analyze things such as ridge density. Given a large...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Josie Mills.

Raw material studies are becoming increasingly popular as the development of technical and methodological advances adds to the macroscopic and geological study of stone tools. In turn this improves our capability to create a link between a stone tool’s archaeological context and geological area of origin. This connection is often discussed in terms of hominin behaviour, such as organisation of subsistence, adaptation to environment, and forward planning. However, the growing body of data...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jay Stephens. David Killick.

Evidence for trade between southern Africa and the Muslim world dates back to the 8th century CE. However, it is not until the 12th and 13th centuries, with the discovery of alluvial gold in southern Africa, that entanglement between the two regions intensified. As a result, state-level societies emerged and began incorporating aspects of the Muslim identity into their own culture. With the intensification of these trade relations, craftsmen began expanding their repertoire of iron and copper...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Klingelhofer.

The International Association for Caribbean Archaeology's Endangered Sites Task Force is concerned about the threat to coastal sites by rising sea levels. In March 2017, a small team of Mercer University non-archaeology students participated in a project on ST Croix, USVI, to determine how local populations could best provide measurable information to professional archaeologists and cultural resource managers. The five-day project assessed ten sites assigned by the USVI Territorial...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Lynch.

Much of the early theoretical framework for our understanding of the colonization and occupation of interior Alaska has been established on technological variability in lithic assemblages of the region. This initial research has been limited in scope, focusing on the presence or absence of microblades. Recent research has sought to push beyond the significance of debatably diagnostic tool forms, microblades, in defining cultural complexes and has attempted to more fully address models of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Miller. Laura Clark.

The Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN) launched the citizen science-based Heritage Monitoring Scout (HMS Florida) program statewide during the fall of 2016 in part to assist Florida’s Division of Historical Resources, which currently does not have the budget or policy permissions in place for climate change concerned initiatives. During the first year, 233 volunteers signed up and submitted over 312 monitoring forms from across the state. This paper will provide affordances and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jon Carroll.

Sennacherib’s destruction of Tel Lachish, Judah (now Israel) in 701 BC was accomplished using state-of-the-art technologies and tactics. We know through the Lachish reliefs once located at Nineveh and now housed at the British Museum, that the Assyrians used a siege ramp to conquer the city. Unfortunately, the ramp was partially destroyed by archaeologists in the 1930’s and comparatively little is known about its original dimensions and use in the siege. Computational technologies including...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Suzanne Eckert. Deborah Huntley.

The Goat Spring Archaeology Project explores late Pueblo period (A.D. 1300 - 1680) cultural continuity and transformation in south-central New Mexico. Goat Spring Pueblo was occupied periodically: initially during a period of demographic reorganization and expansion of regional networks in the 1300s, again during the early Spanish Colonial period, and possibly during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. This highland village was strategically located along the trail connecting Western Pueblo and Rio Abajo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Willeke Wendrich.

In the years of willful destruction of cultural heritage as part of an extremist obliteration of the past, there have been several instances in the news of local populations taking stance against these destructive forces. In some cases protection of cultural heritage has become a voice against suppression and the reconstruction of destroyed monuments, e.g. through 3D printing and resurrecting lost parts, an act of defiance. Most destruction of cultural heritage, however, takes place much more...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Moriarty. Ellen Moriarty. Rosy Kirk. Bryant Garrow.

In 2016, the South Champlain Historical Ecology Project (SCHEP) initiated investigations at the Galick Site as part of a regional study focusing on long-term human-environment interaction within the South Lake Champlain area. Situated at the confluence of long-distance trade routes and within an area of remarkable ecological diversity, the Galick Site constitutes a key setting for examining historical ecology at the southern end of Lake Champlain. To date, SCHEP has conducted two field seasons...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erina Perez. Thomas Banghart. Hope Loiselle. Kevin Gibbons.

Historical ecology has become one of the most relevant research paradigms in understanding the long-term relationships between humans and their environments. Its multidisciplinary approach dissolves the boundaries between the social and natural sciences to bring together disciplines such as archaeology, ecology, biology, anthropology, ethnohistory, and geography toward the conservation and restoration of natural and cultural heritage. This paper specifically explores archaeology’s unique...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas E. Levy. Margie Burton.

Recent current events have dramatically highlighted the vulnerability of the world's material cultural heritage. Funded by a University of California (UC) Office of the President’s Research Catalyst grant beginning in 2016, the At-Risk Cultural Heritage and the Digital Humanities project catalyzes a collaborative research effort by four UC campuses (San Diego, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Merced) to use cyber-archaeology and computer graphics to document and safeguard virtually some of the most...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ivonne Reyes Carlo.

Una constante en la Costa del Golfo es utilizar elementos de deidades del Altiplano (Tláloc por ejemplo) para interpretar las representaciones de seres con características sobrenaturales pertenecientes a esta área de estudio. Si bien, podrían existir rasgos iconográficos que justificaran esas semejanzas no podemos únicamente traslapar elementos similares entre unas imágenes y otras ya que sólo se obtiene una propuesta parcial sobre su interpretación y tal vez nos aleje de su significado...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luc Doyon.

It has been argued that Aurignacian projectile points made of antler, bone, or ivory represent a proxy for the initial dispersal of Homo sapiens into Europe. Our research reassesses this claim by using geometric morphometric analysis to study 547 Aurignacian osseous implements recovered from 49 European sites. This approach allowed the identification of eight volumetric templates reproduced by Aurignacian artisans during the manufacture of split-based points. Two templates were identified for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Johnson.

Yamasees worked as non-missionized laborers in Spanish Florida, raided for Charleston traders, fought to expand Georgia, lived with Creek Indians, and worked as diplomats and traders in Pensacola. Letters, speeches, and testimony demonstrate that this mobility— often leading them to outnumber local occupants— allowed Yamasees to dictate terms to and take vengeance against other Native Americans as well as Europeans. Despite such authority, pottery assemblages demonstrate the frequent adoption of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mehrnoush Soroush. Alireza Mehrtash. Emad Khazraee.

This paper presents the preliminary results of a collaborative project that seeks to develop a deep learning model for automated detection of qanat shafts on CORONA Satellite Imagery. Increasing quantity of air and space-borne imagery available to archaeologists and advances in computational science has created an emerging interest in automated archaeological detection. Previous studies have applied machine learning algorithms for detection of archaeological sites and off-site features, with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fernando Castillo Flores. Francisco Javier García Ugalde. José Luis Punzo Díaz. Alfonso Gastelum-Strozzi. Dante Bernardo Martinez Vazquez.

Currently there exist several databases composed of hundreds or thousands of digital images of arrowheads made by different ancient ethnic groups around the world. Extracting information or comparing and classifying the elements of these databases in an efficient and automated way, even without the need of arrowhead’s metadata, would be of great help in carrying out a comprehensive study on this archaeological subject. This work deals with this problem by developing an image processing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Wellman.

Avifaunal remains have great potential to improve archaeological understanding of the economy and subsistence of peoples who lived in the past, as well as to yield information about local ecology, environmental change, and past bird species distribution. The large assemblage of faunal remains from the three archaeological sites comprising the Seaside Collection from Seaside, OR, contains significant quantities of bird bone. Previous analyses of vertebrate remains (including birds) by Greenspan...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bernadette Cap. M. Kathryn Brown. Whitney Lytle.

The ancient Maya formalized avenues of movement between and within urban centers through the construction of sacbeob that both defined space and connected places on the landscape. In this paper, we discuss the ways in which a formally constructed sacbe at Xunantunich functioned as an axis connecting economic and ritual activities. The architectural arrangement of Classic Xunantunich emphasizes a north/south directionality. The site’s sacbe, however, was constructed on an east/west alignment....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hernando Malca Cardoza. Alexis Mantha.

Andean scholars generally conceive the ayllu as representing a group of people who consider themselves to be related by common descent and who collectively possess and exploit resources (land and water). In many regions of the Andes during late pre-Hispanic times, ayllu members retraced their common origin and kinship ties through the celebration of a mummified founding ancestor. Ayllus could either be small or large and often the smaller units were hierarchically integrated into the larger...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Birkmann. Bruce Huckell.

Although long known from surface sites, the Middle Archaic record in the Tucson Basin includes very few in buried alluvial contexts. AZ BB:13:70 is a Middle Archaic occupation site located along Brickyard Arroyo, a deeply incised tributary arroyo of the Santa Cruz River. First discovered in 1975, the site was revisited throughout the early 1980’s and investigated formally in the summer of 1984 after monsoon rains created an extensive exposure of features and artifacts along the arroyo. The site...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Baxter.

(please consider for Poster After Dark) The mounds immediately south of Aztec West were partially excavated in 1916, 1934 and 1960. These data have not yet been synthesized. Taken together, information from pottery, photographs, sketch maps and grey literature indicate the presence of masonry walls, possible staircases, and depositional patterns that are analogous to the Pueblo Bonito mounds. This poster will show these data in both traditional (2 dimensional) and augmented (3 dimensional)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joanne Pillsbury.

With the return of peace after the dislocations of the US Civil War, The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by businessmen, civic leaders, and artists in New York. Unlike its European counterparts, the institution had no royal collections on which to build. Its ancient American holdings grew through gifts and purchases from diplomats, philanthropists, and collectors. By 1900, with the acquisition of the Petich Collection of some 1500 "Aztec," and "Toltec" works, The American...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Annelou Van Gijn.

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

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

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

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

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lorraine Williams-Beck.

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

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

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Antonietta Catanzariti.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Fitzpatrick.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Tritsch.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Sampeck.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Genevieve Mielke.

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Jefferies. Christopher Moore.

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

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

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

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

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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Price.

I describe a novel, age-structured, Bayesian framework for reconstructing past demography. The framework is quite flexible and can incorporate and synthesize a wide range of data. I demonstrate its use with human burial data, where each observation can include an AMS radiocarbon measurement, an estimate of age-at-death, or both. Conceptually, the framework is useful because it addresses in a statistically principled way two vexing sources of equifinality in archaeological data: (1) the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lesley Howse. James Savelle. Arthur Dyke.

In this paper we discuss beach level chronology and settlement at Alarniq—the ‘type-site’ for Dorset culture history and one of the largest Dorset archaeological sites in the Eastern Arctic. The Dorset occupation at the site extends approximately 3 km along a succession of raised gravel beach ridges, ranging in elevation between 8 to 24 m asl, and is almost entirely comprised of semi-subterranean structures that would have been occupied during the cold season. The number of houses varies across...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Burnett.

Currently encompassing over 1,300,000 acres, Bears Ears is notable for abundant cultural resources and is in a renewed spotlight following the 2017 recommendation by the Interior Secretary to reduce its acreage. Archaeological probability models were recently developed for lands within the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management, Monticello Field Office, which encompasses the Bears Ears National Monument. Regardless of the outcomes of that process, these models were developed to help land...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Webster.

BECAN RECONSIDERED -- Joe Ball’s early career centered strongly on Becan, which during the early 1970’s figured prominently in many interpretations of Classic Maya society and culture history. The initial Becan research predated our effective understanding of Maya inscriptions, the large-scale conflicts and alliances that affected the southern lowlands, and also the now-widespread data for climate change and the Classic "collapse". Because of its lack of inscriptions Becan has been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caitlin Earley.

Recent study of an hacha from Classic-period Veracruz in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art reveals that hachas and palmas may have been used as costume elements in ritual performances related to the ballgame. As costume elements, these sculptures would have allowed actors to assume the identity of captives, rulers, or deities. This accords well with iconographic evidence of ballgame-related ritual performances in Veracruz, and suggests comparisons with artworks from other...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Maher. Danielle Macdonald.

Searching for the origin points of major cultural revolutions and transitions has long been a driver of archaeological research, yet led to research focused on perceived boundaries, rather than continuity. Research into the origins of so-called modern human behavior, the origins of social complexity, the earliest domesticates, among others, all focus on defining moments of change that may be undetectable in the archaeological record. Perhaps some of the most enduring archaeological questions...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Theodore Tsouras. William Bryce. Michael Terlep.

Based on recent pedestrian survey of approximately 1,500 acres of BLM-managed land in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument of southern Utah, this paper examines new evidence from 129 archaeological sites that demonstrates a deep settlement history as well as both expected and unexpected changes resulting from the so called "Kayenta Intrusion" of the Pueblo II period. The Jenny Clay study area is located in a broad alluvial valley surrounded by the Vermillion Cliffs, and contains...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Grant McCall. Theodore Marks.

For the better part of a century, archaeologists have surmised that beer brewing played a significant role in a range of major social and economic changes having to do with origins of agriculture. This paper examines an unusual case of early beer brewing, which likely originated during the Middle Holocene among the Later Stone Age (LSA) populations of the hyper-arid Central Namib Desert of western Namibia. In this paper, I discuss practices of modern traditional beer brewing in the region and I...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Parker.

This paper discusses the public engagement of the late Dr. John R White through stories, observations, and news media. White, who passed away in 2009, had been an archaeologist at Youngstown State University, where he led excavations, gave interviews, and presented the past since 1971. For many residents of the Mahoning Valley, White was a fixture, often teaching archaeology to his students, then later their children, and finally the grandchildren over the course of four decades. Not content to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Randy Haas. Todd Surovell. Matthew O'Brien.

Archaeologists commonly observe clear qualitative structure in the spatial distribution of artifacts deposited in archaeological sites. Quantification and interpretation of such structure remains a major challenge. Drawing on multiple field seasons of observation among the Dukha—residentially mobile reindeer herders of the Mongolian Taiga—we present a likelihood based method for quantifying site-level structure in the use of space. This ideal ethnographic case in which behavior-structure...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Radu Iovita.

One of the most important methodological issues facing modern paleoanthropology is the so far failed matching of archaeological material with specific hominins, at least at the metapopulation level. Due largely to the plethora of scenarios produced by genetic and genomic data in the last few years, the demand for archaeological confirmation or refutation of diverse dispersal scenarios has increased. Yet our understanding of lithic assemblages is not sufficiently nuanced to answer these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Law Pezzarossi.

In the decades following the American Revolution, Native people throughout Southern New England took part in the development of a Native basket industry specifically targeted for settler consumption. Scholars have long acknowledged that basket styles communicated tribal and even familial affiliation among basketmakers and Native community members. But for customers, the objects represented a connection with a Native artisan who filled the role of the "Vanishing Indian," an emerging trope in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angela Huster.

In written sources, the Mexica provide stereotyped descriptions of other groups, many of whom had been conquered and incorporated into the Aztec Empire. I use data from the site of Calixtlahuaca to evaluate the archaeological validity of such stereotypical practices for one group, the Matlatzinca. In particular, I focus on the heavy reliance on maguey, and locally distinctive foodways relating to maize. I then consider whether these practices became more or less pronounced once the area came...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ellen Lofaro. George Kamenov. Jorge Luis Soto Maguino. John Krigbaum.

Built in AD 1605, La Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesus de Huamanga is the earliest Jesuit church in modern-day Ayacucho, Peru. Archaeological excavations underneath the church floor uncovered human and faunal remains dating to the 17th and 18th centuries CE. Only indigenous individuals appear to be buried underneath the church floors. Despite significant forced labor practices (mita) at the time, few individuals buried in the church show signs of bodily stress or disease prevalent in those engaged...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Colleen O'Brien. Sheldon Smith. Nicole DeFrancisco.

Archaeologists have argued for numerous functions of the bench features found throughout the Maya world ranging from utilitarian to ritual. During the 2017 field season at the Late Classic site of La Obra, excavations of a centrally-located structure revealed a bench standing approximately 50 centimeters from the structure floor and extending out approximately 150 centimeters from its northern wall. La Obra is a hilltop production site located approximately one kilometer northwest of the central...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kayeleigh Sharp.

Understanding the role of the widespread yet under-recognized art style known as Gallinazo, its persistence alongside the more conspicuous Mochica art style, and the social factors that facilitated their long-term coexistence on Peru’s North Coast during the first millennium, are primary concerns of this work. Investigation of the Songoy-Cojal site in the mid-Zaña Valley shows that Gallinazo-Mochica coexistence persisted at least until the 8th century CE (based on new C-14 dates). Many...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sanna Lipkin. Titta Kallio-Seppä. Annemari Tranberg. Erika Ruhl. Sirpa Niinimäki.

CT-scanning has for long been utilized in the research of mummified individuals, and has been a crucial method used to analyze also northern Finnish mummified human remains. Within Church, Space and Memory -project at the University of Oulu in Finland, eight individuals, mostly children, buried under floor planks of churches have been lifted up with their coffins, and taken for CT-scanning at the Oulu University Hospital. The CT-scans have proved to be suitable also for studying coffins,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Reuther. Ben Potter. Nancy Bigelow. Charles Holmes. Francois Lanoe.

The middle Tanana Valley of interior Alaska, an unglaciated region of Eastern Beringia, holds a high-resolution record of human-environment interaction that extends over 14,000 years. The Late Glacial and early Holocene landscapes of this region were dynamic with considerable ecological restructuring. Aeolian deposits accumulated in lowland areas and adjacent foothills at relatively high rates, soils were relatively underdeveloped, river down-cutting prevailed across the valley, and wild fires...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Chicoine. Gabriel Ramón. Martha Bell.

This paper explores the legacy of the "Berkeley School of Andean Studies" and its relations to the eponymous "Berkeley School of Geography." We examine the relationships between the key founding figures of both schools including John H. Rowe and Carl O. Sauer, but also their students, disciples, and other scholars influenced by their seminal research. Through a review of the interactions between members of the two schools, as well as academic genealogies and writings, our paper has three main...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Angela Neller. Lourdes Henebry-DeLeon.

The 20 year journey to repatriation of the Ancient One was long, arduous, frustrating, eye opening, and an education in the NAGPRA law. Over the years we have discovered how poorly understood the law can be. In the case of the Ancient One, the ownership or control of his remains falls under Section 3 of NAGPRA for inadvertent discoveries on federal lands after 1990. An overview of the evidentiary standard applicable to cultural affiliation determinations under NAGPRA will be presented. All...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christian Feest. Viviane Luiza da Silva.

From the Philosophical Voyage to Brazil of Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira in 1791 to the Brazilian fieldwork of the young philosopher Claude Lévi-Strauss from 1936 to 1938, nearly 4000 Bororo artifacts and more than 300 Kadiwéu pots were collected for museums in Europe and the United States by naturalists, anthropologists, missionaries, artists, and adventurers. What began as part of the project of the Enlightenment to catalog the world based on the principles of Linnean taxonomy turned into a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claire Novotny.

Working at the community level is a crucial component of an engaged, socially just discipline. Advancing archaeology towards greater inclusivity is an increasingly common conversation within the discipline. The majority of literature on this topic focuses on grassroots efforts to include marginalized descendant communities or other stakeholders in research design, implementation, knowledge dissemination and curation. An ever present and often unanalyzed aspect of research (especially abroad),...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Sawyer.

Research suggests non-woody resources, such as peat, can serve as unique repositories of environmental change. This paper discusses how peat serves such a role, and sheds light on the how these processes affect the archaeological record, an aspect of environmental change that has been overlooked. During the colonization of Iceland in the 9th century AD, early Icelanders (Vikings) began to affect and be affected by local environments. Viking colonization led to rapid deforestation of woodland...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Singer. Peter Leach. Tiziana Matarazzo. Cosimo Sgarlata. Dawn Beamer.

2017 marks the 40th anniversary of Roger Moeller’s initial excavation of Templeton, the first Paleoindian site systematically studied in Connecticut. New excavations at Templeton were conducted in 2016 and 2017 to further document the Paleoindian component of the site. This presentation reports on the results of the new excavations and the reanalysis of the Paleoindian materials recovered Moeller.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Seth Grooms. Edward Henry. Kelly Ervin. Tristram Kidder.

The origins of Early Woodland cultures have long been poorly understood, but recent data from sites in the Yazoo and Tensas basins, and from sites along the coast are providing new perspectives on the development of the Woodland tradition in the Lower Mississippi Valley. In this paper we summarize Steve Williams’ contributions to understanding Woodland origins and update his work with new data. In contrast to earlier thinking, recent research shows that Woodland peoples in the Lower Mississippi...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Hollinger.

Congress intended federal repatriation legislation to go beyond removing collections from museums. They hoped that it would lead to new relationships between Native Americans and museums that would recognize the interests of all parties. The Anthropology Department of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History has worked, through its Repatriation Office and other programs, to collaborate with tribes and Alaskan Natives on projects that go beyond repatriation to include initiatives with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Wallrodt. Denitsa Nenova.

Digital technologies in the field of archaeology have often been promoted as a tool enhancing productivity and efficiency, usually implying that the immediate digital recording of data would allow for the excavation of greater volumes and covering larger areas. Moreover, the strength of Paperless Archaeology comes with the enabling of immediate dissemination of observable data while breaking up the ‘sealed’ relationship between the raw data and the First Interpreter. What remains less...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Kansa. Sarah Whitcher Kansa.

In his influential book "To Save Everything, Click Here" (2014), Evgeny Morozov coined the term "solutionism" to describe a utopian vision that innovation in digital technologies can solve complex social problems. Fueled by Silicon Valley wealth, digital technologies have an obvious glamor. The high-profile reconstruction of the Palmyra Arch by the Institute for Digital Archaeology exemplifies how governments, universities, corporate sponsors, and granting foundations use media attention on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alesha Marcum-Heiman. Diana Greenlee.

The monumental core of Poverty Point (16WC5) has been the focus of considerable archaeological research, particularly since the early 1980s, but the broader spatial context of the site is less well known. Indeed, it has been estimated that < 12% of the Poverty Point Compatible Use Zone (PPCUZ), a nearly 5-km radius catchment area around the site, has been formally surveyed. The PPCUZ, which was established for management purposes, approximates the daily foraging radius for hunter-gatherers in a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joanne Devlin. Lee Jantz. Michelle Hamilton.

The impact of Walter Klippel’s teaching has provided his students the tools necessary to answer several critical questions faced by forensic anthropologists. Through his classroom tutelage countless numbers of graduates have the skills to recognize and categorize non-human bones. Beyond this zooarchaeological training, his research influence and guidance has also afforded both students and practitioners alike with knowledge to identify and document particular signatures of postmortem damage...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Johnson.

Archaeologists studying prehistoric Eurasian steppe pastoral lifeways often seek inclusion into comparative research of urbanism, craft production, and complexity. Even as these studies contribute valuable information, they also reify their place in the intellectual periphery of archaeological inquiry. This peripheralization is due to several factors. First, the Eurasian steppe is perhaps unwittingly conceptualized as a relatively timeless socio-geographical periphery to "state-level" social...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Silliman.

Archaeology continues to need the infusion of indigenous perspectives, not only to take responsibility for the discipline’s past in colonial contexts, but also to advance its ability to understand human histories – especially indigenous ones – in respectful, innovative, and inclusive ways. This need is particularly strong for those archaeologists who study Native American cultural and community life just before, right into, and well after the onset of European colonialism and for those who are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Craig Lee. Pei-Lin Yu. Edward Jolie. Kathy Puseman. Halcyon LaPoint.

The recovery of chipped stone projectile points, bows, dart and arrow foreshafts and shafts, and the remains of prey species—notably bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis)—in direct association with melting Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA) ice patches illustrates that hunting was a primary activity for Native Americans at these features. The recovery of other, non-hunting related, types of organic artifacts at ice patches suggests a broader utilization of the alpine environment. Although fewer in number,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Romuald Housse.

Located on the western foothills of the Andes, in the region of Tacna, the study area seems to have been densely occupied during the Late Intermediate Period (1100–1450 AD) as the recent archaeological research carried out in the area has demonstrated it. The many agricultural terraces and irrigation canals, as well as the numerous residential settlements, some of which are fortified, seem to demonstrate a strong desire for control and management of resources among the different groups occupying...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Yerka. Russell Townsend.

This presentation explores the ways in which 3D reconstruction can succeed as an innovative platform for both archaeological study and public engagement using a case study from the Hiwassee River watershed, North Carolina. The project, initiated by the Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO), Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), involves an effort to repair a vandalized petroglyph panel. The rock art panel is a complex composition of incised, interwoven petroglyphs from which a 1.5 m...

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 Bruce Huckell.

Along the western edge of the Rio Grande Valley in Central New Mexico is a huge expanse of late Cenozoic volcanics, including a high-quality hydrothermally altered rhyolite. Colloquially known as Socorro jasper, at least one source of this material was exploited frequently by Clovis groups. This paper describes this source—the Black Canyon quarry—and the physical and geochemical properties of the "jasper" from it. Recent and continuing studies of its use by Clovis groups are reviewed, and its...