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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mariela Viridiana Madrid González.

La Zona Costera del volcán de Santa Marta, al este de Los Tuxtlas, cuenta con la presencia de afloramientos basálticos que fueron aprovechados de diferentes maneras desde el Formativo medio hasta el Clásico tardío. En esta zona, han sido identificado contextos arqueológicos de explotación que corresponden a talleres dedicados a la producción de artefactos de lítica tallada y pulida. Una característica de algunos de estos talleres, es la presencia de petrograbados, algunos con diseños sencillos,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carlos Fitzgerald-Bernal.

Se presenta una re-evaluación de la frontera oriental del Gran Chiriquí y su relación con la sub-región de Veraguas del Gran Coclé en Panamá Central. A partir de hallazgos recientes de petrograbados en el sur de Veraguas y una revisión de la literatura, se reconocen las limitantes inherentes a una definición estática de fronteras culturales y se analiza la "chiricanidad" de la cultura material veragüense como ejemplo de las dinámicas históricas en la conformación de entidades regionales. Se...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Mohlenhoff.

Many questions surround trends in prehistoric fisheries dynamics and fish use along the Pacific Coast of North America. Marine fish are particularly sensitive to changes in their environment, including variation in sea surface temperature that changes cyclically with the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. Trans-Holocene paleontological or archaeological sites with large faunal assemblages are the ideal tool for use in reconstructing these paleoenvironmental records. Here, I report preliminary data...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luis Morett Alatorre. Aleksander Borejsza.

Se analizan y discuten las evidencias arqueológicas relativas a tres distintas modalidades de hogares del Arcaico, todos ellos documentados en una secuencia deposicional en el margen poniente del río Yautepec, diferenciados éstos por sus sistema constructivo, requerimientos de inversión de trabajo, potencial térmico y funcional, registrado uno en 2000 por el Proyecto Arqueobotánico Ticumán, y varios más en 2015 por el Proyecto Arqueológico Las Estacas (municipio de Tlaltizapán, Morelos, México)....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alvaro Brizuela Casimir. Gloria Biffano Marcial.

We present a review of the data obtained during the "Proyecto de Rescate Arqueológico Estí (PRAE)" that took place between 2000-2003 in the context of the environmental mitigations of the Estí hydroelectric project; and with special attention to the Barrigón site. Barrigón is a cemetery site from prehispanic times localized near to the Gualaca city in Chiriqui province (Panamá). This kind of "necropolis" was placed in the flat top of a little hill a few meters from the Barrigón river. We...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gary Haynes.

Dennis Stanford’s work at the Dutton, Selby, Lamb Spring, and Inglewood sites was a major part of his lifelong search for breakthrough evidence about North America’s earliest human encounters with mammoths. He encouraged me to study the megafaunal bones from those sites, and gave me room to disagree with him. His support allowed me to start looking into new ways to understand how the bones were modified and how such sites came to be. This presentation ties together data from those fossil sites...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Hyde.

Social identification is the perception of oneness with, or belongingness to, some human aggregate. The definition of others and self is largely relational and comparative. Archaeologists demonstrate Maya elite identity by comparing them to non-elites in terms of energy expenditure in burial preparation, house and platform construction, access to luxury items, and cranial and dental modifications. Although non-elites include some urban residents and all hinterland residents, this study proposes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cahill Shpall. Katelyn McDonough. Dennis Jenkins.

Consistent Elko chronology in the Northern Great Basin remains elusive to the archeological community. Numerous symptoms can be determined to be the cause of this absence of information, including a lack of in depth analysis in the region, extensive sediment disturbance leading to non-conclusive stratigraphic dating where studies have taken place, and a shortage of differential site comparisons. Connelly Caves provides an amazing opportunity to combat this archeological affliction through the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only S. Joey LaValley.

While Great Basin archaeologists use projectile points as time-sensitive markers, these typologies are based on the morphological characteristics of the finished artifacts. In most cases, points were produced elsewhere and curated to their final destination or they are found within a palimpsest containing a mixed bag of flaked stone tools and debitage. Seldom are archaeologists able to analyze debitage specific to the production of points. In 2016, Logan Simpson archaeologists recorded a small...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristen Barnett.

Ashmore and others have taken the time to observe and discuss the inherently gendered ‘nature’ of the landscape. As an indigenous scholar this discussion directs me toward concepts of "nature" and specifically, our mother earth, our peoples, and our celestial beings. Mother earth is impregnated with our past, cradling our lives and our ancestors in her womb, from which they once came, and returning (for matters within our discipline) to us in "archaeological context", if you will. I argue that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wieslaw Wieckowski.

The discovery of an undisturbed burial context at Castillo de Huarmey, bringing to light remains of Wari immediate elite members, finally embodied long discussed highest social levels of Wari Imperial elites. Until that time they characteristic was derived almost exclusively from indirect sources, mainly material remains of high quality material culture and architecture. Now, there is a chance to get a glimpse on their actual life stories, occupation, and to see their faces. Analysis of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katharine Fernstrom.

Two- and three-dimensional human figures, and disembodied parts of figures, are commonly found across North America, and are considered important dimensions of Native American art. Figures appear in diverse media and sizes including stone, copper, shell, earthen effigy mounds, and petroglyphs/petrographs. In the literature, they are most frequently addressed as examples of art for the regions in which they are found, but rarely as pan-North American phenomena. A solely regional perspective...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Vera Tiesler.

In Mesoamerica, sacrificial ceremonies for the sake of religious merit-making tended to bridge polarities between action and symbols. Some of the ritual practices were mediated by mythical narratives surrounding domestic hearths, divine fire, and the sun itself. Among ancient Mesoamericans with their hierophagic cosmic understanding, the fiery protagonists to which sacrifices were destined to were deemed necessary complements of all life and had to be fed. This talk combines graphic and textual...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Laluk.

In 2004 the White Mountain Apache Tribe passed a tribal resolution approving the White Apache Tribe Cultural Heritage Resources Best Management Practices (Welch et al.). These practices presented and delineated in guideline form discuss cultural heritage resource definitions; management and necessary steps before, during and after project implementation for any ground disturbing projects potentially adversely affecting cultural heritage resources on Ndee (Apache) trust lands. However, since the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Bird. Rebecca Bliege Bird.

Martu are Traditional Owners of expansive estates in Australia’s Western Desert. They maintain distinct networks of social interaction, mobility, and economic organization through which emerge novel ecosystemic relationships. Such networks in the Western Desert involve trophic interactions between people and many other species, and are sustained in patterns of consumption and renewal, especially anthropogenic disturbance via landscape burning for the purposes of hunting and sharing small game....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pauline Clauwaerts.

After more than twenty years of investigations, the San José de Moro Archaeological Project has found a total of seven funerary chambers pertaining to the Late Moche "priestesses" (AD 600-850) in one of the most important ceremonial centres and cemeteries located on the North coast of Peru. The sudden appearance of that specific character is echoed in the sacred imagery where the priestess is depicted, as a supernatural women enacting in complex ritual activities with other elite characters....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Atsushi Yamamoto.

This paper focuses on the emergence and diachronic development of sociopolitical complexity in northern Peru during the Initial Period and Early Horizon using new excavation and settlement pattern data from the site of Ingatambo in the Huancabamba Valley. I argue that significant changes in sociopolitical complexity occur alongside shifts and intensification in interregional interaction. During the Pomahuaca phase (BC. 1200-800); ceremonial centers with platform architecture appear suddenly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Thacker.

Existing frameworks for analyzing lithic raw material economies insufficiently characterize the complex interface of reduction strategies with local raw material variability. This presentation contextualizes assemblage technological organization from the Middle and Upper Paleolithic of Portugal with occurrence frequencies and size variability in local raw material cobbles. The new analytical concept of similarity differentiates Middle Paleolithic quartz preference within a pattern of overall raw...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Penny Spikins. Gail Hitchens.

Social emotions are central to human social lives, however whilst there has been much discussion about archaic human cognition in terms of analytical capacities, capacities in terms of social emotions are rarely discussed. A 'null hypothesis' of a lack of pro-social motivations is often assumed to be the most rational scientific perspective on how archaic humans felt towards each other. Over recent years accumulating evidence for complex social relationships in archaic humans argues against this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Mazzariello. Michael Harrower. A. Catherine D’Andrea.

Settlement pattern analysis has long remained a key means of examining the social, economic, and political relationships among archaeological sites and the way those relationships changed through time. Two common approaches involve: 1) analyzing the relative sizes of sites to evaluate possible site size hierarchies, and 2) analyzing the spatial distribution of sites across landscapes to evaluate possible clustering or dispersion. This paper applies more statistically rigorous methods that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maxime Lamoureux St-Hilaire.

This paper reports on the final results of a multi-facetted study of the northern section of the regal palace of La Corona. This study sampled (n=328) both plaster and soil in three adjacent patios and adjoining middens. The plaster samples underwent a geochemical analysis (ICP-MS), while the soil samples underwent flotation analysis which recovered macro-botanical remains and micro-artifacts. These results were then combined to traditional artifactual data derived from five middens excavated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacob Harris. Curtis Marean. Kiona Ogle. Jessica Thompson.

The principle of equifinality describes a system where an end state may be reached from a variety of conditions and in a variety of ways and has proved to be a confounding element in several areas in archaeology. Archaeological data commonly occur in both qualitative and quantitative form and Bayesian modeling, coupled with modern computational routines, permits multiple data types to be incorporated into a single synthetic probability model. The Bayesian approach makes probability statements...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eilis Monahan.

Monumental architecture, specifically in the form of structures classified as "fortifications," emerged on Cyprus at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, but these massive constructions remained in use for only a brief period of time. This period, however, is of critical importance to the transformation of Cypriot society from a relatively egalitarian village-based society to the urban-focused, politically complex society of the Late Bronze Age. Using the cluster of fortresses in the Agios...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaime Awe. Julie Hoggarth. Christophe Helmke. Jim Aimers.

The discovery of cultural remains on or above the floors of rooms and courtyards at several Maya sites has been interpreted by some archaeologists as problematic deposits, defacto refuse, or as evidence for rapid abandonment. Investigations in the Belize River valley have recorded similar deposits at several surface and subterranean sites. Our regional and contextual approach to the study of these remains, coupled with ethnohistoric and ethnographic information provide limited support for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only M. Elizabeth Grávalos. Emily A. Sharp.

Scholars have debated the nature of Wari state expansion during the Middle Horizon in north-central Peru for decades, suggesting both top-down imperialism and local resistance. While our paper does not aim to resolve this issue, we put previously reported datasets into conversation to examine both social change and cultural resilience in the Middle Horizon (MH). We draw on ceramic and mortuary evidence from the Callejón de Huaylas region of highland Ancash and identify the incorporation of a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Boehm. Erik R. Otárola-Castillo.

Animal butchery is an important aspect of human evolution. While it provides obvious nutritional and non-nutritional benefits, the choice to butcher an animal involves costs. These costs are primarily time, energy. Most research investigating these costs has focused on time alone. By creating ranking schemes using post-encounter return rates, researchers usually hypothesize which animals or body parts hunters should butcher. Yet, the energetic cost of butchery and its effects on these rankings...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rus Sheptak.

Using concepts proposed and developed in Native American and Indigenous Studies would provide a useful way for archaeologists, especially those dealing with the relatively recent past, to address the challenge posed by indigenous scholars to decolonize archaeology. A few concepts have already been employed by archaeologists in North America, notably Gerald Vizenor's idea of "survivance". But as Maarten Jansen and Mixtec scholar Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez have shown in their work decolonizing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Margo Schwadron.

The National Park Service’s core mission is to protect and preserve unimpaired for future generations natural and cultural resources under its management. Climate change presents unprecedented challenges as humans have set in motion an unstoppable sea-level rise that will eventually submerge, damage and destroy many heritage resources. Many sites are already undergoing severe erosion, and we struggle with prioritizing limited resources for protecting sites. What are our options? Using case...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Ingram.

Increasing the public benefits of archaeology involves more than increasing our assertions of relevance. Relevance is a vague term that is easy to assert because it is difficult to disprove. Likewise, archaeology is not a predictive science and promoting "lessons from the past" creates unrealistic expectations of archaeologists and our work. If we are to connect the past to efforts to address climate change, we need to provide specific, archaeologically-informed examples that demonstrate how the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Jane Murray. Sarah Miller.

Shell Bluff Landing (8SJ32) is a dense coastal shell midden with occupation spanning 6,000 years, located in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The site is threatened by climate change impacts and coastal dynamics that include salt water intrusion, flooding, and, most notably, erosion exacerbated by wave action from the Intracoastal Waterway. Since Shell Bluff Landing was acquired by the State of Florida in the 1980s, land managers...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandra Olsen.

Petroglyphs and inscriptions have been investigated in the Arabian Peninsula at least since 1879, when Lady Anne and Wilfrid Blunt crossed the An Nafud desert and stopped at the now famous site of Jubbah in northern Saudi Arabia. Since that time explorers from England, Belgium, Germany, the US, and the Saudi Department of Antiquities, have recorded images from north to south. Archival materials, including field notes, photographs and letters are available at various institutions, but there is no...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandra Wheeler. Lana Williams. Tosha Dupras.

Breast-fed infants living in communities with adequate food access experience particularly high health risks during complementary feeding between ages 6 to 36 months. The most vulnerable of these die in this period, characterized as the "valley of death," which represents a biocultural reality. The majority of those who survive are "vulnerable survivors." The Kellis 2 cemetery sample (Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, AD 50-450) provides a unique opportunity to analyze effects of biocultural disruptions...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Fuka.

Extensive bioarchaeological research has addressed questions about stress, pathology, and activity in agricultural and semi-agricultural populations throughout the archaeological record, yet comparable studies pertaining to nomadic pastoral and semi-pastoral groups are relatively rare. During the Bronze Age in the Eurasian Steppes, archaeological evidence suggests a transition of lifeways from semi-sedentary agricultural to nomadic pastoralist. Entheseal analyses in bioarchaeology introduce an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Estanislao Pazmiño.

Localizado en la alta amazonía ecuatoriana el entorno geográfico del valle del río Upano acoge una amplia diversidad ecológica y de suelos que, sin duda, resultaron atractivos para los diferentes grupos humanos que se asentaron en la región durante la época prehispánica. Por otra parte la ubicación estratégica hizo que el valle sin duda constituya un nodo importante en la interacción cultural entre los altos valles andinas y las tierras bajas amazónicas. Ambas situaciones fueron favorables para...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Oscar Neill.

La zona nororiental de Honduras en la época prehispánica, y su interacción con Mesoamérica al oeste, ha sido poco abordada. El patrón de asentamiento regional así como interno de cada sitio es igual poco conocido y muchas veces confundido con el área vecina al este. Los reconocimientos de superficie en esta década nos han brindado resultados preliminares sobre el patrón de asentamiento regional y de sitio de la costa nororiental, concretamente en la Cuenca del Río Cangrejal, el Bajo Aguan en el...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arabel Fernandez.

Excavaciones en el segundo templo de la Huaca Cao Viejo del Complejo Arqueológico El Brujo (valle de Chicama, costa norte centroandina), revelaron un hallazgo sin precedentes en la arqueología peruana. Este sector fue el lugar de enterramiento de tres personajes de alto estatus social, acompañados de otros dos individuos de menor jerarquía. En esta oportunidad presentaremos los resultados del proceso de apertura del fardo del personaje femenino conocido como la Señora de Cao. Diversos factores,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Szpak.

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of fauna from archaeological sites in the Central Canadian Arctic Archipelago were performed to examine the environmental context of the Dorset-Thule transition. Isotopic data from a large number of ringed seals demonstrate that there was a reduction in the importance of primary production derived from sea ice-associated algae during the Thule occupation relative to the earlier Dorset occupation; these data are consistent with an increase in open water...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lauren Welch O'Connor. Douglas J. Bolender.

The initial colonization of Iceland in the late 9th century had a profound impact on the fragile environment of the North Atlantic island. Settlement and the introduction of livestock resulted in widespread erosion and the replacement of woodlands with meadows and heaths. Changes in the environment are assumed to have played a role in determining settlement patterning and subsistence strategies. While marginal highland areas were most seriously affected, resulting in farmstead abandonment, the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebekah Montgomery.

This presentation examines the collection of unfired clay models, or maquetas, from the Moche site of San José de Moro, Peru, proposing an interpretation focused on their unique materiality and position within the artistic corpus at the site.  A renewed focus on Moche architectural representation treats these three-dimensional models as miniaturized, mimetic sculptures of monumental buildings, often used to understand the function of ceremonial space in the past. As of 2012, fifty maquetas have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Strauss.

Epi-Olmec is a nebulous term, adrift in both time and space. Weakly defined by a set of slippery contrasts - isolated from what came before and what comes after - the descriptor lacks robust categorization of its own. And yet in spite of this hollow terminology, the words "Epi-Olmec" themselves are so politically fraught that certain scholars have adopted the even more obfuscatory term "Isthmian", a label growing in popularity within the literature. This paper begins the process of defining...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Stuart. Marc Zender.

The ancient Maya ruins of La Corona (ancient Saknikte') has an unusually large textual and historical record. The site's inscriptions, despite their highly fragmented and incomplete state, present epigraphers and archaeologists with a detailed account of a royal family that ruled there at least from the 6th to 8th centuries. Excavations in the last several years have revealed many more inscribed sculptures. This paper will focus on the distinctive characteristics of La Corona as a literate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gwen Lexow.

Recent national media attention on issues of discrimination and harassment in the academy have generated robust discussion and inquiry into how to develop and sustain an environment that celebrates equity and equality and creates a culture where all can thrive professionally and personally. This presentation will sketch the broad contours of these conversations placing them in a national context and providing a framework to understand both institutional responsibilities and ethical imperatives....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Malu Fleischer. Michael Nielsen.

In 2016, the Ersersaaneq project was instigated by three students from the University of Greenland to create an online repository of 3D models of the Gustav Holm collection. In Greenlandic the word ersersaaneq captures the idea of producing knowledge through the creation of visual images. The goal is to digitally re-unify parts of the collection and develop coherency within a global context. Project partners include Greenland National Museum, The Smithsonian Institution and The National Museum...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle Phelps.

Howard Carter discovered the relatively intact tomb of Tutankhamun (KV 62), one of the last kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, in the Valley of the Kings in 1922. Prior to the discovery, Carter discovered several small artifacts in the cliffs above the valley’s floor, which he proclaimed were indicators of a possible escape route of the ancient tomb raiders from the Valley of the Kings. During the excavation of the tomb, Carter also claimed to have identified two distinct robberies that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Hirth. Alejandro Figueroa. Alejandra Domic. Heather Thakar. Harry Iceland.

The earliest human occupation of the El Gigante Rockshelter in the highlands of western Honduras dates to the Early Esperanza phase at 11,010 cal B.P. This paper examines the perishable and imperishable remains from the Early Esperanza through Middle Marcala phase occupation from 11,010-7,430 cal B.P. and what they inform about human adaptation and forager subsistence practices in the highlands during this early period of Honduran prehistory.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katharine Napora. Victor Thompson. Jeff Speakman. Alexander Cherkinsky.

This paper discusses advances in the development of a multi-millennial ring-width chronology based on bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) from the mouth of the Altamaha River in Georgia. New insights into the environmental history of coastal Georgia are discussed, including the archaeological implications of major climatic and ecological events visible in the ancient cypress rings. Finally, we focus on environmental conditions before, during, and after the transition from the Late Archaic (ca....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Hefner. Michael Heilen.

Repatriation and reburial efforts following the 2006-2008 excavation of the Alameda-Stone cemetery—a multiethnic, historical-period cemetery in downtown Tucson, Arizona—required a determination of cultural affinity for all human remains recovered from the civilian section. Goldstein played a key role in developing for the project a transparent and objective biocultural approach to determining cultural affinity that overcame problems encountered by previous projects in assessing cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Terry Ozbun.

Morrison Formation red orthoquartzite was procured, reduced, and exported as large percussion flake blanks from a late pre-contact quarry and workshop (LA21699) near Tucumcari, New Mexico. Experimental flintknapping replication of the orthoquartzite reduction technology represented at the aboriginal quarry/workshop site produced data on the average frequency of various technologically diagnostic flake types per reduction event. Comparing these experimental flake type frequencies with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Virginia Arieta Baizabal.

El objetivo de la ponencia es presentar los resultados preliminares del programa de mapeo intensivo en Antonio Plaza, Veracruz –un posible sitio olmeca ubicado en la cuenca alta del río Uxpanapa en la costa del Golfo de México-. Dicha etapa de análisis revela información proveniente de la superficie terrestre y es portadora de numerosas ventajas para el futuro planteamiento de un programa de reconocimiento de superficie. El estudio empleó el análisis de la información a través de Sistemas de...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelly Branam Macauley.

From American Indian representations in film, to working with descendent communities and sacred sites, to understanding families experiencing homelessness, Larry Zimmerman’s scholarship, guidance, and way of being an anthropologist has greatly influenced the intellectual and professional development of many cultural anthropologists. It is an ethical anthropology that transcends any one subfield of anthropology, which includes owning one’s disciplinary history and identity, learning from it and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cecilia Smith.

Principle 6 of the Society of American Archaeology’s Principles of Archaeological Ethics emphasizes archaeologists’ responsibility to publically report archaeological investigations with the stipulation that "An interest in preserving and protecting in situ archaeological sites must be taken in to account when publishing and distributing information about their nature and location." This paper first provides a critical review of current geolocation sharing recommendations and practices, and then...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Craig T. Goralski.

In 2001, California passed SB 297, which mandated that coroners "shall collect samples for DNA testing from the remains of all unidentified persons and shall send those samples to the Department of Justice for DNA testing and inclusion in the DNA data bank." This legislation, which was largely unfunded by the state, expanded existing DNA testing programs to include remains from cold cases that were being stored by state agencies and remains that had been interred in cemeteries throughout the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Watkins.

This paper centers the ethical epistemology (EE) of the New York African Burial ground - as well as the scholar-activist traditions that informed it - in this important session discussion on ethics. I argue that both are overlooked resources for conceptualizing and operationalizing an ethics of multiple consciousness such as the one that the organizers propose. The intellectual and political work associated with the EE of the New York African Burial Ground Project is discussed along with the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Audrey Horning.

The ‘ontological turn’ in archaeology encourages the decentering of the human subject, and the longstanding focus upon identity, in favour of exploring material relationalities. While the discipline may congratulate itself for finally finding a way out of the twin traps of Enlightenment dualism and the humanism which underpins neoliberal geopolitics, it runs the risk of becoming even less relevant to society at large at a time when global conflicts are widely understood through the lens of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Zipkin. Stanley Ambrose. Gideon Bartov. Alexander Taylor. Mercy Gakii.

Ochre occurs in African archaeological sites from the later Middle Pleistocene to the ethnographic present. Ochre is used worldwide for symbolic and functional purposes, and is often considered to be evidence for symbolic behavior by cognitively modern Paleolithic humans. Geochemical provenience analysis, complemented by ethnographic studies of ochre source exploitation, transport, and use, can elucidate whether culturally mediated source exploitation differs significantly from a least-cost...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Grace Lloyd Bascopé.

Using a household ecology model, this longitudinal comparison of the flora and fauna of village yards attempts to show how and why solares and their contents have evolved over the last two and one-half decades. Particular emphasis is placed on showing how such changes might be detected in and impact current and future archaeological explorations of Maya farming communities. Changes in water usage, economic activities, family structure and social organization, religious beliefs, evolving house...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroline Arbuckle MacLeod.

Many of the initial approaches to understanding ancient cultures were centered on ethnographic observations. These early studies tended towards overly simplistic arguments that often either overtly or inadvertently supported social Darwinism. Recent applications of ethnoarchaeology have also been accused of falling into similar pitfalls. While the critics are right to highlight the limitations of this approach, scholars can avoid making dangerous assumptions by working alongside the societies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Russell Greaves. Karen Kramer. Christopher Dore.

Ethnoarchaeological investigations in the Yucatec Maya community of Xculoc recently included inventorying the location and uses of a range of small-large water sources. This karst landscape has no surface rivers, ponds, or lakes. Currently, the community uses a deep well at the former hacienda in this location. However, at least 60 years ago most families that coalesced into this village were distributed in relation to smaller reliable water sources near the current community location. Field...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christine Beaule. John Douglass.

Ethnogenesis and cultural persistence are dynamic and variable processes of identity creation, manipulation, and co-constitution, which also include the persistence, reinforcement, and reconstitution of elements of cultural and ethnic identities. Our focus is not simply on indigenous groups or colonists, but rather on the larger context of agents within multi-cultural, pluralistic colonies. The colonies established by the Spanish throughout the Americas, the Caribbean, Pacific, Southeast Asia...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Burrell.

This paper contributes contemporary ethnological perspectives and a case study on debt, moral economies, financial citizenship and human rights to a conversation among and between archeologists considering these perspectives in Mesoamerica.

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Matthews.

As the organizers of this session argue, understanding the ethics of engagement in archaeology is maturing rapidly and we are reaching the point where our community engagements are no longer self-evident. Rather we increasing understand that they need interrogation and critique, and this needs to be an embedded part of our routines. This paper will argue that knowing the nature of our engagements requires a deep ethnographic reading of the contexts of our research and the multiple roles it plays...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Brunswig. Pawel Valde-Nowak. Michael Kimball.

Significant advancements have been made in mountain archaeology throughout the world in recent decades. A central and rapidly expanding research theme has been that of seasonal transhumance, movement of human groups between lower to higher mountain-foothills-piedmont environmental zones in order exploit annual economic resource variability. Emerging European mountain records suggest human transhumance, based in seasonal variability of both economic plants, migratory game species, and, much...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rodrigo Areche.

El impacto de la expansión Inca a lo largo de los Andes Centrales ha sido documentado y conceptualizado de diferentes maneras. Ciertas elites de los grupos culturales locales inmersos en este proceso tuvieron un escenario beneficioso que permitió una reformulación en las relaciones políticas y económicas en diferentes grados y escalas. Presentaremos el caso de Cerro Azul o también conocido como la gran fortaleza del Huarco en el valle de Cañete de la Costa Centro Sur de Perú. Este sitio es...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Elston. Gloria Brown. Ryan Bradshaw. Martijn Kuypers. David Zeanah.

Current views of the Prearchaic draw heavily from investigations of sites near pluvial lakes in the eastern and western Great Basin. The record from the Central Great Basin remains impoverished, largely due to the limited number of stratified archaeological sites containing well preserved material suitable for faunal analysis and radiocarbon dating. Recent investigations of an open-air site (26La4434) along the northern shore of Pleistocene Lake Gilbert in Grass Valley, revealed a buried deposit...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kat Loftis. Alexander Cherkinsky. Robert Speakman.

The presence of exogenous organic carbon is a major concern when radiocarbon dating bone. In particular, the analysis of bone that has undergone diagenesis can be frustrating because the process of humification may potentially introduce contaminant organic carbon. Diagenesis occurs during burial and results from a combination of two distinct processes: (1) reactions involving indigenous organic carbon, (2) the complexation of collagen with soil humic substances. The radiocarbon measurement of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Green.

Throughout the past several millennia South Florida has been subject to profound environmental changes. As such, by examining paleoenvironmental change on seasonal and climatic scales, we can further understand this unique environment and infer how it has shaped human and animal histories of the past. This work will be carried out by employing broad spectrum ecological theories which shall provide the necessary framework to understand past resource scheduling, seasonal mobility patterns, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fumie Iizuka. Masami Izuho. Mark Aldenderfer.

Archaeologists suggest that during the transitions between the Pleistocene and the Holocene, drastic changes occurred in the lifeways of humanity. They are termed the "Neolithization processes." Changes include the advent of food production and sedentism, and the adoption of pottery and ground stones. However, case studies around the world suggest that the timings, order, and nature of the occurrence vary. More case studies are required to better understand the "Neolithization." In this study,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sheila Nightingale. Jessica C. Thompson. Jacob Davis. Flora Schilt. Jeong-Heon Choi.

Abundant surface scatters of Middle Stone Age artifacts are found throughout northern Malawi, eroding from remnant alluvial fan deposits (Chitimwe Beds). Surface surveys documenting these areas have guided the emplacement of 50+ archaeological test pits and excavations, many of which have yielded in situ MSA sites. However, the surficial evidence itself has been subject to less discussion and merits closer attention. At the Bruce site, surface artifacts were identified as part of an assemblage...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Edwards.

Using palynological data, this project attempts to contextualize the ecological impacts of Spanish settlement and land-use practices at LA 20,000 within a broader discussion of the long-term environmental history of La Cienega, New Mexico. This is essential because La Cienega has a deep and complicated settlement history that includes Puebloan, Spanish, and Anglo-American occupations. As a result, the ecological relationships created during initial colonial settlement must be considered in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Simon Paquin. Ariane Burke.

Paleoenvironmental reconstruction is an important tool for evaluating and understanding interactions between human populations and their environment during Prehistory. The downscaled global paleoclimatic models produced by the multidisciplinary efforts of the Hominins Dispersal Research Group allow for a fine-scale examination of climatic conditions in Paleolithic Europe. These models enable a spatial accuracy of 15 x 15 km and the consideration of inter-annual variability for different climatic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily McCuistion.

The Lower Pecos Canyonlands archaeological region in southwest Texas and northern Mexico at the eastern limit of the Chihuahuan Desert is best known for the excellent organic preservation and polychrome pictographs found in dry limestone rockshelters. Radiocarbon dates from the Lower Pecos Canyonlands (LPC) can be used to address broad research questions pertaining to economic strategies (e.g., earth oven plant baking and bison hunting), and settlement patterns, as well as narrower topics such...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kenneth Feder.

When John Elwell died in the late nineteenth century, newspapers characterized him as the "last of the Lighthouse tribe." When Sol Webster died in 1900, newspapers said he was the "last of the Lighthouse tribe." Before Mary Matilda Elwell died in 1928, she called herself the "last of the Lighthouse tribe." In fact, however, hundreds of descendants of the founding couple, the Narragansett Indian James Chaugham and his white wife Molly Barber, survive and, as historian Lewis Mills phrased it, have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle Macdonald. Lisa Maher.

Artistic objects are thought to be one of the hallmarks of the Natufian period, marking a florescence of artistic behavior appearing prior to the origins of agriculture. However, with continuing research into Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic sites in the Levant, new discoveries of ‘symbolic’ artifacts are increasing our understanding of even earlier artistic and symbolic pursuits. In this paper we present an engraved plaquette from the Middle Epipalaeolithic context of Kharaneh IV, eastern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Madeleine McLeester.

Wild plant collection is often a key component of food production. Yet, despite its dietary import, collection practices remain under-researched and "wild" plants are typically relegated to the margins of our archaeological analyses. Drawing on historical medicinal records, I discuss the practices surrounding the collection of medicinal plants and these plants’ intricate entanglements in food production systems. In this presentation, I use the early 20th century ethnobotanical works of Huron...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Ventresca Miller.

Ancient animal management strategies have important implications for debates on modern pastoral landscape use in Eurasia. As livestock production intensifies in in semi-arid regions there is a need to identify the diverse set of strategies employed by pastoralists. Sequential carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope analysis of teeth from domesticated sheep at Bronze Age sites in Kazakhstan exhibit varied isotopic sequences. Sheep from Kent exhibit an inverse relationship where low δ18O values...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julie Field. Christopher Roos. Rebecca Hazard.

Investigations at the site of Qaraqara have sought to determine the antiquity of forest clearance and food production in Fiji. Located over 25 km inland from the coast, archaeological excavation has indicated that the site was used for habitation and cultivation, producing a ceramic-rich deposit that extends to a depth of 250 cm. Geoarchaeological analyses of sediment cores from Qaraqara reached 500 cmbs, and document the formation of stable soils by 3000 BP, during the Lapita period. Plant...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Kinsman. David Asher.

No firm evidence has existed that the ancient Maya civilization recorded specific occurrences of meteor showers or oubursts in the corpus of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. In fact, there has been no evidence of any pre-hispanic civilization in the Western Hemisphere recording any observations of any meteor showers on any specific dates. The authors numerically integrated meteoroid-sized particles released by Comet Halley as early as 1404 BC to identify years within the Maya Classic Period, AD...

DOCUMENT Citation Only S. Maezumi. Jose Iriarte. Diana Alves. Mark Robinson. Denise Schaan.

The scale of pre-Columbian impact on Amazonia is one of the most debated topics in archaeology and paleoecology. To address this issue, an interdisciplinary approach combining archaeological soil profiles and lake sediment cores from the lower Tapajos are used to investigate climate-human-ecosystem interactions over the past 8,000 years. Pollen and phytolith data indicate the presence of polyculture crops including Ipomea, Manihot, Zea mays, and Cucurbita. The presence of Theobroma,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle Moretti-Langholtz. Buck Woodard.

The 1693 Charter establishing the College of William & Mary in Virginia, includes a mandate to educate the "Western Indians." After securing funding for the Indian school from the estate of the scientist Robert Boyle, a magnificent Georgian-style structure was built to house the "Indian boys." The received history about this endeavor maintains that the Indian school at William & Mary was unsuccessful. Documentary evidence from both sides of the Atlantic, as well as archaeological evidence,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erle Ellis.

Why did humans, unlike any other multicellular species in the history of the Earth, gain the capacity to shift Earth into a new epoch of geologic time, the Anthropocene? Here, a general causal theory, sociocultural niche construction, is presented to explain long-term changes in Earth’s ecology driven by societal dynamics across human generational time through sociocultural evolution of subsistence regimes based on cooperative ecosystem engineering, social specialization, non-kin exchange and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Schmader.

Evolution in domestic architecture, settlement patterns, and subsistence technology can be revealed by long-term stability followed by rapid change. Research in the middle Rio Grande valley of New Mexico documents a 4,000-year long record from 3000 BC to AD 900. Archaic period structures, dated 3000 BC to about AD 250, display little change in form, size, and construction details. Settlement pattern changes appear with the first midden deposits and increased numbers of dwellings with associated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann Eberwein.

The lake dwelling sites of circum-Alpine Europe were discovered by the archaeological community in the mid-19th century and their artifacts were dispersed to museum collections in the United States and Europe. The Milwaukee Public Museum houses one such collection, which includes zoological material, textile fragments, tools, and carbonized botanicals and food. This paper focuses on the collection of plants and food, which come from Robenhausen, a lake-dwelling site south of Zurich. In studying...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jenny Engleman.

The purpose of this project is to identify patterns in Ancestral Puebloan food storage across the northern Southwest between AD 950 and 1300. Using legacy data from the Grand Canyon, I examine characteristics of food storage in canyon environments and then compare the results to southeastern Utah. To combat harsh environmental conditions and secure reliable resources, ancient people stored food in sealed masonry structures, or granaries, protected in alcoves high on canyon walls. These...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Robert Bischoff.

This paper evaluates the role that San Juan Red Ware played in social interaction. San Juan Red Ware was widely distributed throughout the Four Corners region between ca. A.D. 750 and 1100. Prior research has identified this ware as a marker of identity and established an association with communal feasting. A study of the distribution of this ware indicates that it was traded through specific social networks, which changed through time. While ceramics may profitably be used as stand-ins for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Hernandez. Joel W. Palka.

Our study examines the interplay of the environment, topography, conflict, and social change. Recent research stresses the role of environmental and ecological fluctuations in the Classic Maya collapse (AD 700-1000). Scholars have linked drought cycles and changing climate to increased warfare and culture change at the end of the Classic Period (AD 200-900). However, numerous studies highlight that not all places in the Maya area collapsed, some communities grew and continued to be places of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffany Lindley.

In this paper I will discuss recent archaeological investigations at the Floodplain North settlement cluster, located within the Rancho San Lorenzo Survey Area in Belize’s Mopan River valley. My research investigates the adaptive responses of non-elite Maya to Terminal Classic (AD 780-900) socioeconomic and political transformations. Preliminary analysis indicates occupation continued at Floodplain North after the Terminal Classic collapse and the abandonment of nearby settlements. Materials...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Abo.

Archaeologists widely argue that Fremont potters from the Parowan Valley, in southwestern Utah, manufactured Snake Valley pottery. I explore the distribution of Fremont Snake Valley Black-on-gray pottery using chemical analyses, metric data, and statistical methods. In my research, I compare neutron activation analysis data from Snake Valley Black-on-gray (SVBG) sherds found at archaeological sites within the Parowan Valley to SVBG sherds found at Fremont sites over 200 kilometers to the north....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lucas Martindale Johnson. Daron Duke. Jennifer DeGraffenried. Bruce Kaiser.

Collaborating with multiple XRF instruments enables larger than normal datasets to be analyzed in a short period. The portability of instruments is important to analysts working together in one location as groups of specimens can be analyzed simultaneously. However, certain protocols must be followed so there are no discrepancies among instruments. We present our project’s methodological controls, such as shared source library and calibration, and preliminary results. The study consists of over...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ron Adams.

Expansive outcrops of high-quality cryptocrystalline silicate toolstone occur in many localities within the Columbia Plateau region of North America. Archaeological evidence indicates that these locations were utilized extensively by pre-contact Native American groups. The geological processes that shaped these landforms and produced outcropping lithic material also created ideal conditions for the growth plant food resources, particularly root crops. These root crops thrive on the lithosols...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Redmond.

Much past research on the development of Archaic ideological complexity in eastern North America has focused primarily on ritualism and ceremony related to mortuary behaviors. Less attention has been given to ritualism within what is commonly thought of as domestic contexts and without overt mortuary ceremonialism or monumental architecture. The recent discovery of puddled clay architecture (floors) and associated features at the Burrell Orchard site (33LN15) in northeast Ohio provides new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mario Zimmermann.

The Puuc mountains in the northwestern Maya lowlands have proven themselves to be double-faced in regard to pre-Columbian human settlement. On one side, the valleys exhibit the region's most fertile soils. On the other hand, rainfall is scarce and access to the underground water table is comparatively difficult. Nonetheless, authors such as Smyth (1991) have long suggested that the Puuc represented some of the bread-basket for the wider northwestern lowlands. As part of a broader study, in this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Ramsay. Noah Haber.

Studies concerning the size of agricultural hinterlands in antiquity have generally been conducted on sites with favorable climates and have become the standard comparative tool. However, little has been examined relating to the size of a settlements hinterland in arid environments even when excellent archaeological evidence for extensive agricultural production, as can be seen in southern Jordan and Israel during the Roman and Byzantine periods. Likewise, a disproportionate focus has been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Seth Quintus. Jennifer Huebert. Kyungsoo Yoo.

Historical sequences of agricultural change are influenced by several key factors. While much attention has been paid to the political context of agricultural production, as well as environmental changes brought about by certain techniques, less has been paid to the active manipulation of productive environments by non-human animals. Within the context of some recent theoretical advances in archaeology and ecology, it has become apparent that animals - intentionally or unintentionally introduced...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa LeCount.

Here, I summarize the major research questions and results from the Actuncan Archaeological Project, which has been on-going since 2001. The project was initially designed to examine the ways Preclassic Maya leaders institutionalized political authority from the perspective of household archaeology, but has expanded to include excavation of civic architecture and remote sensing in open spaces. My research is informed by collective action theory, and the degree to which leaders engaged in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin Walker. David Anderson.

The Late Woodland to Early Mississippian transition within the Atlantic Coastal Plain is characterized by widespread and dynamic changes from more dispersed and politically decentralized organizational practices into highly centralized, stratified, and complex sociopolitical organization. This period also experiences changes in both hunting technologies and horticultural food production. The timing of the linkages among these developments are not well established locally, something that this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chris Urwin.

Orokolo Bay is a rapidly changing geomorphic and cultural landscape in which the ancestral past is constantly being interpreted and negotiated. This paper examines the importance of subsurface archaeological and geomorphological features for the various communities of Orokolo Bay as they maintain and re-construct cosmological and migration narratives. Everyday activities of gardening and digging at antecedent village locations bring Orokolo Bay locals into regular engagement with buried ceramics...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ernesto Arredondo.

The archaeological site of El Achiotal is located on the southwestern fringe of the region known as the Mirador Basin. During the Late Preclassic period (300 BC – 250 AD), it participated in mainstream architectonic traditions of the Central Maya Lowlands, exemplified by its main building, Structure 5C-01. With the advent of Early Classic times (ca. 250 AD), changes appeared in the architecture of Structure 5C-01 and at the adjacent Structure 5C-08. These later changes express the political...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Huffman.

Salvage excavations in the 1970s at the famous capital of Great Zimbabwe, southern Africa, uncovered several residential complexes dating to Periods IVb (AD 1300-1450) and IVc (AD 1450-1550). Overall, granaries and middens surrounded closely-spaced houses of commoner families living between the Outer and Inner Perimeter Walls. These high-density concentrations stood in marked contrast to the open spaces typical of elite enclosures. One midden against the Outer Perimeter Wall yielded a copper...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rodrigo Solinis-Casparius. Christopher T. Fisher. Anna Cohen. Juan C. Fernandez Diaz. Jason Bush.

The Mosquitia ecosystem of NE Honduras is a critical region for understanding past patterns of socio-political development and interaction between Mesoamerica and Central America. Caches of ground stone and other objects have long been noted for the region but have never before been systematically examined. Here we report on the recent partial excavation and consolidation of one of these deposits from the newly documented city of the Jaguar, Gracias a Dios, Honduras, constituting a deposit of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chuck Mastran.

An archaeological field investigation, inaugurated by John R. White of Youngstown State University in 2007, ultimately revealed the remains of an antebellum, single tuyere, charcoal iron blast furnace located in Mercer County, Pennsylvania. The facility, originally called the Seth and Hill Furnace, is presently known as the Springfield Furnace by locals. The configuration, constructed generally of heavy ashlar and rubble detritus, is listed historically as utilizing heated air, or 'hot blast'...