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

DOCUMENT Citation Only Geoffrey Taylor.

Knowledge of Wari plant use has progressed significantly with analyses from sites such as Conchopata and Cerro Baul, but there has yet to be any investigation into Wari plant foodways at the capital city of Huari. This paper will investigate the botanical remains from flotation samples recovered throughout the 2017 excavations of Patipampa, a domestic sector of the site occupied during the Middle Horizon (AD 500-1000). For years, it has been assumed that the emergence of the Wari state in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dela Kuma.

In the context of Africa, foodways are usually portrayed very differently than in the archaeology of food literature. Food in West Africa is depicted by its primary historians as shrouded in continuous food insecurities and largely lacking differentiated cuisines. However, recent archaeological and historical research in Atlantic era West African foodways have highlighted the dynamic nature of West African foodways. Despite these advancement, the full processes through which American crops...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Milosz Giersz.

Since the fundamental work of Dorothy Menzel, it has been suggested that a new center of power and prestige arose on the North-Central Coast of Peru during the late Middle Horizon, and that its focal point was probably located in the Huarmey Valley. Unfortunately, this hypothesis has not been empirically confirmed for more than 40 years, due to the lack of strong evidence based on systematic archaeological research. Since 2010 an international team of scholars performs multidisciplinary research...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Payntar. Julia Earle. Camille Weinberg. R. Alan Covey.

The roots of Inca archaeology lie in reports and memoirs of 19th century travel, which culminated in Hiram Bingham’s 1911 Yale Peruvian Expedition. These accounts traced routes that brought international attention to architectural remains of Inca royal estates and religious monuments, providing an early "guide" to would-be travelers and framing the formative years of Inca archaeology. As research proliferated in the past 50 years, some archaeologists have promoted the remains of royal estates as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karimah Kennedy Richardson. Wendy Teeter. Desiree Martinez. Cindi Alvitre.

Members of the Gabrielino/Tongva community always felt that the Ralph Glidden Collection within the Catalina Island museum required a forensic style of investigation. Although they may have been discussing the entire collection, it is definitely applies to the human remains collections. The Catalina Island Museum human remains collection that was recently repatriated had received limited analysis. A few scholars incorporated the collection into larger discussions about the Gabrielino and Chumash...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Guilliam Hurte, Sr.. Gabriel Brown.

One of the unique opportunities given veterans within the Veterans Curation Program (VCP) is professional training in high quality digital artifact photography that far exceeds the quality of photography practiced by most Cultural Resource Management firms. A representative sample consisting of 10% of every collection processed by VCP is photographed by the veteran technicians and subsequently combined with the finalized collection. These digital images are reviewed and a selection is eventually...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Proebsting. Daniel Druckenbrod.

This paper highlights ecological discoveries made during a survey of natural and cultural resources along a new 2.2 mile parkway at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest. Poplar Forest is Thomas Jefferson’s former retreat home and plantation located in Bedford County, Virginia. In addition to locating archaeological sites and mapping aboveground features, 10 forest plots were established within stands of increasing age adjacent to the proposed path of the parkway. By measuring tree diameter,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Britta Spaulding.

In the aftermath of the United States election in 2016, it was claimed that one reason for the outcome was that voters in rural areas were tired of being "forgotten" by the rest of the country. However, this statement is problematic in putting forth a rural-urban dichotomy that may not exist in modern times in the western world, and may have rarely existed in the past in the ways that some assert in popular media. While studying different forms of rural archaeology and landscapes, I have seen...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Brown.

John Rick’s 1987 paper in American Antiquity presented the first systematic overview of theory underlying the "dates as data" approach (i.e., demographic temporal frequency analysis, dTFA), describing the general outline of a data generating process (DGP) linking paleopopulation dynamics to temporal distributions of archaeological materials (temporal frequency distributions, tfds). While research pursued in the dTFA framework has gained momentum over the intervening decades, questions regarding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Yelacic. Charles Frederick. Jon Lohse.

Located in the Highlands of western Guatemala, Chivacabe is a Pleistocene-age bone bed and Archaic-age archaeological site. In 2009 the site was subjected to intensive geoarchaeological investigation with the goals of identifying the relationship between the faunal and archaeological remains through developing an understanding of their context. Three allostratigraphic units were identified: The oldest unit, which contains the bone bed, consists of colluvially reworked tephra bracketed by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lucas Kellett.

This paper examines how Late Intermediate Period or Chanka phase (~AD 1000-1400) communities were formed during a period of overlapping social and environmental risks in the Chanka heartland of Andahuaylas. In particular, the paper considers how aggregated hilltop communities formed and functioned under new social and economic conditions. Recent archaeological research from Andahuaylas suggests that the majority of aggregated Chanka phase ridgetop sites were likely inhabited by neither...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jian Xu.

Recent archaeological discoveries in Guizhou, China have moved some scholars to describe and argue for the material existence of a legendary state, Yelang; roughly contemporary with Chinese powers from the late Eastern Zhou to the early Western Han dynasty. Except for precious objects reserved for high ranking people, traditionally-identified indicators of early urban civilizations are largely absent in Guizhou. If the appearance of luxury objects and their applications in well-regulated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Pool.

Recently Stoner and Pool called for an "Archaeology of Disjuncture" to refocus attention on variation in intra- and interregional interaction, illustrating the approach with the case of the Classic period of the Tuxtla Mountains in southern Veracruz. In this paper I extend application of the disjunctive approach into the Formative Period of the southern Gulf lowlands, focusing primarily on interactions with Central Mexico, and incorporating a Communities of Practice perspective on the formation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Rasmussen.

Fort Halifax Park, located in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, contains archaeological potential for both prehistoric and historic resources alike. The local community is proud of its heritage but lacks the resources and expertise to properly care and manage the property. Future development, which once seemed only a dream for the community, is now a possibility through a joint partnership involving The Friends of Fort Halifax, the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Historic and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Nowak.

Located in Northwest Florida, Lake Jackson is a Fort Walton(Mississippian) period site with seven mounds, borrow pits, wall-trench architecture, and mortuary objects suggesting interregional interaction. This work examines geospatial relations between artifact distributions, known structural remains, and mound alignments in relation to the landscape. New excavation data from previously unexplored areas and digital presentations of associated artifact densities allows for new views of occupation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jose Barragan.

Frontiers are usually spaces of interaction between multiple groups of people navigating through established cultural and political lifeways. The zone of Tumupasa functions as a peripheral site on the margin between the Yungas and the Amazon. This region will form the center of my study area to identify historical and archaeological lines of interaction between highland and lowland groups. I argue that the region of Tumupasa, Bolivia is situated on a natural geographic transit point between the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mallory Matsumoto. Andrew Scherer. Omar Alcover Firpi.

Prior reconnaissance efforts in the Middle Usumacinta River region have identified a series of low walls associated with Tecolote, La Pasadita, and other border sites in the Yaxchilan kingdom. Similar defensive features have also been identified at the Piedras Negras secondary center of La Mar. These walls are interpreted as the foundations for wooden palisades, and served to protect not only immediate communities, but also the kingdom at large. However, this paper presents the first evidence...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Seth Brewington.

Seabird fowling has long played an important role in the traditional domestic economy of the Faroe Islands, a small North Atlantic archipelago. Direct evidence for seabird exploitation in the earliest period of Faroese prehistory has been lacking, however. In this paper, I present new archaeofaunal evidence for substantial and sustained seabird exploitation in the Faroe Islands from the 9th through 13th centuries CE. The data suggest that seabirds represented a significant resource in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Poister. Lilly Buckley Vargas. Holley Moyes.

The most common artifacts found in Maya caves are unslipped and monochrome slipped ceramic sherds. The smashing of ceramic vessels as an element of ritual practice is recorded ethnographically among some twentieth-century Maya groups. Other Maya groups have been documented collecting sherds from domestic middens and depositing them at sacred sites. If caves were venues for the former type of behavior in antiquity, one would expect to find a high percentage of refitting sherds in their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachael Wedemeyer. Arthur Joyce. Jeffery Brzezinski. Sarah Barber.

The Terminal Formative period (150BCE-250CE) in Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico was a time of urbanization and increasing political interaction. The Terminal Formative included the emergence of an urban center at the site of Río Viejo, which may have extended political influence over surrounding communities. During this period, on the coast of Oaxaca, ceramic figurines were a ubiquitous medium for expression and identity in political/cultural exchanges. By comparing ceramic figurines from the site of Rio...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caitlin Holland.

With the introduction of horticultural practices in northwestern Colorado during the Formative era, the ruins of prehistoric masonry granaries represent a storage strategy utilized by the Fremont people to store equipment and maize near their communities. In northwestern Colorado, storage features such as granaries are primarily found in three geographic locations: Dinosaur National Monument, Skull Creek Basin, and the Canyon Pintado Historic District, all of which are located within a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Bryce. Spencer Lambert.

The Utah Valley, with easy access to montane, lacustrine, and riverine resources, is the location of some of the largest known Fremont habitation sites. Two of these sites have recently been excavated resulting in a wealth of new data. While many aspects of Fremont diet have been explored in depth, the role of fishing is often understudied due to poor preservation of fish remains and fishing tools. In this poster we report the analysis of the fish bones and the recovery and analysis of bone and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Judson Finley. Erick Robinson. R. Justin Derose. Elizabeth Hora-Cook.

The Cub Creek Archaeological District in northern Utah’s Dinosaur National Monument was an early center of Fremont maize cultivation and village settlement AD 450-850. Cub Creek lies near the northern limit of maize cultivation in western North America in the foothills of the Uinta Mountain Range. We couple a Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon-dated pithouses and roasting features with a 2,115-year tree-ring reconstruction of August-July precipitation to explore relationships between Fremont...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tim Riley.

The role of maize agriculture among the Fremont has been debated for decades. Archaeologists have organized dietary evidence from these widely dispersed communities, including faunal and floral debris, dental calculus studies,and experimental farming and foraging, to examine farming in the high desert. The Fremont farming/foraging frontier provides a framework to explore agriculture along the margins and the importance of diversified subsistence strategies across a network of rural communities....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Annalisa Bolin.

Engaged archaeology and public anthropology depend on the goodwill, or at least tolerance, of numerous publics. This is frequently understood to mean local communities and nearby residents, but projects can live or die according to the will of groups less often discussed as part of the target public: authority structures such as permitting agencies or even national governments. How do such organizations figure into the "public" of public scholarship? What happens when research is pressured to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carly Ameen. Anna Linderholm. Ellen McManus-Fry. Kate Britton. Keith Dobney.

Dogs are arguably the most significant domestic species in the circumpolar North, in both their universal importance to life-ways and their near-uniqueness as a regional domesticate. The Arctic was the gateway for at least 4 independent waves of migration of dogs into the Americas, beginning as early as ~17,500-13,000 years ago, making this region particularly important for investigating not only the cultural and technological functions of Arctic dogs, but also the impact of successive...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Steve Tomka.

The Spanish colonial advance into Texas during the late 17th century resulted in the establishment of several missions to house members of dozens of indigenous groups and a handful of presidios to protect the missions from raiding bands of Comanches and Apaches. The Padres that were in charge of the missions enforced systematic policies and procedures to affect change in the identity of the resident indigenous nations. The policies and procedures specifically targeted religious believes,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin Berger.

The mid-20th-century market for pre-Columbian antiquities is notoriously opaque. Riddled as this moment in the market is with stories of looting, forgery and deceit, the period between roughly 1950 and 1990 is also the era in which significant parts of today’s best-known museum collections of pre-Columbian art were formed. Because of the practices of art dealers many pieces that once formed part of the same original deposit are now scattered over the globe. Any possible information on the ...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Arthur. Matthew Curtis. Kathryn Arthur. Jay Stock.

Mota Cave located in southwest Ethiopia was found in 2011 in collaboration with local Gamo elders and partially excavated in 2012. The cave has exposed a long sequence of occupation (5295 Cal BP to 305 BP) revealing remarkable technological, subsistence, and cultural changes. We uncovered a burial of a male with the earliest complete ancient genome recovered from the African continent. We have named him Bayira, meaning "first born" in the Gamo language where the cave is located. Bayira begins to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dil Basanti.

This paper looks at how network theory and materiality may challenge progressive evolutionary models of complexity. Archaeologists working on the African continent have long argued against neoevolutionary models of complexity, advocating instead for understandings that promote dynamism and fluidity. However, the spectre of neoevolution still claims the public imagination: bigger still seems to be better even if we agree it really shouldn’t be. This paper aids in complicating these views by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Williams. Richard M. Niquette.

In order to further understand Paleoindian lithic technological organization, we examined blade and haft elements of Clovis, Gainey, and Dalton hafted bifaces. Samples inspected were from across the Midwest, the Southeast, and the Northeast. Due to the rarity of these hafted bifaces, images of individual bifaces were used to take traditional linear measurements on the hafted bifaces in this study. Results indicate key differences in retouch and resharpening patterns throughout the Paleoindian...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francisco Corrales-Ulloa.

I present new data of investigations conducted in two almost unexplored zones on both coasts (Pacific and Caribbean) of the Greater Chiriquí Region. An exploratory survey, and test pit excavations of selected sites in the southern coast of Caribbean Costa Rica, allowed recording materials similar to those found on the Pacific coast. This reaffirms the proposed extension of related groups on both sides of the Talamanca mountain range. I provide comments about the relationships maintained between...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Augusto Oyuela-Caycedo. Florencio Delgado Espinoza.

The effects of earth ovens on societies is a topic that has not been consider much, mainly because the limitation of archaeological findings. Because our research has been mainly concentrated in floodplains environments, we have been successful in recovering a large sample that allows to propose explanations on the variability of them, and the relationship that features have in understanding some basic aspects of the social characteristic of the societies that created them. As a study case, we...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anthony DeLuca.

The Teuchitlán culture is one of many cultures in West Mexico during the Late Formative to Classic periods (300 B.C. – 450/500 AD) that share in the tradition of burying some of their dead in shaft and chamber tombs. The Teuchitlán culture is noteworthy among their contemporaries for the large number of circular ceremonial buildings concentrated around the Tequila volcano and surrounding valleys. Los Guachimontones, located on the southern side of the volcano, is the largest site in the region...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacob Foubert.

Analysis of a faunal assemblage gives us direct evidence of a subsistence base of archaeological occupation. Woodpecker Cave is a Late Woodland rockshelter site used by the University of Iowa as a field school for student education. The site was first excavated by Warren W. Caldwell after his initial surveying in 1956. In the subsequent years since the university first began excavations in 2012 with Jim Enloe as supervisor, students have expanded the excavation area horizontally leading to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rosemary Brother.

There are only a few recognized experts on California Native American basketry and their informed opinions establish the current state of knowledge. It takes years of experience under the guidance of a knowledgeable mentor and examination of hundreds of baskets to develop such expertise. While analysis by the few experts may be quantitative, scientific, and exacting, designation of a basket’s ethnic identification continues to be subjective. In some instances, authors cite little but their own...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Genevieve Everett.

The Paleoindian Period of New Hampshire has been studied extensively, particularly in the White Mountains. Volunteers and avocational archaeologists from the summer field school known as the State Conservation And Rescue Archaeology Program (SCRAP) have excavated several of the known Paleoindian sites in northern New Hampshire. Accessibility to the data recovered by SCRAP is an important aspect of this program, allowing many scholars to complete theses and dissertations using existing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Davide Tanasi. Ilenia Gradante. Stephan Hassam.

Ten years after the seminal research on the digital recording of the monumental complex of The Catacombs of Saint Domitilla at Rome, undertaken by the Österreichische Akademie Der Wissenschaften , the virtualization and the dissemination of 3d models of Late Roman catacombs is still a challenging research topic. While the catacombs of Rome are consistently considered for cutting edge digital archaeology projects, the underground cemeteries of Late Roman Sicily, the second in importance to those...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah P. Sportman.

Recent excavations at the Webb-Deane-Stevens (WDS) museum in Wethersfield, CT, resulted in the discovery of deeply-buried portions of the 17th- and early 18th-century landscapes. The stratified deposits contain a rich assemblage of domestic artifacts, personal items, architectural materials, food remains, and cultural features. The preservation of these deposits is excellent and the faunal assemblages include large and medium mammal bones, as well as small mammals, birds, fish, and eggshell....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eleanora Reber.

Direct detection of resources processed in pottery by means of the chemical analysis of absorbed pottery residues is a valuable technique, but identifying specific resources in pottery residues is tricky and problematic. This is due to issues with resource mixing from multiple uses of pottery, as well as the relative rarity of biomarkers unique to specific resources. Advances in compound-specific isotope analysis permit identification of isotopically distinct resources in residues, such as C4...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Klehm. Adam Barnes. Forrest Follett. Katie Simon.

Expanding trade in gold and ivory in the first millennium linked sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East and Asia through maritime and land-based exchange. This Indian Ocean trade supported the flow of exotic goods and ideas into the interior of southern Africa, where polities developed by the mid-13th century. The African experience has often focused on larger cities and coastal societies, or framed through viewpoints of those beyond the continent. In particular, landscape approaches, especially...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Aland. Kylie Quave.

Archaeological studies of Inca hegemony often focus on the intensity or degree of "Incanization," or assimilation to Inca material culture. These studies particularly rely upon well-preserved and highly visible remains, especially well-fired polychrome ceramics and monumental architecture. While Inca scholars have begun to analyze Inca hegemony in theoretically sophisticated ways that reveal how material culture legitimizes imperial rule, these approaches present several weaknesses: (1) sampling...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Konrad Smiarowski. Christian Madsen. Michael Nielsen.

This presentation is one of the products of a series of ongoing inter-connected, international, interdisciplinary fieldwork projects coordinated by the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) research cooperative since 2005 in Greenland. The projects drew upon more than a century of prior field research, where four generations of archaeologists described and assessed organic preservation conditions at their sites in several regions of the Norse Eastern Settlement. This created a unique...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jess Beck. Colin Quinn. Horia Ciugudean.

The Apuseni Mountains of southwest Transylvania, Romania, are amongst the richest gold and copper procurement zones in the world. Metals from this region helped fuel the rise of inequality across Europe during Late Prehistory, and the area is also home to a rich mortuary record, with archaeological survey identifying over one hundred mounded tomb cemeteries belonging to Bronze Age communities. However, none of these cemeteries have been fully excavated and only a small sample of skeletons has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michelle Young.

This paper investigates the role of interregional interaction in the development of social complexity in the Central Andes during the Late Initial (c.1100-800 BC) and Early Horizon (c.800-200 BC) periods at the archaeological site of Atalla, a regional ceremonial center located in highlands of Huancavelica, Peru. Methodologically, this research integrates radiocarbon dating with stylistic, technical, and geochemical analyses of a range of materials to examine exchange and interaction on multiple...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Somerville.

Studies of human-animal relationships provide insights into multiple issues relevant to archaeological research, including changes in human-environmental interactions, subsistence strategies, and socio-cultural dynamics. This presentation investigates the relationship between humans and rabbits (cottontails and jackrabbits), which were among the most commonly consumed animals in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. Focusing primarily on the settlement of Teotihuacan in the Basin of Mexico during the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Greg Hendryx. Joost Morsink. Charlotte Pevny.

Excavation was performed on the periphery of a substantial Pliocene-age deposit of Citronelle gravel in southwest Mississippi, 20 miles north of the Gulf Coast. This gravel deposit, which covered hundreds of acres, represents the southern-most exposure in the region. Historic Citronelle mining throughout the twentieth century has extirpated the signature of primary lithic reduction deposits; however, a discrete loci of cultural material spanning two millennia remains intact, and buried beneath...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jocelyne Ponce. Erin Patterson. Clarissa Cagnato.

Archaeological and epigraphic evidence from the Coronitas Group at La Corona, Guatemala provides an opportunity to examine responses to changing sociopolitical conditions among the Classic Maya (AD 250-900). Architectural and material evidence suggests that the Coronitas Group was a locus of ritual and ceremonial activities by the royal court throughout the Classic period. Burials of important individuals and other ceremonial activities imply that it was a place of significant ancestral ties. At...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jane Webster.

My title is borrowed from a groundbreaking volume of papers published in 1997. Eltis and Richardson's Routes to Slavery: Direction, Ethnicity and Mortality in the Transatlantic Slave Trade marked the first flowering of a hugely ambitious project to synthesize archival data on known Transatlantic slave trading voyages from ca. 1500-1900. The resultant database is now widely used by archaeologists in both Africa and the Americas. But there were many other routes to slavery in different times and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Banghart.

Salvage excavations conducted in the 1970s at the Red, White, and Blue Beach site (CA-SCR-35), located in northern Santa Cruz County on the central California coast on Monterey Bay, recovered a large and diverse vertebrate faunal assemblage with a well-defined Middle Period (2800–900 cal BP) component. Few faunal assemblages from this area of the Central Coast have been thoroughly analyzed and little is known about resource selection and processing during this time. I use archaeofaunal data from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Pratt.

In many ways, volcanic eruptions define the pre-Columbian history of highland Ecuador: the shaping of the landscape, migration patterns, mythology, and ideology. Ecuador is one of the most volcanically active countries on earth, and it’s impossible to examine the archaeology without considering both the direct and indirect impacts of volcanic eruptions. Through millennia, the imposing presence of the volcanos on the northern Ecuadorian landscape inspired fear and veneration, with the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Watling. Myrtle Shock. Martín Torres Castro. Eduardo Góes Neves.

The Teotônio site, situated on the right bank of the Madeira river near Porto Velho, Rondônia, is a key location for understanding the deep history of human-environment interactions and landscape management in southwest Amazonia. Its archaeological record stretches back to the early-mid Holocene and includes vestiges of 6,000-year old Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE) belonging to the Massangana Phase, hypothesised as marking the beginning of widespread landscape transformations in the Upper Madeira...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Libbon. Karen Reed. Aidan McCarty. Erica Birkner. Seth Mitchell.

Northern Ohio is the intersection of several physiographic zones and drainage sub basins. Where the eastern edge of the dissected Allegheny plateau meets the broad till and Lake Plains of western Ohio, the difference in the landscape is apparent. Between 2015 and 2017, SWCA, worked to complete a 217-mile survey across Northern Ohio for a large natural gas pipeline project. The project investigated almost 10,000 acres, and recorded close to 500 archaeological resources. The dataset generated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heath Bentley. Norbert Stanchly. James Garber.

Historic literature frequently mentions the exploitation of sea turtles throughout the Caribbean by indigenous populations and early settlers alike. Large and abundant, these animals provided a readily accessible protein source for European and African populations as they traveled. A review of documents held by the Belize Archives and Records Service reveals that sea turtle capture and sale was once a large contributor to Belize’s coastal economy. Commonly called "turtlers", 25% of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Hernandez Garavito.

Andean archaeology consistently uses the Spanish colonial written record as a guide in interpreting the characteristics of the different societies that fell under the Inka rule. However, a growing body of scholarship on the material culture of such incorporated societies shows that the nature of their relationship with the Empire was variable, and that Inka control was not territorially continuous. One key strategy through which the Inka incorporated these groups was the entangling and capture...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra Covert.

This research focuses on the prehistoric shell artifacts recovered from excavations at Wupatki Pueblo. The shell artifacts from Wupatki Pueblo were analyzed in order to accurately determine the genus and species, artifact types, trade routes, and uses of shell. By looking at manufacturing techniques, this research determined if shell artifacts were traded or brought to Wupatki Pueblo as finished products by the Hohokam or if shell manufacturing occurred at Wupatki Pueblo. To determine the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Mullins.

Physical landscapes shape, and are shaped by, human activity throughout prehistory, creating a palimpsest of anthropogenic and natural landscape features that archaeologists wrestle with to understand past human behavior. Located between the Andean highlands and the arid coastline, the Upper Moche Valley chaupiyunga no doubt would represent a geological and ecological frontier in the absence of human occupation. However, over two millennia of human activity are inscribed upon this landscape and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chelsey Geralda Armstrong. Christina Sam-Stanley.

The historical ecology of Dałk Gyilakyaw, the ancestral village of the Gitsm’geelm Tsimshian, is a community-based research program that focuses on connecting the past to the present using a heterarchy of ethnographic, ethnobiological, and archaeological methods that are organized from Tsimshian Adawx, worldviews, and community objectives. Traditional resource management and environmental wisdom are explored as a means of investigating the archaeological past in less invasive ways. In this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicolas Bermeo. Michelle Elliott. Nicolas Goepfert. Belkys Gutiérrez.

The Sechura desert located on the extreme northern coast of Peru is one of the most arid places on the planet. Nonetheless, human settlements have been recorded from 5000 BC up to the 15th century. Recent archaeological excavations have been carried out at the site of Bayovar-01 (occupied from the 5th to 8th centuries AD). The new data provide insight into the activities and adaptations of the desert’s ancient inhabitants. The presence of two small structures, a large activity area containing a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith S. Chesson. Isaac Ullah. Nicholas Ames. Hamish Forbes. Paula Kay Lazrus.

In the early 1800s wealthy landowners acquired lands in the San Pasquale Valley, located 50 km from the provincial capital of Reggio Calabria in southern Calabria, Italy. Internal migration of farmworkers to establish commercial bergamot, olive, grape, and mulberry orchards in this valley created a large and thriving community of farmworker families who built the landowners’ villas, the overseers’ and farmworkers’ houses, and the farming infrastructure of wells, cisterns, aqueducts, mills,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Keith Eppich.

Why study ceramics at all? What is the point of analyzing hundreds and thousands of small, broken pieces of pottery? This paper explores these, and other questions, within the context of Classic Maya civilization. Too often, it seems, ceramic analysis is used as a loose chronological framework, used solely to construct broad frameworks of relative dating. These frameworks are then applied to archaeological assemblages, placing them within chronologically bounded "ceramic complexes" and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Haley Messer.

What purpose did Woodland period shell rings along the Gulf Coast of Florida hold? These unique architectural features have been explained as specific patterns of trash disposal, protection against flooding events, and as barriers from intruders, among other things, but no answers have stood to truly explain their proliferation and significance during the Woodland period. Recent excavations in 2015 by Dr. Mike Russo (National Park Service) and in 2016 by Dr. Tanya Peres (Florida State...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alba López López. Ricardo Higelin Ponce de León.

Mesoamerican architecture is characterized by its variety of forms, constructive techniques and functions through time. This can be seen in the Formative pre-urban settlement at Etlatongo, Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, which was occupied from the Early Formative to the Postclassic period, where among the architectural configurations, we can find structures associated to different human activities. From all burials founded in public spaces at Etlatongo, we observed that no burial has funerary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Randolph Donahue. Antony Dickson. Ann Clark. Fraser Brown.

We present the results of an integrated study of lithic microwear analysis and lithic sourcing at the large Mesolithic site of Stainton West. Microwear analysis helped to understand why the site was so large and how the occupants supported themselves while at the site. Microwear analysis of 700 artifacts led to 49% identification of use. There is much diversity in tool use: hide working, butchery (meat/fish), impact, antler/bone working, wood working, and plant working. Various patterns were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kent Lightfoot.

Lynne Goldstein has been on the front lines in developing innovative field programs for the study of diverse places in North America.This paper examines her influence on archaeological investigations undertaken at the Russian colony of Ross in northern California. A significant trend in the study of sites on public lands is the shift from broad-scale, high-impact excavations to low-impact field practices. The paper outlines her legacy in the development of coordinated research programs that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jorge Freire.

Cascais Municipality has developed a comprehensive program management and valorisation of Underwater Cultural Heritage. Based on Maritime Cultural landscape epistemology it aims to enable a novel approach to integrated management with a dual goal of knowledge and enjoyment. Within methodological lines of this program have grown the actions related to education. From the theory of actor network – has been introduced the theme in the local community, allowing for public enjoyment in situ but,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan Wales. Kristen Gremillion. Bruce D. Smith. Melis Akman. Benjamin K. Blackman.

Ancient DNA (aDNA) methodologies have rapidly developed over the past three decades, and today these tools provide a powerful means to investigate a wide range of archaeological inquiries, including human evolution, animal and plant domestication, and paleoenvironmental reconstructions. In this talk, I will summarize general approaches in paleogenomics research, focusing on concerns and questions from archaeologists. To demonstrate how state-of-the-art paleogenomic techniques can contribute to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Curran Fitzgerald. Cyrus Banikazemi. Donna Nash.

The consolidation of Wari imperial power in the Osmore Valley was predicated on the perceived legitimacy of a common ritual ideology that situated elites and their subjects within an ordered cosmos. Recent archaeoastronomical surveys of the administrative and ceremonial citadel on Cerro Baúl and elite contexts on neighboring Cerro Mejía have identified alignments of ceremonial architecture with recurrent astronomical phenomena at both sites, suggesting that observation of the heavens reinforced...

DOCUMENT Citation Only S. Andrew Wise.

Ceramic discoidals represent a commonplace but often overlooked artifact found at many Mississippian sites. Generally, these important cultural objects are classified by archaeologists as gaming pieces. This assumption is based on European descriptions of Native American games. However, uncertainty remains regarding the function and significance of this class of artifact with no conclusive evidence that discoidals were used exclusively for games. Additionally, comparing ceramic discoidals with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susannah Johnson. Karen Schollmeyer.

Tabular pieces of worked bone, commonly referred to as gaming pieces, have been found in archaeological sites throughout North America and the US Southwest. This project focuses on gaming pieces in Southwestern archaeological sites, with an emphasis on the Gila River basin. Data on gaming pieces in this area are compared to the Great Basin and surrounding regions, where much of the current research on these items has been focused. The analysis and comparison of context and other characteristics...

DOCUMENT Citation Only BrieAnna Langlie.

During times of social and political crisis humans’ most basic biological needs still need to be met: they need to eat. This means that during times of war, when state infrastructure breaks down and supply chains are threatened, people often take food security matters into their own hands. During 20th century conflicts, families ensured food security on the home front by building household gardens. Practically, the construction of war gardens resulted in decreased individual reliance on often...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Killion.

Plant cultivation in and around residential locations and at greater distances from settlements are options early cultivators employed, supplemented by wild resources, to meet subsistence needs. The mix of plants, soils and cultivation practices varied by environment, distribution of resources, population density and other factors. This paper examines the role of gardens over the long transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture in tropical lowland environments. Ethnographic data,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Beahm. Jodi Barnes. Elizabeth Horton.

The Arkansas Archeological Survey has been practicing citizen science and developing educational tools for engaging local communities in the study of the past since the 1960s. In this paper, we discuss recent efforts by the Survey to develop educational content specifically aimed at highlighting the history of plant use through time in the southeastern United States. The Survey received grant funds to develop the 5th grade social studies curriculum, Gathering, Gardening, and Agriculture:...

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

The division of labor by sex and gender among small-scale societies is well known, but how differences in gender roles are reflected in variation in human spatial behavior has received considerably less attention. Understanding how and why individuals of different gender use space is critical to the development of middle range theory linking gendered human behavior to its archaeological correlates. Over five field seasons, we have collected data on the spatial distribution of people and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Schach. Jane E. Buikstra.

Chiribaya Alta is a Late Intermediate Period cemetery site located in the Osmore drainage of Southern Peru and is the largest, most elaborate site associated with the Chiribaya polity. Previous univariate mortuary analyses at Chiribaya Alta have identified gendered grave goods, related to roles during life. These analyses, however, assume a binary distinction between males and females by only testing graves with sexed skeletons. Here, we use a multivariate technique, multiple correspondence...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edward Swenson.

Recent investigations at the Late Moche center of Huaca Colorada in the southern Jequetepeque Valleys suggests that gender complementarity constituted an overarching structuring principle that underwrote Late Moche conceptions of ecology, cosmos, political authority, and the power of sacred places. The dualistic layout of the huaca’s ceremonial nucleus resonates with general Andean philosophies that moral order was founded on the balanced if dialectical interdependence of male and female...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melanie Miller. Sabrina Agarwal. Carl Langebaek.

The Muisca inhabited a large territory in Northern South America (within present-day Colombia) and are often presented as a "classic chiefdom society." The roots of these interpretations can be traced back to European historical documents discussing Muisca socio-political life, which emphasized the role of social status and hierarchy within Muisca culture. The Muisca in particular have been held captive by the recordings of historical authors, and social structures observed through a European...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Beth Alpert Nakhai.

In 2014, inspired by the work on gender-based violence in field settings done by anthropologists Clancy, Nelson, Rutherford, and Hinde, I began investigating field safety for archaeologists working in the Middle East and North Africa, the region in which I work. At that time, I was a trustee of the American Schools of Oriental Research – and I chair its Initiative on the Status of Women. I began by quantifying problems (Survey on Field Safety: Middle East, North Africa, and The Mediterranean...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brenna Frasier. James Woollett. Celine Dupont-Herbert. Michael Buckley. Vicki Szabo.

Evidence from Arctic and North Atlantic archaeological sites shows marine mammals were frequently used by Norse settlers in Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Archaeofaunal assemblages often yield a wealth of complete bones, however, species-level identification is not possible for heavily fragmented specimens. Therefore, specific details about marine mammal utilization are often unquantified and marine species identification largely remains unverified. This paper reveals utility of ZooMS...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meradeth Snow. Ana Morales-Arce.

The prehistoric occupants of the Southwestern United States and Mexico have many similarities, including maize agriculture and the Uto-Aztecan language family. A genetic relationship, potentially due to migration between the regions, has been investigated through mitochondrial DNA analysis. However, limited modern and ancient samples, a focus on the hypervariable region of the mitogenome, and limited samples from intermediate regions between the Valley of Mexico and the cultural complexes in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Witt. Laurent Frantz. Greger Larson. Angela Perri. Ripan Malhi.

Several ancient DNA studies have been conducted on dogs in the Americas, yet all have focused on the mitochondrial genome. In this study, we sequenced 79 complete mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) and seven nuclear genomes of ancient dogs from more than twenty archaeological sites, ranging in age from 10,000 to 800 years before present (ybp) to gain insight into the population history of dogs in the Americas. We compared the ancient dogs’ mitogenomes and nuclear genomes to those of modern dogs...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Swogger.

When is a copy not a fake? In 2014, the Carriacou Archaeology Project (University of Oregon; University of London) excavated a unique stone zemi at the Grand Bay site on the island of Carriacou, Grenada. The decision was made to create casts of the zemi in order to facilitate simultaneous display of the object in multiple island museums. It was hoped this would allow both museums to advocate the small island of Carriacou as a site of particular archaeological significance, to stimulate...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Meinekat. Christopher Miller. Kurt Rademaker.

A key question in the settlement of the Americas is how early forager groups adapted to different ecological settings while maintaining social connections. Quebrada Jaguay (QJ-280) on the Pacific Coast and Cuncaicha Rockshelter in the Andean highlands of southern Peru, exhibit very different subsistence adaptations, yet these sites were linked within a common settlement system in the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene. Here, we present the results of multidisciplinary geoarchaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Meltzer.

Vance T. Holliday has played a key role in developing our understanding of the late Pleistocene geological history, climate and environment of North America, especially the Great Plains, and of the context and chronology of Paleoindian sites. The localities he has worked on, and to which much is owed to his interpretation of their geoarchaeological setting and histories, include iconic localities such as the Clovis, Folsom, Midland and Plainview type sites, and especially the Lubbock Lake site,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Terry Ferguson. Andrew Ivester. Christopher Moore.

The Foxwood Farm site (38PN35) is deeply stratified (4.8 m) sedimentary sequence located on the Oolenoy River, near the boundary between the Piedmont and Blue Ridge in Pickens County, South Carolina. The lower most sediments, (4.8 to 3.2 m), consisting of channel gravels, lateral accretion sands, and clays, were deposited during the late Pleistocene prior to 12.6 ka. These sediments exhibit a fining upward sequence from channel gravels and sands, through bar sands, to a cap of clays. The upper...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Cofran. Reed Coil. Gabriel McGuire.

Evidence for the earliest human occupation of Eastern Kazakhstan is poorly known, despite it being part one of the largest countries in the world and flanked along its borders with important paleoanthropological sites in Russia and China. We sought evidence of prehistoric sites by foot and vehicle survey around the Irtysh Basin. At each major point of interest we took photographs geotagged with geographic coordinates, and collected global positioning system (GPS) data. Although much of the area...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Shari Silverman.

Lwalb Old Channel One, a shell midden, spans both sides of an oxbow within the historic Duwamish River floodplain. The oxbow is buried under the streets of the South Park neighborhood, Seattle, Washington. Also called 45KI815, the site’s shell component is light. Therefore, the midden does not mask contemporaneous geomorphological features of the oxbow and surrounding wetland. Visible soil features include the channel; vegetation effects on soil movement; midden migration; possible liquefaction...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gustavo Politis. Cristian Favier Dubois. Pablo Messineo.

While most of the South American archaeological sites with extinct megamammals have produced Late Pleistocene ages (12,000 to 10,000 14C years BP), a few locations in the Pampas region have been dated well into the Early Holocene. Among these, Campo Laborde and La Moderna, two kill/scavenging and processing sites in the border of ancient swamps have provided 11 taxon dates (Megatherium americanum and Doedicurus clavicaudatus) which range between 9730 and 6550 14C years BP. Recent excavations in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Salgán. Gustavo Neme. Sergio Dieguez. Paz Pompei. Adolfo Gil.

During the last twenty years, four primary obsidian sources have been recorded in southern Mendoza province. The archaeological record indicates that all were used from the Holocene until pre-hispanic times, however many obsidian artifacts still are assigned to unknown sources. Recent surveys allowed discovery a new obsidian source called Coche Quemado. It is located in the western margin of the lower basin of the Rio Grande, in the Mendoza Andean piedmont. The obsidian from the source appears...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Roy Jaijel.

The maritime Maya site of Vista Alegre, located in the northeastern part of the Yucatan Peninsula is being investigated with the aim to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the daily life of the past inhabitants, and their interaction with their surrounding environment. Results from a sediment core campaign resolved the character, environmental associations, and ages of underlying sediments. To achieve a continues lateral understanding of the underlying sediments, a seismic survey was...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole George.

The relationship between concave base and Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) projectile points in the Great Basin is not well-understood. They may represent sequential Late Pleistocene technologies, coeval technologies used by different ethnolinguistic populations, or different components within the same toolkits. To explore the latter possibility, I collected geochemical sourcing data for both types of artifacts recovered from three adjacent valleys in southeastern Oregon: (1) Warner Valley; (2)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard E Terry. Jeffrey Blomster. Daniel A. Bair.

Soil and floor samples from the ancient activity areas of Etlatongo were sampled and concentrations of extractable P and chelate extractable heavy metals. The relative concentrations of these elements have been shown to delineate areas of food preparation, consumption, and waste disposal. Increased heavy metal concentrations are indicative of the use of paints and pigments or the working of mineral ores. Low levels of these elements are usually present at sleeping areas and at high traffic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heidi Noneman. Todd VanPool. Christine VanPool.

Geochemical provenance analysis of obsidian is a productive avenue for studying social interaction and lithic raw material procurement strategies in the U.S. Southwest. Here the results of the analysis of 180 obsidian artifacts recovered from 76 Draw, a Medio period (A.D.1200 to 1450) settlement in New Mexico are presented. The combined assemblage reflects local geochemical sources, as well as obsidian from more distant geochemical sources often seen in assemblages associated with the Ancestral...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Cook.

The Elko projectile point series is diagnostic of the early Archaic period throughout the Great Basin. Within the Elko series, two identified subtypes exist: Elko Eared (EE) and Elko Corner-notched (ECN). While morphologically distinct, both subtypes occur within the same chronological and geographic extents. In this study, I gathered a sample of 37 sites throughout the Great Basin with identified EE and/or ECN points, then developed an index representing the proportion of EE to ECN points in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute.

More than 8000 years ago, a variety of crop species began to spread across Eurasia, reaching its edges approximately 4000 years later. The chain of mountains that stretches across Central Asia constituted a geographical obstacle that slowed down the dispersal process. Special high altitude adaptive strategies were required not only by humans, but also by plants due to changes in the length of the growing season, climatic conditions, UV intensity, among other factors. Therefore, the mountain...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Smit.

The study of an event may seem in opposition to the investigation of deep time, yet it is difficult to analyze one temporal scale without invoking the other. This paper examines this paradoxical linkage of events and the longue durée through the case study of a catastrophic event in the Spanish colonial mercury mines of Huancavelica in the Central Andean Highlands. The Marroquín collapse of 1786 claimed hundreds of indigenous lives, and symbolized the late 18th century decline of Spanish...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick McGinley.

Fort Halifax was constructed in Dauphin County, PA, by the British during the French and Indian War as part of a line of fortifications along the Susquehanna River. It was only garrisoned for about a year, from 1756-57, before being abandoned and dismantled by the end of the war. Due to its brief existence, the precise location of the fort has been lost, although the name of the modern town of Halifax perpetuates its connection to the area. Additionally, past historical research regarding...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luis Barba. Jorge Blancas. Agustín Ortíz.

Geophysical techniques used in Plaza de las Columnas Complex, Teotihuacan has been successful to locate the buried remains of foundations, walls and other architectural features. As usual, magnetic gradiente allowed to recognize linear patterns that suggests the wall remains usually made with volcanic stones with mud mortar. Electrical resistance was successful to recognize the presence of floors and verify the previously detected walls. Finally georadar survey verify the location and depth of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amanda Regnier. Scott Hammerstedt. Marc Levine.

During the summer of 2017, the Proyecto Geofísico de Monte Albán (PGMA) carried out a large-scale geophysical survey of the site’s Main Plaza. The survey utilized three instruments, a gradiometer, an electrical resistance meter, and a ground-penetrating radar array and achieved nearly 100 percent coverage of the plaza. Covering more than 35,000 m2, the PGMA represents the most extensive geophysical survey ever carried out in Oaxaca. This paper details the methods of the survey, examines which...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Green. Steven De Vore. Adam Wiewel.

Gast Farm (13LA12), situated on a Mississippi River valley alluvial fan, has been a focus of interdisciplinary study since 1990. Surface collections and excavations documented two Woodland communities and one mound. The Weaver community (Late Woodland, ca. A.D. 400) was determined to have been a circular village with a central plaza, but details of the Havana community (Middle Woodland, ca. A.D. 100) and mound structure were not clear. Aerial imagery seemed to indicate the presence of geometric...