Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Celeste Samec. Hugo Yacobaccio. Patrick Roberts.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The goal of this work is to study llama herding in the Puna Highlands of Atacama during the final period of the Late Holocene (700 years BP to present day), focusing on the link between mobility and climate change. South American camelids are the only large mammals that were domesticated in the Americas and llamas have been an important resource for Andean...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Hixon. Kristina Douglass. Brooke Crowley. Lucien Rakotozafy.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recently expanded estimates for when humans arrived on Madagascar (up to ~10,000 years ago) are based on limited data yet highlight questions on the causes of the island’s relatively late megafaunal extinctions (~2000–500 years ago). Introduced domesticated animals could have contributed to extinctions through competition, but the arrival times and past diets...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Binkley.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Through collaboration with modern populations practicing traditional hunting and foraging approaches in Norwegian coastal landscapes of archaeological significance, I present an ethnoarchaeological analogy for Arctic and subarctic Late Mesolithic coastal exploitation. As part of this analogy, I introduce the Accessibility Zones Model, which delineates the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Schoville. Jayne Wilkins.

This is an abstract from the "From Veld to Coast: Diverse Landscape Use by Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Africa from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent investigations of the southern African Late Pleistocene archaeological record have transformed our understanding of the biocultural evolution of our species. Although the intensity of research on coastal and near-coastal records is greater than in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samuel Burns.

This is an abstract from the "Far West Paleoindian Archaeology: Papers from the Next Generation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cooper’s Ferry (Nipéhe), located in the Lower Salmon River Canyon in western Idaho, is currently the oldest published radiocarbon-dated archaeological site in North America, with dates as early as ~16,000 cal BP. As this site is south of the southernmost extent of the continental ice sheets during the Last Glacial Maximum...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Lenzi. William Bloomer. Zygmunt Osiecki.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent archaeological testing at three sites on the Sierra Army Depot in Honey Lake Valley recovered several Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene artifacts. Obsidian hydration rim measurements on tools and debitage display remarkably thick hydration rinds (~9.0-11.0 microns) and confirm very early occupations. Results of X-ray fluorescence sourcing reveal a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hayden Bassett. Madeleine Gunter Bassett.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Smith River Survey is a two-year archaeological assessment of the Smith River valley in the southern Piedmont of Virginia. This river drainage survey explores the regional settlement patterns, site functions, and subsistence logistics across the alluvial floodplains, foothills, and uplands in the southern part of Virginia's Blue Ridge mountains. While this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Wayman.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Experiments were performed using a scale model animal footstep simulator and similarly scaled lithic LCTs (Long Cutting/Core Tools) to test the hypothesis that the devices were manufactured for the purpose of being deployed in the path of target animals to damage their feet and make them easier to kill and use as a resource (Wayman 2010).

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samuel Arnold. Marcus Key.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Robert Carter began construction of historic Christ Church (Irvington, Virginia) in 1730. Much of the original church still remains to this day, with almost all of the original stone floor pavers still intact. There is a lack of natural stone in the surrounding area and historical documentation suggests that the stone used in Christ Church may have been reused...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Gilmore. Maxwell Benning. Mitchell Cleveland. Chrissina Burke. Megan Laurich.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research identifies where taphonomic effects, specifically cut marks are found on zooarchaeological materials from both the archaeological and experimental contexts. Analysis of such taphonomic effects include identification of similar patterning, placement of those marks between the archaeological record, and experimental research. This allows...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ellen Lofaro. Anne Amati.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As we reflect on the 30th anniversary of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA), practitioners recognize the progress that has been made and acknowledge the vast amount of work left to be done. In order to meet that challenge, we need to increase capacity for NAGPRA implementation, improve overall engagement with ongoing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marco Antonio Espinoza Sánchez. Aracely Yañez Nieto.

This is an abstract from the "Aproximaciones arqueológicas y paleontológicas en Santa Lucía, México" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En el marco del proyecto de salvamento arqueológico del nuevo aeropuerto Santa Lucia, México se han descubierto una gran cantidad de restos paleontológicos del pleistoceno tardío entre los cuales destaca la presencia del mamut columbi. Este descubrimiento nos otorga un nuevo panorama sobre el paleoambiente durante el...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Juan Jijon.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Innovations in Ecuadorian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Currently, precise and high-resolution lidar (light detection and ranging) data is increasingly important for the detection of archaeological settlements. Through this technology it has been possible to detect a series of landscape modifications in the Hojas-Jaboncillo massif that could be of prehispanic origin. During the field verification...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcello Canuto. Luke Auld-Thomas.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Mesoamerican Population History: Demography, Social Complexity, and Change" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2016, the Pacunam Lidar Initiative surveyed 2,100 km2 of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in the Department of Petén, Guatemala. This lidar survey provided an unprecedented scale of settlement data that attest to elevated population levels throughout the southern Maya lowlands, especially for the Late...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marisol Cortes-Rincon. Cady Rutherford. Jason Laugesen. Michael Mcdermott. Spencer Mitchell.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the last decade airborne mapping lidar has become an extremely valuable tool for archaeologists studying ancient settlement patterns. It has proven especially useful in regions covered by dense forests on which prospection with other remote sensing techniques is not possible. This paper contributes to the growing international dialogue regarding the use of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Clayton.

This is an abstract from the "Central Mexico after Teotihuacan: Everyday Life and the (Re)Making of Epiclassic Communities" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Epiclassic period (550–850 CE) in central Mexico is widely viewed by archaeologists as a time of instability, violent conflict, and large-scale migration. The collapse of Teotihuacan left a fractious and decentralized sociopolitical landscape in its wake—a situation that contrasted starkly...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Colleen Zori.

This is an abstract from the "Etruscan Centralization to Medieval Marginalization: Shifts in Settlement and Mortuary Traditions at San Giuliano, Italy" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The medieval period in northern Lazio saw significant restructuring of social and economic relationships through *incastellamento, the process by which people chose or were forced to move onto fortified hilltops. Here, I present results from four seasons of mapping,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Tillison.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This PhD research project investigates rural settlements within early medieval Irish woodcraft (AD 400–1100) to ask the questions: what is craft and what makes a craftsperson during this period? Over the past few decades numerous wooden items have been recovered from this period in Ireland, thus providing an opportunity to gain insight into the crafts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily R. Edmonds. Debra L. Martin.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park have been studied extensively by archaeologists, primarily with respect to understanding living conditions in the region prior to the widespread depopulation in the 13th century. There are far fewer bioarchaeological studies based on the analysis of human remains. This study incorporates data on demography,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Teresa Steele. Alex Mackay. Mareike Stahlschmidt.

This is an abstract from the "From Veld to Coast: Diverse Landscape Use by Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Africa from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Varsche Rivier (VR) 003 is located in the Knersvlakte, the quartz-gravel plains of southern Namaqualand, South Africa. While currently a marginal, low-rainfall region within the Succulent Karoo Biome, conditions were more favorable during the Late Pleistocene....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kate Magargal.

This is an abstract from the "Life Is Risky: Human Behavioral Ecological Approaches to Variable Outcomes " session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There are numerous dynamics of risk associated with acquiring any resource. The risk of investing time unsuccessfully, of incurring too great an opportunity cost, and of dangers to life or limb when venturing forth all come into play. How do these different types of risk trade off and how does a human in need of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua J. Wells. Mackenzie Edmonds. David Anderson. Eric Kansa. Sarah Kansa.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) is a linked open data hub situated to help illuminate theoretical and practical connections between compliance archaeology and broader realms of archaeological science and public knowledge. This poster provides an assessment of prevalence of compliance activity represented in the approximately one million...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Johnson.

This is an abstract from the "Increasing the Accessibility of Ancient DNA within Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. At the time of European contact, a high degree of linguistic diversity characterized Native California, implying a long prehistory of different ethnic groups migrating into the region. Previous research, using mitochondrial DNA samples contributed by living descendants, produced correlations between certain genetic markers...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Goldner.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeoacoustics: Sound, Hearing, and Experience in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper in cognitive archaeology studies how skilled agents use eco-acoustical features of the environment as mnemonic device. Beginning with the question, What do trees know about canoes?, I excavate how ways of knowing can be deeply sedimented in nature by drawing on the ethnography of Algonquin rock art and fieldwork...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pedro Horta. João Cascalheira. Nuno Bicho.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The arrival of modern humans in Iberia is a continuously debated topic, especially when it comes to its southernmost regions due to the evidence of late Neanderthal occupations. In Southwestern Iberia, there is evidence for the presence of both groups in the late Pleistocene. Although the exact moment of replacement is still unclear due to the lack of absolute...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marta Sánchez De La Torre. Xavier Mangado. François-Xavier Le Bourdonnec. Bernard Gratuze. Mathieu Langlais.

This is an abstract from the "Case Studies in Toolstone Provenance: Reliable Ascription from the Ground Up" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Montlleó open-air-site (Prats i Sansor, Catalonia) is located in one of the largest high-attitude valleys in the Pyrenees, the Cerdanya Valley, in SW Europe, at 1,144 masl. The site is in a natural road to cross the Pyrenees in the eastern part. The site, discovered in 1998 and excavated since the 2000 by a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dominik Lukas.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In archaeology data are stored in ways that reflect the strategies of research while conventional data repositories tend to freeze the original databases within their initial storage logic. In contrast, the interpretation of primary evidence changes during a project's lifecycle, and it becomes difficult for later researchers with different research questions,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eva Lemonnier. Julien Hiquet. Julien Sion.

This is an abstract from the "The Urban Question: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Investigating the Ancient Mesoamerican City" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological investigations carried out since 2011 at the site of Naachtun provide series of data useful to draw with sufficient details, the historical trajectory of this Maya Classic regional capital located between Tikal and Calakmul. Starting its development with the construction of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Munson.

This is an abstract from the "People and Space: Defining Communities and Neighborhoods with Social Network Analysis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent studies using network analysis in archaeology seek to understand the interactions and structures that defined past societies. Such approaches are based on graph theoretic models that are simplifications of reality used to conceptualize and describe relationships, either qualitatively or...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Whisenhunt. John Roney. Robert Hard. Lori Barkwill Love. Toni Laumbach.

This is an abstract from the "Research Hot Off the Trowel in the Upper Gila and Mimbres Areas" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Data derived from archaeological survey and local informant knowledge in southeastern Arizona’s York-Duncan Valley provides new insights into regional affiliations and potentially the identity of those living on the far western edge of the Mimbres region. From 2014–2020, University of Texas at San Antonio field school...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Nowak.

This is an abstract from the "Dancing through Iconographic Corpora: A Symposium in Honor of F. Kent Reilly III" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dr. Kent F. Reilly and many of the scholars associated with the Mississippian Iconography Workshop have used ethnography and folklore to support interpretations about ritual and cosmology. This talk discusses how ancient landscapes can, in turn, inform folklore, ritual communication, and iconography....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Breault. Jeffrey P. Blomster. Daniel E. Pierce. Michael D. Glascock.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) conducted on a late Middle Formative ceramic sample recently excavated at Etlatongo, in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, Mexico, demonstrates both local ceramic production and regional interaction with the Valley of Oaxaca. A total of 78 vessel fragments dating to the Yucuita phase (500-300 BCE) were recovered from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Beth Scaffidi. Aleksa Alaica. Luis Manuel Gonzalez La Rosa. Kelly Knudson.

This is an abstract from the "A New Horizon: Reassessing the Andean Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000) and Rethinking the Andean State" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Wari imperial era (ca. AD 600–1000) is known for heightened interregional interaction, evinced by the relative abundance of nonlocal artistic styles throughout the Andes. Wari-era sites generally show greater variability in human 87Sr/86Sr (a marker for nonlocal origins) than other...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michelle Young.

This is an abstract from the "Current Dynamics of Heritage Values in the Americas" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There are millions of rural, Quechua-speaking peoples living today in the modern nation of Peru. However, living populations do not always self-identify as descendants of the ancient communities that archaeologists study. There are complex reasons for this apparent disjuncture between ancient and contemporary peoples, some of which...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Madeleine McLeester. Jesse Casana.

This is an abstract from the "Finding Fields: Locating and Interpreting Ancient Agricultural Landscapes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Wisconsin has the largest number of recorded precolumbian and early historic Indigenous ridged and hilled garden beds in the American Midwest, with over 450 known examples. But, twentieth-century land-use practices have destroyed or obscured more than 90% of these sites. Leveraging a comprehensive database of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander Geurds. Natalia R. Donner.

This is an abstract from the "Postclassic Mesoamerica: The View from the Southern Frontier" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological work on Greater Nicoya modeled perceived Postclassic changes in material culture by invoking foreign incursions and population displacement. At the eastern edges of Greater Nicoya, however, small-scale communities navigated the increasing flow of Mesoamerican cultural features through a social dynamic of active...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jaron Davidson.

This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Trade and Exchange" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research addresses how interregional interaction changed between the Viejo period (AD 700–1200) and Medio period (AD 1200–1450) in northwest Chihuahua, Mexico. Nonlocally procured or created artifacts, features, and iconographic elements are used as proxy evidence for past long-distance relationships. Data available in technical reports and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Hill. Erik Otárola-Castillo. Melissa Torquato.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The 13,000-year-long record of hunting by North American Great Plains populations is often portrayed as an almost exclusive reliance on large-bodied prey, such as bison. This simplified perspective ignores temporal and regional variability in environmental conditions and changes in human-prey dynamics, making exclusive reliance on a single taxon unlikely. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wolfgang Alders.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I discuss the results of an archaeological survey conducted in 2019 in north-central Unguja, Zanzibar. The aim of the survey was to investigate the long-term settlement history of regions that were transformed in the nineteenth century by Omani landowners who developed an agricultural export economy using a labor force of enslaved East Africans....

DOCUMENT Citation Only A. Dudley Gardner.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent excavations in Northwest Colorado indicate that between 1100 BP and 800 BP, some Fremont structures in the area contained elements similar to sites found throughout the upper Colorado Plateau. Adobe rimmed hearths, grass and cedar in roof construction, and rock slab coverings on roofs are evident in Northwest Colorado and elsewhere. The question is,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jamie Aprile.

This is an abstract from the "Etruscan Centralization to Medieval Marginalization: Shifts in Settlement and Mortuary Traditions at San Giuliano, Italy" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Etruscan cemetery around the San Giuliano Plateau has been looted extensively, but salvage excavations of several emptied tombs have yielded results that increase our understanding of the funerary landscape. In the 2018 and 2019 field seasons, two vertically...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rubén Nieto Hernandez. Yoko Sugiura.

This is an abstract from the "Landscapes: Archaeological, Historic, and Ethnographic Perspectives from the New World / Paisajes: Perspectivas arqueológicas, históricas y etnográficas desde el Nuevo Mundo" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El sistema montañoso que divide a la cuenca de México y el valle de Toluca, conocido como la sierra de las Cruces, constituyó, desde tiempos remotos, una región clave por la que ocurrieron desplazamientos...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erik Velásquez García.

This is an abstract from the "New Light on Dzibanché and on the Rise of the Snake Kingdom’s Hegemony in the Maya Lowlands" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Diversos hallazgos arqueológicos en Dzibanché (Kaanu'l) y en otros sitios de las tierras bajas mayas orientales han revelado que el asiento original de los gobernantes de la dinastía Kaanu'l o "Cabeza de Serpiente" se encontraba en el sur del actual estado mexicano de Quintana Roo. En esta...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Des Lauriers. Claudia García-Des Lauriers.

This is an abstract from the "Teotihuacan: Multidisciplinary Research on Mesoamerica's Classic Metropolis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Artistic representations are often the most salient indices of interaction between Teotihuacan and other communities throughout Mesoamerica. Interpretation of this artistic evidence, however, is complicated and often quite contested in the archaeological literature. In this paper, we would like to explore...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Catherine Lara.

This is an abstract from the "Them and Us: Transmission and Cultural Dynamism in the North of Peru between AD 250 and 950: A Vision since the Recent Northern Investigations" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Los pocos datos existentes sobre el origen de los Tallanes provienen esencialmente de la etnohistoria, según la cual este grupo estaba inicialmente asentado en los Andes, desde donde habría migrado hacia la costa norte bajo la presión de grupos...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mari Carmen Serra Puche.

This is an abstract from the "Landscapes: Archaeological, Historic, and Ethnographic Perspectives from the New World / Paisajes: Perspectivas arqueológicas, históricas y etnográficas desde el Nuevo Mundo" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En épocas prehispánicas, las comunidades rodeadas de sierras, sistemas montañosos y, principalmente, por los grandes volcanes de la zona medía de Mesoamérica, poseyeron una estructura ritual íntimamente ligada con...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Holley Moyes. Harriet Beaubien. Erin Ray.

This is an abstract from the "The Subterranean in Mesoamerican Indigenous Culture and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the past 30 years archaeologists have made large strides in understanding the function and meaning of ancient Maya ritual caves sites. Ethnographic analyses have made major contributions to interpretive efforts and advanced the field in innumerable ways. Throughout Mesoamerica, there have been many long-term sustained...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jenna Slatowski. Lori Lee.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fort Mose was the first free black settlement in the United States, built in Spanish territory on land previously occupied by the Eastern Timucuan. This paper explores the ceramics of Fort Mose and delves into the chronology of site use based on ceramic types. Indigenous ceramics and colonoware provide insight into the presence and cultural interaction of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kari Schleher. Michelle Turner. Benjamin Bellorado. Mariana Lujan Sanders. Genevieve Woodhead.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Within the central Mesa Verde region, the Mancos Black-on-white pottery type is an enduring enigma. Mancos Black-on-white was produced from A.D. 920–1180 and includes a wide range in variation in design and technology. During its production period, nearly identical designs were used across the broader Ancestral Pueblo world. In the Cibola and Kayenta regions,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ana Almeida.

This is an abstract from the "The Iron Age of Northwest Portugal: Leftovers of Behavior" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is generally accepted that Iron Age folk left the sodden lands in the valleys of large rivers and choose to settle on high ground, in locations with natural defenses, but very often near water sources. Agropastoral interests likely were part of the decision, but so were proximity to the mouth of major rivers and to the sea....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Crown. Patrick D. Lyons.

This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the highest concentrations of macaws and parrots in the US Southwest was recovered from four sites in the mountains of east-central Arizona: Grasshopper, Kinishba, Point of Pines, and Turkey Creek Pueblos. This study reexamines the evidence for acquisition, care, and discard of the birds...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Beach. Leila Donn. Cody Shank. Takeshi Inomata. Thomas Garrison.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This project entails creating machine learning models to predict the locations of caves and archaeological features using airborne Lidar (laser scanning) data. The goal of this work is to bridge the gap between machine learning pursued by computer scientists and the types of on-the-ground projects of interest to scientists who seek to improve management and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Darcy Bird. Kyle Bocinsky. Tim Kohler.

This is an abstract from the "People, Climate, and Proxies in Holocene Western North America" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When the environment changes, sedentary people choose whether to stay and invest more in their current adaptive strategy, or abandon their land and residence to go somewhere with greater opportunities. For a well-understood portion of the upland US Southwest we ask: when the maize niche shrinks, do people continue investing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brendan Ermish. Shannon Boomgarden.

This is an abstract from the "Experimental Archaeology in Range Creek Canyon, Utah" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prehistoric maize farming has been well-documented in Range Creek Canyon, Utah. Evidence includes numerous corn cobs, maize storage structures, starch on ground stone tools, and pollen and isotopic evidence from sediment cores. Maize farming experiments in Range Creek suggest dry farming would not have been a sustainable option for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffany Lindley.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Investigations at Floodplain North of the San Lorenzo Survey Area, located in the hinterlands of Xunantunich, examined the political and economic behaviors of a community as the navigated major transformations of the Terminal Classic (780-950 AD) period. While causes of the Maya collapse, the abandonment of large centers, and the changes in elite culture...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Yuqi Xiao.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In both historical texts and modern narratives, the southern frontiers of China throughout the Pre- and Early Imperial era have been oversimplified as a geographical and cultural composite with underdeveloped conditions that have been slowly, but effectively, penetrated by the more civilized, powerful central state. This research aims to break such conceptual...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tiffany Fulkerson. Shannon Tushingham.

This is an abstract from the "Documenting Demographics in Archaeological Publications and Grants" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The recent resurgence of interest in diversity and equity issues in archaeological practice highlights persistent disparities in the demographic composition of practitioners in various aspects of the discipline. Drawing from a database that we generated on the gender and occupational affiliation of 5,010 authors of 2,445...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Asa Cameron. Bukhchuluun Dashzeveg. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer.

This is an abstract from the "New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in Mongolia, communities across the region adopted mobile pastoralism and horse-riding technology. In conjunction with these changes in subsistence and mobility patterns, innovative funerary practices emerged that incorporated monumental construction and new mortuary offerings. Included in these grave...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ronald Faulseit.

This is an abstract from the "Place-Making in Indigenous Mesoamerican Communities Past and Present" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Throughout its prehispanic occupation, Dainzú played a significant ceremonial role in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico. In the Formative period (200 BCE–CE 200), prominent terrain features were intentionally incorporated into the settlement’s design with the intent of making a shared place through ritual practice. For...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara Juengst. Sarah Rowe. Guy Duke.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When Spanish explorers arrived in South America, sea-faring Manteño peoples dominated much of the northern and central Ecuadorian coast. While Manteño sites and technologies are well-documented, particularly at large sites such as Cerro Jaboncillo, many questions about Manteño society and mortuary traditions remain, particularly concerning people who lived on...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Peiqi Zhang. Caleb Chen. Christopher Beckham. Daniel Goring. Meredith Carlson.

This is an abstract from the "Formal Models and Experimental Archaeology of Ground Stone Milling Technology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The shift to mortars and pestles is associated with the acorn-based resource intensification in central California, which is also linked with decreased mobility and changes in social organization. Many long (>35 cm) and completely shaped pestles are associated with Late period California (cal AD 1265–1770)...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Bates. Adam Green. Cameron Petrie. Ravindra Nath Singh. Francesc Conesa.

This is an abstract from the "Materializing Political Ecology: Landscape, Power, and Inequality" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Climate crises are raising questions about how we feed everyone in our highly urbanized modern society. Anthropological research has demonstrated that economic, political, and environmental landscapes are intricately interwoven and intersect with the diverse choices of people across all scales of society. Nowhere is this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stefanie Wai.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While archaeologists in the last decade have made significant advances to the archaeology of Tiwanaku and the surrounding Lake Titicaca Basin in present day Bolivia, much remains unknown about the everyday domestic practices leading up to the rise of the Tiwanaku state. Moreover, few studies globally have attempted to explore the advanced use of GIS analyses...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Crimmel. Yimeng Yan.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient Maya center of El Pilar is a mid-sized settlement nestled on the ecotone dividing the central Peten and Belize river valley. With nearly half of the site consisting of seasonally inundated wetlands, defining the extent and nature of these areas is essential before interpreting El Pilar’s settlement patterns. Remotely sensed lidar and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ariel Texis Muñoz. Tanya Catignani. Nawa Sugiyama. Saburo Sugiyama.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Patlachique Phase (100 BCE–ca.100 CE) is underrepresented in the archaeological record since most sites were probably covered by the Classic Period city of Teotihuacan (200–550 CE). This phase likely represents the beginning of the urbanization process in the Teotihuacan Valley, during a period of exponential growth seen in Central Mexico. We examined the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only George Hambrecht. Nicole Misarti. Arni Daniel Juliosson. Francis Feeley.

This is an abstract from the "Arctic Pasts: Dimensions of Change" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper will discuss a new NSF-funded project, the Central North Atlantic Marine Historical Ecology Project (CAMHEP), as well as provide an overview of the current overall state of marine fish zooarchaeological data from Iceland. CAMHEP will utilize marine zooarchaeological data from Icelandic archaeological sites dating from the first settlement of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Shephard.

This is an abstract from the "Deep History, Colonial Narratives, and Decolonization in the Native Chesapeake" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores the relationship between the human body and the objects that adorned them within the Late Woodland through early colonial (AD 900–1680) Algonquian Chesapeake. Drawing on theories that cite the human body as the battle ground upon which political authority is established, I seek to explore...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Mercedes Martinez Milantchi. Alice Samson. Jago Cooper. Michael Charlton. Carlos Pérez.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following a recent review of excavated materials from the island of Mona (Puerto Rico), this paper examines the transformation of cultural and technological practices brought about by New World encounters. We focus on the affective material conditions that emerge in the 16th century Caribbean by applying a materials science approach to the newly integrated...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ruth Van Dyke.

This is an abstract from the "The Iron Age of Northwest Portugal: Leftovers of Behavior" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I explore the attractant qualities of water, metal, and stone as they have intertwined with human memory-making over three millennia in northwest Iberia. During the Bronze and Iron Ages, the confluence of the Rios Sar and Ulla may have been an important liminal space, as people consigned weapons and other metal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dilpreet Basanti.

This is an abstract from the "Materializing Political Ecology: Landscape, Power, and Inequality" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper looks at how the location of the central stelae field in Aksum (in use from ~AD 100–400) took advantage of natural features to amplify Indigenous ideologies. The Northern Stelae Field is the burial location of the most powerful Aksumites, and tradition dictates that at least some were kings. The stelae field is...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Adam Kaeding. Eleanor Harrison-Buck.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology and the History of Human-Environment Interaction in the Lower Belize River Watershed" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Throughout the colonial period the Mérida-based Spanish administration organized and launched multiple entradas headed south into the Petén. These entradas ranged from relatively small groups of religious missionaries and their envoys, to private armies funded by opportunists seeking a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Callaghan. Brigitte Kovacevich.

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Maya Embedded Economies" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper we argue that the complexity of Maya economic structures and the debates that ensue over their interpretation stem from the fact that manifestations of those economic structures vary so greatly across time and space in the precolumbian Maya world. Maya economies were both dichotomized along elite and commoner lines, while also integrated in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelin Flanagan. Astrid Runggaldier. Samantha M. Krause.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology and the History of Human-Environment Interaction in the Lower Belize River Watershed" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study evaluates a water feature and two associated structures within the Late Terminal/Early Postclassic Maya site of Chulub in the Western Lagoon Wetlands near the island of Crooked Tree, Belize. The term “pocket *bajo” is a term used to describe water features that are similar to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Bruhns.

This is an abstract from the "Postclassic Mesoamerica: The View from the Southern Frontier" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Terminal Classic and Early Postclassic, Mesoamerican cultures underwent not only political turmoil but also a general renaissance in terms of material culture, including urban planning, architectural forms, ceramics (such as Tohil Plumbate), and the growth of truly international cults such as those of Tlaloc and Xipe...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Balco.

This is an abstract from the "Broader Impacts and Teaching: Engaging with Diverse Audiences" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Engaging students, landowners, the public, and policy makers in the scientific process of archaeology is an essential component of our discipline and creates opportunities to impress upon these groups the value of historic preservation. Doing so demonstrates that archaeological and historic resources are limited and fragile,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alberto Ortiz Brito.

This is an abstract from the "Sculpture of the Ancient Mexican Gulf Coast, Part 1" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation addresses the relation between archaeological patrimony and collective memory using the San Martín Pajapan (SMP) monument as a case study. The SMP monument is an Olmec monument found on the top of the San Martín Pajapan volcano of Los Tuxtlas region. According to ethnographic research done in the 1960s, the local...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Massey. Christina Friberg. Quinn Lewis. Edward Herrmann.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Angel Mounds State Historic Site, a Middle Mississippian fortified mound center along the Ohio River, is home to 11 man-made earthworks which make up the largest known archaeological site in Indiana. Angel’s occupation coincides with the regional changes in social organization that characterize Mississippian society. Many archaeologists have discussed mound...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Shaw-Müller. John P. Walden. Qiu Yijia. Anaïs Levin. Julie A. Hoggarth.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although Hirth’s (1998) distributional approach has been recently applied to identifying markets at Classic Maya centers, much research still has yet to be done on the diversity and origins of Classic Maya modes of exchange. This picture is even less clear at small Late Classic (AD 600-900) Maya centers such as Lower Dover, Belize, where evidence for Hirth’s...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kara Larson.

This is an abstract from the "Animal Bones to Human Behavior" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Khirbet Summeily is an Iron Age II site located northwest of Tell el-Hesi in Southern Israel. Excavations have revealed a large, singular structure with an adjoining ritual space dated to the Iron Age IIA (ca. 1000–870 BCE). Recent interpretations suggest the site was integrated into a regional economic and political system and functioned as a potential...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melissa Baltus.

This is an abstract from the "Materializing Political Ecology: Landscape, Power, and Inequality" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Native American city of Cahokia originates in the creation of a cosmologically powerful landscape formed by the gathering of human and other-than-human participants (including earth, water, and fire) (see Pauketat 2013). At this center humans and their nonhuman partners mediated relationships between Worlds (Upper,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zach Chase. Steve Kosiba.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For decades, historical and anthropological understanding of the late prehispanic Andes was based in large measure on the written texts produced during the periods of Spanish invasion and colonization. However, while scholarly work based on these documents has long emphasized that control and manipulation of social memory was central to the expansion of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kodiak Aracena.

This is an abstract from the "Navigating Imperialism: Negotiated Communities and Landscapes of the Inka Provinces" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La anexión de otros grupos culturales fue una estrategia sociopolítica recurrente de la política incaica durante el siglo XV. Dichas estrategias tendían a variar según la ubicación, las características de los grupos humanos, y el tipo de la relación de éstos con el Incario. Mediante la investigación para...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emilie Carreón Blaine.

This is an abstract from the "New Perspectives on Ritual Violence and Related Human Body Treatments in Ancient Mesoamerica" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The purpose of this collaboration is to present the results of the analysis of a human skull located at the center of the ball court of Santa Rosa, Chiapas, and to review the implications it presents for the study of the Mesoamerican ball game and its relationship to human sacrifice. It is a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicolas Delsol.

This is an abstract from the "Animal Bones to Human Behavior" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The introduction of cattle soon after the Spanish invasion had numerous and dramatic consequences over the society in New Spain. The historical scholarship on this topic emphasizes the prominent role of cattle ranching, which found its most iconic development in the great central Mexican haciendas that emerged over the sixteenth century and that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Martin Welker. Eréndira Quintana Morales.

This is an abstract from the "Animal Bones to Human Behavior" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The distribution and abundance of animal populations have significantly impacted human settlement decisions, mobility, economics, and conflict throughout history. The abundance of cod (*Gadus morhua) in North Atlantic fisheries enticed English, French, and Basque fishermen to the region to catch, salt, and export cod to Europe. Efforts to monopolize...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Duffy. Timothy Garrett.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological ground stone tools used for food processing have proven to be rich sources of residues, in particular microbotanicals such as pollen, phytoliths, and starch grains. This data adds to the studies of tool function, foodways, and other lines of archaeological inquiry. To date, ground stone has not been the target of chemical residue analysis,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Soares. Rui Mataloto.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bronze Age settlements in the Evora district of Portugal are typically located in rocky terrain with an apparent preference for locations in the highlands. During the Iron Age we see a shift of this settlement pattern, as highland sites are abandoned and new settlements appear at lower altitudes. Was the initial selection of highland sites influenced by the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Agamemnon Pantel. Chester Walker.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 78,000 US Service Personnel are still “Missing in Action” (MIA). From World War II, they are located in both the Pacific and European theatres. History Flight, a nonprofit organization, has dedicated over 10 years to the search and recovery of these US Servicemen who are still MIAs through a transdisciplinary approach. Initial steps logically stem from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sharisse McCafferty. Geoffrey McCafferty.

This is an abstract from the "Postclassic Mesoamerica: The View from the Southern Frontier" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Colonial sources describe interaction between central Mexican groups and Central American cultures, including possible migration and colonization, during the Postclassic period (900–1520 CE). Linguistic and art historical evidence has been used to support and reify this connection. A 20-plus year archaeological program by the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandra Lopez Varela.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeology of media frames the analysis of the film *Coco, a 3D, animated, fictional movie inspired by Day of the Dead, or Día de Muertos, in Mexico, released by Pixar Animation Studios in 2017, a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios. This paper analyzes the tensions and contradictions within Pixar’s most successful movie at the box office in taking a stand...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Edgar Rosales.

This is an abstract from the "The Palace of Xalla in Teotihuacan: A Possible Seat of Power in the Ancient Metropolis" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mica, a shiny silicate mineral with a layered structure, was highly valued by the Teotihuacan people. Mica has unique physical properties, but we propose that the most striking one was of an optical nature, owing to the fact that it is a multicolored, specular material. The Teotihuacan elite groups...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Justin Holcomb. Lisa-Marie Shillito. Alicia Sawyer. Karl Wegmann. Panagiotis Karkanas.

This is an abstract from the "Far West Paleoindian Archaeology: Papers from the Next Generation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Younger Dryas Chronozone (YDC) is a cooling event occurring 12,900–11,600 years ago (cal BP) marked by rapid changes in plant and animal communities, subsequently affecting late Pleistocene human population organization and settlement dynamics across the globe. In North America’s Northern Great Basin, these changes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Johnson. Felipe Trabanino. Eloi Berube. Eos Lopez.

This is an abstract from the "The Urban Question: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Investigating the Ancient Mesoamerican City" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological studies of urbanism typically include a consideration of scale, from the household, the neighborhood, ward, and city. These spatial scales are also spheres of interaction and have implications for the kinds of shared material practices we can expect to find archaeologically....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dominic Bush. Jennifer McKinnon. Erin Field.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Aircraft were a major component of the U.S. war effort in World War II, and today numerous examples can be found throughout the waters of the Asia-Pacific region. Due to their cultural and historical significance to modern stakeholders, understanding the decay trajectories has become an important issue in the realm of cultural heritage management, especially...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lyndsay DiPietro. Kelly Graf.

This is an abstract from the "McDonald Creek and Blair Lakes: Late Pleistocene-Holocene Human Activity in the Tanana Flats of Central Alaska" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite the fact that archaeologists have long turned to the Alaskan archaeological record to answer questions about the first Americans, little is certain about the peopling of Beringia. The poor preservation of faunal remains in many central Alaskan archaeological sites has...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Miriam Rothenberg. Laurel Bestock. Christian Knoblauch.

This is an abstract from the "Geoarchaeology Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2012, the Uronarti Regional Archaeological Project has investigated cultural interactions and daily life along the Egypt-Kush border in the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2050–1650 BCE). In January 2019, eight micromorphological samples were collected from intact floor sequences and mudbrick walls from within the island fortress on Uronarti. These samples span the two...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Slovak.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancón, Peru represents one of the largest pre-Colombian cemeteries in the Andes. Discoveries of more than three thousand burials spanning the length of Andean history cement Ancón’s continuous role as an important location to commemorate the dead. Less clear, however, is whether Ancón supported a concurrent residential population throughout this time,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Joyce White. Bounheuang Bouasisengpaseuth. Helen Lewis. Michael Griffiths. Kathleen Johnson.

This is an abstract from the "The Current State of Archaeological Research across Southeast Asia" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP) is a collaborative venture developed between Joyce White and Bounheuang Bouasisenpaseuth and other researchers working to develop an archaeological research program with the Lao Department of Heritage, with a primary focus on the prehistory of the Luang Prabang area. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alessandra Villarreal.

This is an abstract from the "The Preclassic Landscape in the Mopan Valley, Belize" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The value of ceramic sherds and vessels to the archaeologist extends far beyond the chronology of a site. Ceramic production and distribution data, for example, reveal information about ancient lifeways, ideologies, and movement across a landscape, ultimately telling us more about the people behind the pottery. In this paper, I will...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Hansen. Edgar Suyuc. Gustavo Martinez.

This is an abstract from the "Recent Multidisciplinary Investigations in the Mirador Basin, Guatemala" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological excavations and technical analyses in the Mirador Basin of northern Guatemala have provided a new perspective of the origins and dynamics of incipient Maya civilization. Data relevant to settlement patterns, sampling strategies, demographic distributions, chronological evaluations, DNA and isotope...