Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
The modern territories of eastern Honduras, eastern Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia are included within the concept of the Isthmo-Colombian area. For a long time, its prehistory was relegated to a marginal status as an “Intermediate Area” or as a “Periphery of Mesoamerica,” which led to a relative inattention to archaeological research and exploration of theoretical and methodological issues in the area. These initial concepts failed to capture the diverse array of cultural expressions that dotted the Isthmian landscape. New and exciting research in the area currently demonstrates how the region has potential to explore major issues such as the development of complexity, the emergence of pottery and agriculture, the cultural contexts for the development of lapidary work and metalworking, paleoenvironmental reconstruction and human ecology, human responses to natural disasters, and the dynamics of interaction and migration. This session brings together contributions from the recent research by archaeologists from Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, the United States, and Europe, whose investigations include novel methodologies and theoretical frames to explore new and ongoing anthropological questions.
Other Keywords
Intermediate Area •
Chiefdoms •
Social and Political Organization •
Subsistence and Foodways •
demography •
Site Formation •
Zooarchaeology •
Survey •
Isotope Analysis •
Ceramic Analysis
Geographic Keywords
Department of Martinique (Country) •
Republic of El Salvador (Country) •
Department of Guadeloupe (Country) •
Antigua and Barbuda (Country) •
Belize (Country) •
Anguilla (Country) •
Republic of Guatemala (Country) •
Republic of Honduras (Country) •
St. Lucia (Country) •
Montserrat (Country)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-10 of 10)
- Documents (10)
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Assessing Agricultural Intensification in Greater Chiriquí during the Aguas Buenas Period (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aguas Buenas (roughly 300 BC–AD 900) was a period characterized by the growth of small villages and the development of identifiable settlement hierarchies in certain areas. This paper applies a variant of the site catchment analysis originally articulated by Steponaitis (1981) to evaluate the relationship between...
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Complexity during the Aguas Buenas Period of Greater Chiriquí: Initial Comparisons between El Cholo, Cantarero, and Pejeperro Sites, Southern Costa Rica (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The development of precontact social hierarchy in southern Central America is a subject open to debate. For the Aguas Buenas period (300 BC–AD 800) of the Greater Chiriquí archaeological region, new data at the regional level (Costa Rica, Panama) indicate the appearance of centers with architectural complexity after AD 400. This...
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Economy, Exchange, and Power at Lomas Entierros, Central Pacific Costa Rica (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lomas Entierros is a primary center in Central Pacific Costa Rica, characterized by the presence of monumental architecture on top of a defensible hill, and the circulation of important amounts of imported ceramics. The architectural system combined elevated half-moon terraces with cobblestone walls, foundations, slopes with...
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Framing Intent, Power, and Agency in Eastern Honduras (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Throughout their history, the polities in eastern Honduras existed along a frontier, interacting with larger, powerful groups from a different cultural tradition to the west and with more closely related people to the south. During the period between 500 and 1200 CE, eastern Honduran groups adopted several significant elements...
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Natural Disasters and the Avoidance of Complexity: Arenal Villages in Comparative Context (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Small sedentary villages were established by about 4,000 years ago in the Arenal area of Costa Rica. The egalitarian nature of internal organization continued until the Spanish conquest, with no evidence of significant inequality developing, socially, economically, religiously, or politically. However, they were subjected to...
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Nuevos datos sobre los colgantes de lapidaria verde y sus contextos arqueológicos en Costa Rica (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El Museo del Jade y de la Cultura Precolombina del Instituto Nacional de Seguros, exhibe 2040 piezas arqueológicas de piedras verdes (*jades). A pesar de la limitada información contextual, posee un gran potencial para comprender la manufactura y uso de los colgantes de piedras verdes en Costa Rica. A partir de la última...
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A Preliminary Multi-isotope Assessment of Precolumbian Humans from Panama (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study presents data on the first multi-isotope analysis of precolombian humans in Panama. We use carbon (δ13C), nitrogen (δ15N), oxygen (δ18O), and strontium (87Sr/86Sr) isotopes to determine the diets and mobility patterns of individuals from seven archaeological sites: Cerro Mangote, Sitio Sierra, and Cerro Juan Díaz in...
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Reassessment of Population Density in Late Precolumbian Central Caribbean Panama (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Using radiometric and settlement survey data from an area with 100% survey coverage in the rain-forested lowlands of the Caribbean watershed of Colón, Panama, we present the results of an analysis of site distribution and 14C dates to calculate population density. The archaeological data is compared with previous population...
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Reconstructing Trajectories of Social Change: A Multiscale Approach Applied to the Valle Central Occidental, Costa Rica (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2007, the project "Cambio social precolombino en San Ramón, Alajuela y sus alrededores" has aimed to reconstruct the trajectory of precolumbian social change (from at least 1000 BC to AD 1550) in this region of Costa Rica using systematic and standardized procedures. The most general and ambitious aim of the project is...
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A Tropical Treasure Trove: Preliminary Assessment of Archaeological Faunal Remains from Culebra Bay, Guanacaste, Costa Rica (2021)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For over 50 years, excavations in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, have yielded a large amount of well-preserved faunal materials, yet few zooarchaeological studies have been carried out. To explore the research potential of archaeofaunal materials in the region, I will present data from several sites around the Culebra bay area. These...