SAA 2021: General Sessions

DOCUMENT Citation Only Molly Herron. Madeline Mackie. Todd Surovell.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although mammoth ivory appears distinctive from other organic materials when found in large pieces, many morphological characteristics that distinguish ivory – such as Schreger lines – cannot be easily identified in small fragments. However, other characteristics, including dental tubules and canals, can be microscopically identified. In this study, I...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ramon Folch.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research on the Postclassic period at Lake Miramar in the southern Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas permits identifying the fortified island of Lakam-Tun. The site was destroyed in 1586 by Juan de Morales Villavicencio in his attempt to conquer the Cholti'-Lacandon, who then sheltered deeper in the jungle until 1695. Earlier research failed to locate important...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victoria Izzo. John P. Walden. Olivia P. Ellis. Kirsten Green Mink. Jaime J. Awe.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Classic period (AD 300-900) Belize River Valley was a complex political landscape of numerous semi-autonomous Maya polities. Many began their emergence at the end of the Early Preclassic period (1200-900 BC), consolidated their political power in the Late Preclassic, and subsequently underwent collapse in the Terminal Classic period (AD 750-900/1000). The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicholas Puente. Philip Arnold.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster presents an analysis of artifact assemblage data from La Joya and Bezuapan, two late Formative Period (ca. 400 BC-AD 100) sites in southern Veracruz, Mexico. The study focuses on the ways in which wealth inequality is manifested in the archaeological record; wealth is defined here as the total of desirable factors consisting of two main categories...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Terry Powis. George Micheletti. Matthew Tarleton. Gary Owenby. Nicaela Cartagena.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Investigations in Plazas A and B of the site core at Pacbitun indicate that initial occupation began in the early Middle Preclassic period (900–600 BC). At this time, a small agricultural community was established in Plaza B beginning with a few domestic structures built just above bedrock. These early domiciles would also function as workshops for the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina McSherry.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The location of the American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, now preserved at the Gettysburg National Military Park (GNMP), receives thousands of visitors every year. Visitors to the battlefield interact with over 1,000 monuments across the landscape that both commemorate the actions that took place and memorialize the participants in those actions. Presented...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dominique Sparks-Stokes.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS), energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (ED-XRF), and X-ray diffractometry (XRD) are used to compare the mineralogical and chemical composition of pottery from Colha, a Preclassic Maya site in Belize and the Twin Mounds Village, a Middle Woodland, Hopewell site in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Julie Hoggarth. Tia Watkins. Claire Ebert. Sylvia Batty.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Numerous studies have demonstrated the most immediate impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic upon the sciences have fallen on younger women and women with young children. These studies highlight how social crises, such as global pandemics, exacerbate existing disparities in social, political, and economic structures. To date no study has yet identified its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Arianna Garvin. Paul S. Goldstein. Jade d'Alpoim Guedes.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Tiwanaku civilization (ca. A.D. 500-1100) originated in the Bolivian Altiplano (3800 masl) of the south-central Andes and grew frost-resistant crops, such as quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), kiwicha (Amaranthus caudatus), and potatoes (Solanum tuberosum). Throughout the Middle Horizon (A.D. 600-1100), the Tiwanaku expanded into Peruvian coastal valleys (~900...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stanley Ambrose. Andrew Zipkin.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ostrich eggshell (OES) is widely used for environmental reconstruction with carbon, oxygen and nitrogen isotopes, and radiocarbon dating. Strontium isotope ratios of OES artifacts can be used to reconstruct object biography, human mobility, and interaction networks. OES can provide an isotopic baseline for reconstructing past environments and provenience of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Bates.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Funded through a National Science Foundation – Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (NSF-IUSE) grant, the overarching goal of the project is to improve STEM competency among both STEM and non-STEM undergraduate students. The National Science Foundation has long recognized archaeology as a STEM discipline, although many students do not make this connection....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Manuel Calongos Curotto.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The historical accounts of the Cañete valley, recovered by the Spanish conquistadores, inform that the Incas found two different kinds of reactions to their conquest attempts: while the Guarco kingdom, in the lower valley, resisted the Incas domination; the Lunahuná kingdom, in the middle valley, supported the Inca troops and generals. While this information...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Francisco Pugliese. Roberto Ventura Santos. Carlos Zimpel. Eduardo Neves.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Monte Castelo has one of the earliest records of ceramic production in the New World. Occupation of the site dates to between 6000 and 700 BP and demonstrates covariances between technological changes and environmental scenarios since the beginning of its chronology. We present petrographic, chemical, and isotopic data on ceramics from different periods to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zachary Nissen.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological studies of urbanism frequently seek to assess the factors which enable some cities to persist over the long-term while others fail after a few generations. This paper continues this line of inquiry by drawing on anthropological scholarship on inequality to examine the relationship between socioeconomic inequality and urban longevity. The paper...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andy Combey. Laurence Audin. Carlos Benavente Escóbar. Miguel Ángel Rodríguez-Pascua. José Bastante Abuhadba.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For decades now, various scholars have assumed that the Inkas developed seismic-resistant construction techniques. While it is true that some architectural features are particularly well suited to face the seismic risk, no structural evidence can demonstrate with confidence the intentionality of the earthquake resistance. As part of our research, we discuss...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Mailler. Spencer Mitchell.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This analysis presents convincing evidence that the mythic city of Etzanoa locale can be confirmed as located at the mouth of the Walnut River, in Arkansas City as proposed by Dr. Donald Blakeslee in 2018. Satellite imagery, ESRI’s GIS technologies, georeferencing, and comparative viewshed analyses conducted in geospatial environments offer new and innovative...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katharine Napora. Victor Thompson. Alexander Cherkinsky. Robert Horan. Craig Jacobs.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We discuss key insights into over 5,000 years of environmental change on the Georgia Coast derived from tree-ring analyses of a deposit of ancient bald cypress from the mouth of the Altamaha River, including changes in coastal forests through time. Human-environment interactions, such as the resilience of estuarine-based societies and ecosystems during periods...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Howland. Brady Liss. Mohammad Najjar. Thomas Levy.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological research should not only be published in academic journals but also shared with the public and stakeholding communities. Ideally, the public should have opportunities to interact with cultural heritage and interpret it on their own terms. In today’s digital environment, hypermedia and deep mapping are ways of increasing the accessibility of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Paula Hertfelder. Alejandra Abrego. Cinthia Campos.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Trincheras Tradition Project is an ongoing collaborative effort to better understand the prehispanic past of Northwest Mexico. Led by Dr. Randall McGuire and Elisa Villalpando, researchers from Binghamton University and the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) spent two field seasons in 2017 and 2018 excavating three Trincheras Tradition...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sterling Wright. Courtney Hofman. Kristen Rayfield. Nihan Dagtas. Adam Rabinowitz.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Archaic period (seventh century–sixth century BCE), Greek colonists from Miletus founded the city of Histria. Located near the mouth of the Danube, this urban center experienced 13 centuries of environmental and demographic changes. Archaeological investigations over the past century have yielded a rich skeletal collection that is housed in the Fr....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dennis Nicolas Lorenzo.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Investigaciones sobre el cambio social entre el Periodo Formativo Medio y Tardío de los Andes Centrales tienen identificado diversos estímulos (sociales, climáticos e ideológicos) como causante de dicha realidad. Sin embargo, durante la última década una creciente acumulación de datos de diversas regiones ha configurado el rol activo de las interacciones...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Bishop.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper discusses the internal structure of the elite Classic Maya at the site of El Zotz, in the Petén region of Guatemala. By examining the behavior of elites living in different parts of El Zotz at the end of the Late Classic, I will consider whether the aristocracy of the Pa’ka’n court acted as a cohesive unit with shared behaviors, or if they were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lila Jones. Eileen Johnson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Whiskey Flats is a mid-eighteenth-century probable Comanche site on the Southern High Plains in Midland County, Texas. Ongoing excavation in Mustang Draw of the now dry Mustang Pond uncovered evidence of occupation along a terrace and a bone bed within the pond basin. A modern bison periotic from the bone bed dates to the mid-1700s. Artifacts from both areas...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leah Minc. Marcus Winter. Cira Martínez-López.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Rosario phase (ca. 700-500 BCE) in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico represents the period immediately preceding the rise of Monte Abán and the earliest stages of Zapotec state formation. Relatively little is known about intra-valley interactions during this time, beyond interpretations based on settlement pattern analyses. As part of our on-going INAA program...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lawford Hatcher. Katherine Chiou. Emily McKenzie. Caleb Ranum. Juan Monzon.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chili peppers (*Capsicum spp.) are an incredibly diverse and abundant crop across the Americas whose domestication began around 10,000 BP as a complex co-evolutionary process between humans and these plants. This genus has served many culinary, medicinal, and ritualistic uses throughout its evolution and diversification. With an interest in tracking the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mindy Bonine.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From mid October 2018 to early April 2019, archaeologists from AmaTerra Environmental, Inc., Texas State University and the Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio conducted data recovery excavations at the Headwaters Site (41CM204), in New Braunfels, Texas. The Headwaters Site is located on a deeply stratified terrace...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Neil Hauser.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Uncompahgre Plateau has been utilized by humans for at least the last 10,000 year, based on dates from excavated sites in the region. Projectile point styles that have formally been defined and named from type sites throughout the Great Basin occur on the Plateau. However, many that have not been formally defined or named also occur on the Plateau....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelly Jenks.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For three centuries, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail served as the main wagon road transporting people and merchandise between the New Mexico colony and the interior of New Spain. Most archaeological investigations of this trail have focused on only two types of sites: actual trail segments, and associated camping areas known as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Petya Hristova.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A number of sites from the Balkans and Greece dated to the fifth millennium BC, Karanovo and Dikili-Tash among others, provide evidence for a special status of built spaces. A comparative study of painted and figurative wall decoration, built-in furnishings, and portable finds in their archaeological context demonstrates that similar architectural layouts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only George J. Micheletti. Terry Powis. Norbert Stanchly.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the discovery of Stela 6 in the mid-1980s, the weathered remains of this Early Classic period carved stone monument continue to lie in the main plaza at Pacbitun, displaced in antiquity. Re-exposed in 2003, epigraphic analysis verified the monument’s AD 485 Long Count date—confirming it as one of the earliest carved stelae in the Maya lowlands—and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Somerville. Isabel Casar. Daniel Dalmas. Pedro Morales.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The dry caves and floodplain archaeological sites of the Tehuacan Valley in Puebla, Mexico, excavated by Richard S. MacNeish and his team in the 1960s, contained some of the earliest macrobotanical evidence for domesticated New World plants, including maize, avocados and chili peppers. While many studies have focused on the levels associated with these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith Langlitz. Ben Thomas.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mock digs have been a staple of archaeologically-themed outreach for years but also an area of growing concern for professional archaeologists with expertise in public education. The activity is discouraged by some because it is suggestive of treasure hunting and emphasizes digging in a field that is so much more than that. While concerns about mock digs are...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Haley Dougherty.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The UNLV Shivwits Research Project has excavated at numerous Virgin Branch habitation sites since its inception more than fifteen years ago. Sand-tempered ceramics recovered from these projects, which represent the first large-scale investigations conducted in the area, exhibit a high degree of variability in terms of their mineralogy and paste color. This...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Pei-Lin Yu.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Neolithic transition of Taiwan, current evidence indicates that farmer-gardeners immigrated from China's southeast coast about 6,000 BP and brought a diverse subsistence of cultivation, foraging, and fishing. The migration would have influenced habitat choice and interactions with Paleolithic foragers already existed in residence. The Ideal Free...

DOCUMENT Citation Only John Samuelsen.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There is a great need to develop better methods to identify and quantify warfare when it occurs without accompanying written documentation, and to consider alternative explanations of data. This study tests if late-prehistoric Caddo communities in southwest Arkansas were committing large-scale acts of violence against neighboring regions. Concurrent...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caroll Davila. Ivan Rivera. Jennifer Saumur.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The paper is dedicated to the presentation of the archaeological site of I'ya Xhína, the « Nose Mountain », in the zapotec Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, in Mexico. The site reveals a consecration to the worship of water and rain with a ritual pond at the summit of the mountain as well as an unknown Sierra Norte Zapotec’s version of the deity Quetzalcoatl named...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carol Patterson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Runners have always played an important role in Pueblo life, as with all tribes in the Southwest. They carried messages and trade items across great distances between prehistoric villages. Ritual racing around villages and out to sacred shrines have served to inspire the clouds to bring rain and keep the Sun and Moon on track during their annual journeys. A...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Liana Jiménez Osorio. Emmanuel Posselt Santoyo.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. En esta ponencia presentaremos “la Gran Línea de Vida”, una propuesta teórica-metodológica desde la Arqueología que toma como punto de partida los vínculos culturales entre el presente y el pasado precolonial de los Pueblos Indígenas en México. Esta propuesta fue desarrollada en el contexto de Ñuu Savi (La Mixteca Alta de Oaxaca) y bajo un enfoque...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christophe Delaere. José Capriles.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As the Inca Empire expanded across the South American Andes during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries CE, Lake Titicaca became its mythical place of origin and a major pilgrimage complex was built on the Island of the Sun. Nevertheless, before the Inca conquest Lake Titicaca was an inland sea that offered enormous socio-economic opportunities for...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hsi-Wen Chen.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Hongshan societies (4500-3000 BC) in Northeast China were the first to witness a dramatic increase in population since the adoption of agriculture and a sedentary way of living were embraced some 9000 years ago in the region. Many aspects of Hongshan social dynamics have not been fully elucidated in detail. Regional surveys explore human-land relationships at...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eunice Villasenor Iribe. Christopher Morehart.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studying agricultural productivity and intensification elucidates the behavioral and demographic patterns of past societies. By understanding how physical environments were modified for agricultural use, it is possible to determine key economic and social processes. This paper presents the results of the analysis of terraces associated with the Epiclassic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sylvie Littledale. Zach Chase.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Personified landscapes—comprising or populated by animate beings (tirakuna, earth beings, huacas, apus)—feature centrally in discussions of the archaeological, historical, and ethnographic records of Andean societies. Because of its unique seventeenth-century Quechua manuscript, this tendency has been particularly influential in Huarochirí, Peru. The...

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 Robert Stokes. Joseph McConnell.

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, we discuss elements of what we argue were components of a sacred landscape imbued with meaning as seen from a Mimbres Mogollon communal structure at City of Rocks State Park in southwestern New Mexico. The structure dates to the early Classic period and falls into the poorly understood period of time marking the evolution of Mimbres communal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only R. Scott Plumlee. M. Kyle Woodson. Craig Fertelmes. Chris Loendorf. Steven Forman.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Evidence suggests that the first irrigation canals along the Middle Gila River were built by at least the Vahki phase ca. AD 450, and the construction and use of canals continued throughout the remainder of prehistory. Canal systems are also a prominent part of the historical lifeway of the Akimel O'Odham who live in the Hohokam core area today, with reported...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rodney Fitzsimons. Matthew Buell.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the preliminary results of the Khavania Topographical and Architectural Mapping Project (2019), whose primary objective was to document all natural and anthropogenic features at the coastal site of Khavania, East Crete. Exploration of the eastern and southern shores of the Mirabello Bay has produced abundant evidence for cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristin Donner. Laura Harrison.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While fascination with archaeology is commonplace among children, family media content often focuses on problematic narratives of treasure hunting. This presents a need for archaeologists to reach out to young audiences with a more balanced narrative - one that conveys the value of heritage resources and counteracts the damaging perception of archaeologists as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriela De La Puente-León. Sarah Coon. Francesca Fernandini. Erik Otárola-Castillo.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The first South Americans' coastal migration routes remain a central question to studying the settlement patterns of human colonizations worldwide. However, these early migrations likely occurred along a coastline that today is mostly submerged. Consequently, in countries like Peru, there is currently a shortage of coastal archaeological sites that date to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alaina Wibberly.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The settler colonial history of the Mojave Desert may be defined less by its expansion and more by its various failures and withdrawals. Drawing on a dataset of historic refuse sites that spans two centuries and three million acres, this paper uses spatial modeling to map the landscape’s trajectory toward waste-land. The trash dumps and mining ruins that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Melanie Lacan.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The utilization of subterranean spaces by humans is cross-temporal and cross-regional. In turn, and sometimes simultaneously, caves have been employed around the world as seasonal or permanent shelters, storage rooms, workshops, burial chambers, and as containers for artistic and ritual actions. In southern France, these last endeavors have been the focus of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erica Ausel.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The connection between migration and violence is complex and occurs in many social spheres within a single community. Data accessible through archaeological excavations, partnered with bioarchaeological analyses, can provide insights that are otherwise invisible regarding these experiences. To this end, my research explores the patterns of interpersonal trauma...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Céline Erauw. Fabienne Pigière. Peter Eeckhout.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pachacamac is a major site of the Peruvian central coast, occupied from the fifth to the sixteenth century AD. This presentation will report the results of an ongoing analysis of faunal remains recovered during the 2014, 2016, and 2018 excavation campaigns within the framework of the Ychsma Project (Université libre de Bruxelles). The different buildings...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Schaefer. Gabriel Prieto. John Verano.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Child sacrifice has been practiced by many ancient societies over time although archaeological evidence is often lacking. Scholars have attempted to investigate the motivations behind intentional state-sanctioned killings; however, the missing archaeological context leaves these interpretations up for debate. Outside of modern-day Trujillo, recent excavations...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Donta.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Narrow Point tradition extends across a wide area of eastern North America and its signature point type is one of the most frequently found in Archaic contexts in New England. Decades of research on the relationship between Narrow Points and other types of the Late Archaic Period has not yet produced a consensus regarding their use and origins. However,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mirko De Tomassi.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Weaving-related objects, mainly spindle whorls and needles, found in prehispanic Maya burials are usually interpreted as an indication of either the identity of the deceased or the activities carried out in life. Such a symbolic approach is valuable in tracking the construction of identity in funerary contexts. However, it can be misleading in some contexts....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Frederick Coolidge.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Spheroids (i.e., intentionally shaped or gathered round rocks) first appeared about 1.8 million years ago. Sahnouni et al. (1997) proposed that they were by-products from core reduction knapping. Walker (2008) concluded they served as evidence of modern-like behavior in a belief system. Wilson et al. (2016) viewed them as throwing-affordances for killing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carly Pope.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For several thousand years before the arrival of Spanish explorers in 1502, Bocas del Toro, Panama, was home to numerous vibrant cultures. However, this area has seen only sporadic archaeological study over the past century. While surveys and excavations have revealed several multi-period settlements, with complex, multiphase ceramic assemblages, Bocas del...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Theresa Barket. Felicia De Peña. Ahmad Thaher.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the ongoing research on the Neolithic of the Southern Levant, flaked-stone assemblages continue to play a key role in interpretations of social organization and interaction. Despite the prominence of research on lithic assemblages during the Neolithic, few comprehensive studies come from the large settlements with long, continuous occupation spans (2,000...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Landazuri. Daniel Sandweiss.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the climatological phenomenon referred to as El Nino Modoki, warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the central Pacific are flanked on the east and west by cooler SSTs. Over the last century, El Niño-Modoki has increased in frequency, but a long-term sequence has yet to be established prior to the last four centuries. At least on the north coast of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Tritsch.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2005 and from 2018 to 2020, the Johns Hopkins University Expedition at the Mut Precinct in Luxor (ancient Thebes), Egypt, unearthed New Kingdom domestic material, preliminarily dated to the first half of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The findings included a considerable number of articulated, mainly red painted, mud brick features in close proximity to two column...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Extract.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Anthropological discourse has placed concerted attention on the role of “axis mundis” in configuring Mesoamerican socio-cosmology. However, in this paper, I highlight the emphasis that many Central Mexican creation-foundation narratives placed on alterity rather than centrality in rendering the boundaries of altepetl “communities.” Nahua cartographic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kayeleigh Sharp.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Gallinazo sociopolitical organization is rarely considered outside the Virú Valley heartland. My recent work in the Lambayeque region of northern coastal Peru brings to light several anomalies that force reevaluation of long-standing ideas. Today, there are several persistent yet mistaken observations that continue to skew the perception of prehispanic Andean...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bradley Ensor.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Two decades of strontium isotope and aDNA research on Central European Neolithic cemetery populations have consistently interpreted patrilocality, which is now a foregone conclusion. This paper questions those interpretations from a social anthropological perspective. Models are presented for interpreting strontium isotope ratios and aDNA that consider the...