“All bones great, small, and unidentifiable: analysis of faunal remains from Wallace Great House, Colorado”
by
Lucy Maun
Saturday, March 11, 2023
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM PT

As an outlier Chaco Great House, Wallace Great House (5MT6970) in Cortez, Colorado has been excavated intermittently by the Wallace Ruin Project since 1969, and consistently since 2008. Dr. Bruce Bradley is the primary investigator. Recent excavations have uncovered a deposit of faunal remains and pottery in Room 62. These remains include large mammal bones, cervids, lagomorphs, and exotic species such as raptors and canines. Preliminary examination suggests that a large proportion of the bones were intentionally fractured. The unusual representation of species and butchery evidence may imply the deposit had a ritual use. This also coincides with site’s reuse for ritual purposes from AD 1180, after a period of disuse AD 1140-1180. Activity from this period, including Kiva 56 and Room 62, centered around a large Chaco kiva. Establishing a connection between the faunal deposit and the kivas could illuminate cultural aspects of Puebloan ritual life, such as feasting practices.

Lucy Maun is a graduate student at London’s Global University, UCL. She received her undergraduate degree at University of Exeter, UK. After graduation she worked with Exeter’s archaeology department as a research assistant and worked on assemblage material. She led a research project on the changing role of goats in the UK since their introduction in the Neolithic period. As part of this project she evaluated goat isotope data to test a hypothesis about whether carbon and nitrogen isotopes could show a geographical partition between populations. Lucy engaged in a research project to analyze the faunal remains from the Wallace Great House. SAS supported her research through a scholarship.

Sacramento Archeological Society, Inc.’s
Annual Meeting
Featuring
“Can we identify these 150 year-old remains? Recent archaeoforensic research in San Francisco, CA”
by
Jelmer Eerkens, Professor of Anthropology at University of California Davis
at U. C. Davis campus, Young Hall, Room 224
Saturday, December 3, 2022
1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Following the SAS annual meeting Jelmer Eerkens at ~ 3:00 p.m. will discuss archaeoforensic research on bones from a woman from San Francisco. This topic fits with his interests in how humans, especially small-scale societies, adapt to social and environmental conditions and how these adaptations affect kinship, diet, resource extraction, land tenure practices, and the adoption and modification of material technologies, especially ceramics and stone-tools.

To better understand change in the archaeological record, especially ideas from cultural transmission theory he applies evolutionary models and various analytical techniques. These include Stable Isotope Analysis, Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA), X-Ray Flourescence (XRF), Electron Microprobe (EM), and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). Professor Eerkens has conducted archaeological field research in California, Nevada, South-Central Peru, and Northwest Europe.

UPDATE ON RIMROCK DRAW ROCKSHELTER
Rimrock Draw Rockshelter in Harney County, Oregon, has produced a number of artifacts, botanical remains, and sedimentary deposits indicative of both a nearby marsh and substantial stream. Crescentic stone tools are frequently associated with shallow desert lakes and plants like wapato, bulrush, and wada, are also found in similar settings. Massive rounded boulders in the channel adjacent to the rockshelter attest to long term and high energy stream flow. This presentation will focus on how the archaeology and sedimentology at the rockshelter guided us to search for and discover the ancient hydrologic system that made the site attractive between ca. 18,000 to 7,000 years ago.

Pat O’Grady is a staff archaeologist for the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History. He has taught classes at the University of Oregon campuses in Bend and Eugene, and summer field schools in Harney County for twenty years. O’Grady has been involved with SAS since 2016 when the Society first visited Rimrock Draw Rockshelter.
Friends are welcome and also invited to join our organization. There is no participation fee.

“Native American Village in Sierra Foothills– Excavation”
by
Kiana Hugins, University of California, Merced
Saturday, January 8, 2022
2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. PST
Grandad Archaeological Field School has been conducted at the Native American village site (Polachi) in the Sierran Foothills between Oakhurst and Mariposa for 20+ years. The village was occupied for over 9,000 years and provides Fresno State students with a rich learning experience to gain basic skills in field work in archaeology as well as learn about Sierran pre-history. The property the site is located on is land owned by a Miwuk/Chuckchansi family, who asked them to dig at their village site. Kiana will discuss her experiences with this field school and how she expanded her knowledge of Indigenous people.

Kiana Hugins is a senior at University of California, Merced majoring in Anthropology and a 2021 SAS scholarship recipient. She co-founded and has been president of the Anthropology Society of UC Merced since 2018. In 2019 and again in 2021 she participated in a Fresno State Archaeological Field School, first as a crew member and then as a crew chief. Her archaeological interests lay in studying the transformation that colonialism had on North America’s ecosystems and how the process impacted Indigenous cultural perceptions of the continent’s landscape.

SAS Webinar

Saturday, November 13, 2021

2:00 p.m.

“Rondelles – Artistic Objects from the Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian Culture”

by Marlena Billings, UC Davis Anthropology Student

Rondelles are circular discs made from various materials (the most common being bone and stone) with a central hole. They have been found in sites from the Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian culture (ca. 15-13,000 BP).  Many have figurative engravings on their surfaces. They are considered to be artistic objects but their use and technical stages of operation (chaine operatoire) are a subject of research and speculation. Marlena will describe these objects, discuss when and where they were found and offer comments on her experimental reproduction of these disks as well as her observations on the original artifacts. 

Marlena is a student in the Department of Anthropology at UC Davis majoring in anthropology. She has been working on an experimental archaeological project with the Center of Experimental Archaeology at UC Davis where she has been experimentally reproducing rondelle disk to understand their production and wear. SAS supported her research of rondelles in France this past summer.

Friends are welcome and also invited to join our organization. There is no participation fee.

SAS Webinar
Saturday, October 9, 2021
2:00 p.m.
“Queen of Sheba”
by
Lynette Blumhardt

Scholars do not agree on where ancient Sheba was or whether or not the Queen of Sheba ever existed. There are a number of contenders for a possible location of Sheba. One site would be modern Yemen. The other is the Kingdom of Aksum which spanned the Red Sea from Ethiopia to Yemen. Both benefited from trade routes through their territories. Frankincense and other spices were prized trade goods.

The Bible’s Old Testament and the Quran describe the queen and her journey to visit King Solomon. She has been part of the Hebrew and Christian faiths for centuries, and the queen is an enduring cultural icon. Yet her existence has never been proved. American archaeologist and explorer Wendell Phillips wanted to be the first to locate proof of her and her realm. He ventured into Yemen in the 1950s to search for signs of the Queen of Sheba. His team excavated sites but found no evidence of the queen.

Lynette will discuss this mystery and describe archaeological sites that seem to be
associated with the Queen of Sheba.

Lynette Blumhardt is a member of Sacramento Archeological Society, Inc.’s Board of Directors. She became fascinated with anthropology when she was in elementary school. This interest continued and was expanded through many anthropology classes and volunteering on more than a dozen archaeological excavations. The Queen of Sheba is one of her fascinations.

Friends are welcome and also invited to join our organization. There is no participation fee.
You may join early at 1:30 pm PST and enjoy a social half hour.

SAS Webinar

Saturday, July 10, 2021

2:00 p.m.

“The Potential of Obsidian Hydration Dating for Titicaca Basin Archaeology”

by Luis A. Flores-Blanco, PhD student at UC Davis

Description of presentation

A projectile point chronology for the South-Central Andes currently provides some chronological control for dating sites in the region (Klink and Aldenderfer 2005), however, flakes, many of them of obsidian, are the most common type of lithic material recovered from the surface of Archaic and Formative period sites in the Titicaca Basin, Central-South Andes. Obsidian hydration dating (OHD) can be used to date them and thus help to know the temporality of the sites, and obsidian is a very frequent material. Despite the OHD has been used in some Andean regions (e.g., Eerkens et al. 2008; Tripcevich et al. 2012, Bell 1977), it is not currently used in that region because a calibration curve does not yet exist. Luis’ immediate goal has been achieved, he has learned this technique, acquired the appropriate equipment installed in Peru to obtain the samples, and have been able to identify the hydration bands in a small obsidian sample of the Titicaca Basin. From these preliminary results, I will show the great potential that the use of OHD has for Andean archaeology and that continuing with the construction of an OHD calibration curve in the Titicaca Basin is feasible.

Luis A. Flores-Blanco, a Peruvian archaeologist is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of California, Davis. He received a Masters in Prehistoric Archaeology at Complutense University of Madrid, Spain after receiving a Bachelor of Archaeology at the University of San Marcos in Peru. He has been a productive scholar publishing peer-reviewed articles and editing volumes on Peruvian archaeology. He has been co-director and director of archaeological excavations at Puno and Lima, Peru. Before joining the Anthropology PhD Program he was director of a research center at the UNESCO world heritage site of Chavín. In his current studies, Luis is attempting to understand emergent social complexity in the South-Central Andes and proposes to develop an obsidian hydration curve for his study region. His dissertation is titled “The roots of the social inequality in Peru’s Lake Titicaca Basin 4000 Years Ago”.

Friends are welcome and also invited to join our organization. There is no participation fee.

Host, Paul K Davis is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting

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Meeting ID:  82387955305

Password: 1050

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SAS Webinar

Saturday, August 14, 2021

2:00 p.m.

“The Robberg of Southern Africa: Late Glacial Lithic Technology”

by Sara Watson, PhD candidate UC Davis

The Robberg technocomplex is one of southern Africa’s most distinctive and cohesive technologies and found in cave and rock shelter sites across southern Africa at the end of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2 and the Last Glacial Maximum. Since its early description, the Robberg Industry has typically been considered a relatively stable technology across southern Africa. However, focus on broad-scale similarities has masked temporal and spatial variability in Robberg technological organization. Recent research has focused on examining differences in Robberg technology, the meaning of which is still poorly understood. In this presentation, I will review the current state of research on the Robberg and present new case studies of lithic technology from Robberg assemblages in western South Africa and the south coast.

Sara Watson is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at UC Davis. She received her BA (Summa cum Laude) in Anthropology at University of Texas and an Masters in Anthropology at UC Davis. Her research focuses on human decision-making surround stone tool production 50,000 to 20,000 years ago in southern Africa. Her work thus far has resulted in two publications (one as first author), two manuscripts in review(one as first author) and three manuscripts in preparation (all as first author).

Friends are welcome and also invited to join our organization. There is no participation fee.

Host, Paul K Davis is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting

Meeting does not exist: 82244778239.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85040006418?pwd=ZkpmOXM4ZjF5eEpoeGxEeWEvZURNUT09

The webinar will start at 2:00. You may join starting at 1:30 to say “Hello”.

Meeting ID:  82244778239

Password: 1051

One tap mobile

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+12532158782,,81230698858#,,,,,,0#,,150820# US (Tacoma)

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SAS Webinar
Saturday, April 10, 2021
2:00 p.m.
‘Evaluating the Dog as A Hunting Tool in Prehistoric Alta and Baja California: Preliminary Results’
by Jessica Morales

California hunter-gatherer(-fishers) archaeology has long focused in understanding forager decision making related to mobility, residency, subsistence practices, and technology. Notably, stone tools have dominated the discussion of technology in relation to human adaptation through time and space. Jessica’s dissertation project aims to bring dogs to the discussion of tools employed by California hunter-gatherers. The goals of Jessica’s study are to (1) identify dogs from other canids in the archaeological record, (2) identify hunting dogs from other dogs, and (3) examine changes in key prey before and after the adoption of dogs. The first step involves a combination of traditional zooarchaeological methods, geometric morphometrics, and stable isotopes. This first step is crucial to begin to address the second and third steps. The preliminary results of the first step are presented in this webinar.
Jessica Morales is a graduate student at University of California Davis. She received an M.A. from California State University, Los Angeles in 2019 and a scholarship from SAS in 2020 to support her hunting dogs research..
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