Memoirs – serie

In this volume, Joseph W. Hopkins III reconstructs the history of the Cuicatec region in Oaxaca, Mexico, from the Aztec empire through the Spanish conquest and into the twentieth century. Hopkins also discusses the archaeology of the region with a particular focus on irrigation systems and agriculture. From 1968 to 1970, Hopkins conducted an archaeological survey and limited excavation in this region, and he presents the results of that fieldwork here.

Author Denise C. Hodges examines the osteological remains from 14 archaeological sites in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, in an attempt to address the relationship between the intensification of agriculture and the health status of the prehistoric population. Volume 9 of the subseries Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Valley of Oaxaca.

To date, very few northern Albanian archaeological sites have been surveyed and excavated. Situated beyond the reach, and allure, of the Classical Greek colonies of south-central Albania, the region has drawn less scholarly attention. But in various ways, northern Albania is just as important to the ongoing archaeological debates regarding the origins of inequality and the rise of social complexity.Some of the earliest and largest hill forts and tumuli (burial mounds) in Albania, dating to the Bronze and Iron Age, are located in Shkodër. Shkodër (Rozafa) Castle became the capital of the so-called Illyrian Kingdom, which was conquered by Rome in the early 3rd century BC. This research report, focused on the province of Shkodër, is based on five years of field and laboratory work and is the first synthetic archaeological treatment of this region.The results of the Projekti Arkeologjik i Shkodrës (or PASH) are presented here in two volumes. Volume 1 includes geological context, a literature review, historical background, and reports on the regional survey and test excavations at three settlements and three tumuli. In Volume 2, the authors describe the artifacts recovered through survey and excavation, including chipped stone, small finds, and pottery from the prehistoric, Classical, Roman, medieval, and post-medieval periods. They also present results of faunal, petrographic, chemical, carpological, and strontium isotope analyses of the artifacts. Extensive supporting data is available on the University of Michigan's Deep Blue data repository: https://doi.org/10.7302/xnpy-0e60These two volumes place northern Albania—and the Shkodër Province in particular—at the forefront of archaeological research in the Balkans.

To date, very few northern Albanian archaeological sites have been surveyed and excavated. Situated beyond the reach, and allure, of the Classical Greek colonies of south-central Albania, the region has drawn less scholarly attention. But in various ways, northern Albania is just as important to the ongoing archaeological debates regarding the origins of inequality and the rise of social complexity.Some of the earliest and largest hill forts and tumuli (burial mounds) in Albania, dating to the Bronze and Iron Age, are located in Shkodër. Shkodër (Rozafa) Castle became the capital of the so-called Illyrian Kingdom, which was conquered by Rome in the early 3rd century BC. This research report, focused on the province of Shkodër, is based on five years of field and laboratory work and is the first synthetic archaeological treatment of this region.The results of the Projekti Arkeologjik i Shkodrës (or PASH) are presented here in two volumes. Volume 1 includes geological context, a literature review, historical background, and reports on the regional survey and test excavations at three settlements and three tumuli. In Volume 2, the authors describe the artifacts recovered through survey and excavation, including chipped stone, small finds, and pottery from the prehistoric, Classical, Roman, medieval, and post-medieval periods. They also present results of faunal, petrographic, chemical, carpological, and strontium isotope analyses of the artifacts. Extensive supporting data is available on the University of Michigan's Deep Blue data repository: https://doi.org/10.7302/xnpy-0e60.These two volumes place northern Albania—and the Shkodër Province in particular—at the forefront of archaeological research in the Balkans.

Cerro Azul in Peru’s Cañete Valley, a pre-Inca fishing community in the Kingdom of Huarco, stood at the interface between a rich marine ecosystem and an irrigated coastal plain. Under the direction of its noble families, Cerro Azul dried millions of fish for shipment to inland communities, from which it received agricultural products and dried llama meat. Joyce Marcus directed excavations at the site. In two previous volumes she reported on (1) a fish storage facility and the architecture, ceramics, and brewery in an elite residential compound, and (2) the inner workings of the coastal economic system. In the course of her fieldwork, Marcus came across areas where Late Intermediate (AD 1000—1470) burials had been disturbed by illegal looting. She decided to salvage as much information from these looted burials as she could. Among her discoveries were that men at Cerro Azul were often buried with fishing nets, slings, and bolas, while women were frequently buried with belt looms, workbaskets, cotton and woolen yarn, barcoded spindles, and needle cases. This third Cerro Azul volume provides an inventory of all the burial data that Marcus was able to salvage.

Gheo-Shih, an Archaic site in the Valley of Oaxaca, was a 1.5-hectare open-air macroband camp near the Mitla River. It was repeatedly occupied in the summer rainy season during the period (cal.) 7500–4000 BC, possibly by 25–50 people. At other times of the year the local population dispersed in smaller, family-sized groups, occupying microband camps in caves and rockshelters. The available macrofossil and palynological data suggest that between 5000 and 4000 BC, the inhabitants were cultivating maize, squash, gourds, and (possibly) runner beans, while continuing to collect wild plants and hunt deer, rabbit, and mud turtle. This site report describes the discovery of Gheo-Shih and the subsequent research carried out there: a systematic surface pickup, a series of test pits, targeted excavations, and analysis of the materials recovered.

This book presents the results of excavations made from 1986 to 1987 at the Epipaleolithic site of Badanj, which lies near the town of Stolac in southern Bosnia-Herzegovina. The site was already known from excavations made by Đuro Basler and from an engraved boulder uncovered by him that is frequently referred to as the first example of Paleolithic art from the Balkans.The purpose of the 1986-1987 excavations was to provide a more detailed picture of the individual occupation and other layers at Badanj, to define the faunal assemblages of these layers as indicators of the changing ecology of the site, and to place the site within its regional cultural context. The excavations exposed a sequence of some ten occupation levels, seven activity or refuse levels, covering a period from approximately 16,000 to 13,000 cal BP, from the latter part of the Oldest Dryas to the end of the Bølling-Allerød late glacial climatic phases.Over this period, two phases of lithic typology were identified, as well as parallel changes in a specific kind of decorative beads. In terms of ecology, red deer (Cervus elaphus) consistently provided by far the majority of the meat consumed at the site, but secondary fauna shows a clear, gradual replacement of colder-climate species such as ibex and chamois by warmer-climate roe deer and wild pig. Combining both qualitative and quantitative aspects of lithic technology and typology, the reconstruction of the potential foraging areas around Badanj, and estimates of supportable population allows the site to be placed in a clear regional context, which can be extended to suggest a hypothetical regional organization of similar sites over the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea.

In this two-volume site report, authors Charles Spencer and Elsa Redmond report the final, comprehensive results of two decades of archaeological fieldwork (1993–2014) on the lands of San Martín Tilcajete, in the Ocotlán-Zimatlán subvalley of the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico. Their work focused on El Mogote and El Palenque, two archaeological sites with successive occupations spanning 500–100 BC, a time of transformational cultural change in Oaxaca. El Mogote and El Palenque were the largest sites in the Ocotlán-Zimatlán subvalley during their phases of greatest occupation: the Early Monte Albán I phase (500–300 BC) at El Mogote, and the Late Monte Albán I phase (300–100 BC) at El Palenque.Through intensive survey and large-scale excavation of public buildings and residences, Spencer, Redmond, and their crew documented major political and religious changes between the Early Monte Albán I phase and the Late Monte Albán I phase, notably the appearance around 300 BC at El Palenque of key state institutions such as the palace and multiroom temple. The evidence also revealed that the Tilcajete locality maintained its political independence from the city of Monte Albán until the 1st century BC, even though Monte Albán had conquered far more distant regions by 300 BC. State formation at Tilcajete played a substantial role in this independent polity’s ability to resist Monte Albán’s aggressions for two centuries.

In this two-volume site report, authors Charles Spencer and Elsa Redmond report the final, comprehensive results of two decades of archaeological fieldwork (1993–2014) on the lands of San Martín Tilcajete, in the Ocotlán-Zimatlán subvalley of the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico. Their work focused on El Mogote and El Palenque, two archaeological sites with successive occupations spanning 500–100 BC, a time of transformational cultural change in Oaxaca. El Mogote and El Palenque were the largest sites in the Ocotlán-Zimatlán subvalley during their phases of greatest occupation: the Early Monte Albán I phase (500–300 BC) at El Mogote, and the Late Monte Albán I phase (300–100 BC) at El Palenque.Through intensive survey and large-scale excavation of public buildings and residences, Spencer, Redmond, and their crew documented major political and religious changes between the Early Monte Albán I phase and the Late Monte Albán I phase, notably the appearance around 300 BC at El Palenque of key state institutions such as the palace and multiroom temple. The evidence also revealed that the Tilcajete locality maintained its political independence from the city of Monte Albán until the 1st century BC, even though Monte Albán had conquered far more distant regions by 300 BC. State formation at Tilcajete played a substantial role in this independent polity’s ability to resist Monte Albán’s aggressions for two centuries.