Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sagas And Artifacts: How Tales From The Past Help The Interpretation Of Archaeological Remains, Bridgette Hulse

Honors Capstone Projects

I argue that historians and archaeologists should consider the Viking perspective in the form of sagas when analyzing Viking activity in England, in tandem with the Anglo-Saxon record. This way, it is possible to garner a more complex understanding of the past, as scholars can take both the Viking and Anglo-Saxon view in account in order to complete the picture. In addition, this allows archaeologist to interpret Viking artifacts from a Viking cultural perspective, not the Anglo-Saxon perspective. This removes a middle-man from the analytical process and allows archaeologist to consider what would be closer to a primary source on …

The Baller Biface Cache: A Possible Clovis Site In Hitchcock County, Nebraska, Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Twenty-six Clovis implement caches are known from western North America. In cases where time-sensitive artifacts (e.g., Clovis projectile points or mammoth ivory rods) or adequate information about their provenience and geological context are absent, assigning temporal and cultural affiliation has been challenging. Such is the case with a cache of eight large bifaces, four of which were donated by Albert E. Baller in the early 1900s to the University of Nebraska State Museum. The cache was discovered along with debitage within a small tributary of the Republican River in south-central Nebraska. The four donated Baller bifaces have been curated since …

Medieval Nemea: Building A Public Digital Resource, Lauren A. Vagts, Effie Athanassopoulos

UCARE Research Products

This site presents medieval ceramics from the excavations at the site of Nemea, in southern Greece. We have created a digital resource with results and artifacts from archaeological excavations conducted in the 1970s and 1980s, which have remained unpublished. The website incorporates a variety of materials, including excavation notebooks, maps, data bases, photographs, and 3D models of ceramics. Omeka was selected as the software for this project for several reasons. Omeka offers the Dublin Core metadata as a way to standardize and organize digital data, allowing its users access to a well-developed platform. Omeka is also an open source software …

Integrative 3d Recording Methods Of Historic Architecture: Burg Hohenecken From Southwest Germany, Aaron C. Pattee

Anthropology Department: Theses

This research explores the methodology and application of photogrammetric and laser-scanning recording methods to a castle ruin, with the primary purpose of digitally preserving the castle. Both methods generated interactive 3D models via the combination of still images (photogrammetry) and precise laser measurements (laser-scanning), which were then combined into a single model. The case study is the medieval castle ruin Burg Hohenecken located in the city of Kaiserslautern in southwest Germany. The castle was active from 1212-1689, as one of over fifty castles within the region of the Pfalz. The inhabitants included the noble von Hoheneck family and various …

Usda-Unl Artifacts Roadshow: The Development Of A 2d Archive Of Great Plains Projectile Points, Maia Behrendt

UCARE Research Products

The Archaeological Survey is primarily concentrated through Federal and State lands. Nebraska like much of the Great Plains is overwhelmingly privately owned. As a consequence less than 1% of the state has been subject to professional survey. Private land owners, however, know of many archaeological sites that have not been documented. Engagement with the public about sites and about collected artifacts thus has the potential to greatly increase knowledge of the past.

Over the past three years the University of Nebraska and the USDA Forest Service have conducted “Artifacts Roadshows” to talk with land owners about private artifact collections. These …

Past Meets Future: Combining Gis, 3d Technologies, And Legacy Data To Reanalyze Ceramics At Copan, Honduras, Stephanie Sterling, Heather Richards-Rissetto, René Viel

UCARE Research Products

The archaeological site of Copán—a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Honduras—was a primary center for cultural and economic exchange in the Maya world from the fifth to ninth centuries. Our research investigates the sociopolitical climate of the city immediately preceding this collapse. This poster presents the results of a pilot study intended to evaluate the potential of using a combination of digital technologies and legacy data to reanalyze a subset of diagnostic ceramics from select sites outside of Copan’s urban core. Our methods involved:

(1) Applying photogrammetry to generate 3D models for approximately 30 potentially temporally-diagnostic ceramic types

(2) Digitizing, …

3d Tool Evaluation And Workflow For An Ecological Approach To Visualizing Ancient Socio-Environmental Landscapes: A Case Study From Copan, Honduras, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Shona Sanford-Long, Jack Kerby-Miller

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Architectural reconstructions are the centerpieces of ancient landscape visualization. When present, vegetation is relegated to the background, resulting in underutilized plant data—an integral data source for archaeological interpretation—thus limiting the capacity to take advantage of 3D visualization for studying ancient socio-environmental dynamics. Our long-term objective is to develop methods of 3D landscape visualization that have value for examining changes in land use and settlement patterns. To begin to work toward this objective, we have (1) identified 3D tools and techniques for vegetation modeling and landscape visualization, (2) evaluated the pros and cons of these tools, (3) investigated biological and ecological …

Enmu La3324-25313 3d Puzzle, Robert Z. Selden Jr.

CRHR: Archaeology

Three-dimensional (3D) model of a Clovis point (ENMU LA3324-25313) from Blackwater Draw NHS, curated at Eastern New Mexico University.

Maritime Alpine Cairns In Southeast Alaska: A Multidisciplinary Exploratory Study, William J. Hunt Jr., Ralph J. Hartley, Bruce Mccune, Nijmah Ali, Thomas F. Thornton

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

This report describes the goals, data recovery methods, data analysis, and conclusions of a pilot project “A Multidisciplinary Exploratory Study of Alpine Cairns, Baranof Island, Southeast Alaska,” funded by the National Science Foundation under Project No. 1230132. The project brought together experts in the disciplines of archaeology (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), lichenology (Oregon State University), and Tlingit oral history (Oxford University) to address questions regarding artificial prehistoric, high altitude cairns. Data were collected in 2013 and 2014. Pedestrian archaeological inventory recorded 50 cairns at 5 sites. Archaeological data includes cairn dimensions, GPS positions, still photographic images, and video documentation. Four cairns …

Hegranesþing On Hegranes: Geophysical Prospection Interim Report 2013 – 2015, Brian N. Damiata, John M. Steinberg, John W. Schoenfelder, Douglas J. Bolender

Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Publications

Geophysical surveys were conducted at Hegranesþing on Hegranes in North Icelad during the summers of 2013 and 2015.

Middle Preclassic Period Maya Greenstone "Triangulates": Forms, Contexts, And Geology Of A Unique Mesoamerican Groundstone Artifact Type, Terry G. Powis, Sherman Horn Iii, Gyles Iannone, Paul F. Healy, James F. Garber, Jaime J. Awe, Sheldon Skaggs, Linda A. Howie

Publications and Research

Over the past twenty years our understanding of the Middle Preclassic (900–300 BCE) period has become much clearer through archaeological investigations at a number of sites located in the Upper Belize River Valley region of the eastern Maya Lowlands. While the picture of Middle Preclassic Maya life, including their material culture, has sharpened, there are aspects that remain uninvestigated. One artifact type, identified as greenstone triangulates, has been found at several Belize Valley sites and in a variety of contexts. Although a number of these multifaceted, polished groundstone items have been recovered, little research has focused on their distribution and …

Dietary Patterns Of Paquimé: New Evidence From Dental Calculus And Microfossils, Daniel King, Michael T. Searcy, Kyle Waller

Faculty Publications

As part of a larger multinational project, we gathered and analyzed 112 samples of dental calculus (fossilized plaque) from human remains discovered at Paquimé and other sites in the Casas Grandes river valley to identify various microfossils still present in the silica matrix. Once identified, we used the prehistoric plant remains to reconstruct human/plant relationships present during the Viejo and Medio periods in and around Paquimé. Our data suggest that maize was used throughout both time periods, which supports current theories regarding Paquimean diet. Various types of grasses were also found, as were unspecified types of algae. Using our data, …

Excavations At Vista Del Valle, A Viejo Period Site Of The Casas Grandes Cultural Tradition In Chihuahua, Mexico, Michael T. Searcy, Todd Pitezel

Faculty Publications

In the summer of 2015 we conducted excavations at a site located along the Palanganas River, just south of the Casas Grandes River Valley in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico. This represents the first excavation of a Viejo Period site (A.D. 700–1200) in this vicinity since the 1960s. We discovered remnants of at least five structures, and fully excavated three. This paper reports our findings and compares them to previous work carried out in the region.

Landscapes Of Interaction: Understanding Social Landscapes Through Quantitative Models Of Artifact Distributions, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

Exchange of material goods is one of the most basic forms of human interactions. By tracing the distribution of ceramics, stone tools, and other materials archaeologists are often able to make inferences about the nature of interactions, and about the economic and social relationships of the people involved. These artefact distributions are a fundamental feature of social landscapes, with the potential to reveal much about the structure of social life. But artefact distributions are often complex and difficult to describe, especially at large spatial scales, and they often require some form of abstraction to make them comprehensible. Archaeologists have therefore …