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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Ethnohistory Of Freshwater Use On Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile), Carl P. Lipo Jun 2019

The Ethnohistory Of Freshwater Use On Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile), Carl P. Lipo

Carl Lipo

Sources of drinking water on islands often present critical constraints to human habitation. On Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile), there is remarkably little surface fresh water due to the nature of the island’s volcanic geology. While several lakes exist in volcanic craters, most rainwater quickly passes into the subsurface and emerges at coastal springs. Nevertheless, the island sustained a relatively large human population for hundreds of years, one that built an impressive array of monumental platforms (ahu) and statues (moai). To understand how Rapanui acquired their scarce fresh water, we review ethnohistoric data from first European arrival (1722) through the …


Using Structure From Motion Mapping To Record And Analyze Details Of The Colossal Hats (Pukao) Of Monumental Statues On Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Sean W. Hixon, Carl P. Lipo, Terry L. Hunt, Christopher Lee Apr 2019

Using Structure From Motion Mapping To Record And Analyze Details Of The Colossal Hats (Pukao) Of Monumental Statues On Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Sean W. Hixon, Carl P. Lipo, Terry L. Hunt, Christopher Lee

Carl Lipo

Structure from motion (SfM) mapping is a photogrammetric technique that offers a cost-effective means of creating three-dimensional (3-D) visual representations from overlapping digital photographs. The technique is now used more frequently to document the archaeological record. We demonstrate the utility of SfM by studying red scoria bodies known as pukao from Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile). We created 3-D images of 50 pukao that once adorned the massive statues (moai) of Rapa Nui and compare them to 13 additional pukao located in Puna Pau, the island’s red scoria pukao quarry. Through SfM, we demonstrate that the majority of these bodies …


Tools For Transparency And Replicability Of Simulation In Archaeology, Mark E. Madsen, Carl P. Lipo Apr 2019

Tools For Transparency And Replicability Of Simulation In Archaeology, Mark E. Madsen, Carl P. Lipo

Carl Lipo

Session: Open methods in archaeology: how to encourage reproducible research as the default practice


The Human Transformation Of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Pacific Ocean), Terry L. Hunt, Carl P. Lipo Apr 2019

The Human Transformation Of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Pacific Ocean), Terry L. Hunt, Carl P. Lipo

Carl Lipo

Rapa Nui (Easter Island) has become widely known as a case study of human-induced environmental catastrophe resulting in cultural collapse. The island's alleged "ecocide" is offered as a cautionary tale of our own environmental recklessness. The actual archaeological and historical record for the island reveals that while biodiversity loss unfolded, the ancient Polynesians persisted and succeeded. Demographic "collapse" came with epidemics of Old World diseases introduced by European visitors. In this paper, we outline the process of prehistoric landscape transformation that took place on Rapa Nui. This process includes the role of humans using fire to remove forest and convert …


Measuring Cultural Relatedness Using Multiple Seriation Ordering Algorithms, Mark E. Madsen, Carl P. Lipo Apr 2019

Measuring Cultural Relatedness Using Multiple Seriation Ordering Algorithms, Mark E. Madsen, Carl P. Lipo

Carl Lipo

Seriation is a long-standing archaeological method for relative dating that has proven effective in probing regional-scale patterns of inheritance, social networks , and cultural contact in their full spatiotemporal context. The orderings produced by seriation are produced by the continuity of class distributions and uni-modality of class frequencies, properties that are related to social learning and transmission models studied by evolutionary archaeologists. Linking seriation to social learning and transmission enables one to consider ordering principles beyond the classic unimodal curve. Unimodality is a highly visible property that can be used to probe and measure the relationships between assemblages, and it …


Diet Of The Prehistoric Population Of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) Shows Environmental Adaptation And Resilience, Catrine L. Jarmine, Thomas Larsen, Terry L. Hunt, Carl P. Lipo, Reidar Solsvik, Natalie Wallsgrove, Cassie Ka'apu-Lyons, Hilary G. Close, Brian N. Popp Apr 2019

Diet Of The Prehistoric Population Of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) Shows Environmental Adaptation And Resilience, Catrine L. Jarmine, Thomas Larsen, Terry L. Hunt, Carl P. Lipo, Reidar Solsvik, Natalie Wallsgrove, Cassie Ka'apu-Lyons, Hilary G. Close, Brian N. Popp

Carl Lipo

Objectives: The Rapa Nui “ecocide” narrative questions whether the prehistoric population caused an avoidable ecological disaster through rapid deforestation and over-exploitation of natural resources. The objective of this study was to characterize prehistoric human diets to shed light on human adaptability and land use in an island environment with limited resources.

Materials and methods: Materials for this study included human, faunal, and botanical remains from the archaeological sites Anakena and Ahu Tepeu on Rapa Nui, dating from c. 1400 AD to the historic period, and modern reference material. We used bulk carbon and nitrogen isotope analy- ses and amino acid …


Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Monument (Ahu) Locations Explained By Freshwater Sources, Robert J. Dinapoli, Carl P. Lipo, Tanya Brosnan, Terry L. Hunt, Sean W. Hixon, Alex E. Morrison, Matthew Becker Apr 2019

Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Monument (Ahu) Locations Explained By Freshwater Sources, Robert J. Dinapoli, Carl P. Lipo, Tanya Brosnan, Terry L. Hunt, Sean W. Hixon, Alex E. Morrison, Matthew Becker

Carl Lipo

Explaining the processes underlying the emergence of monument construction is a major theme in contemporary anthropological archaeology, and recent studies have employed spatially-explicit modeling to explain these patterns. Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) is famous for its elaborate ritual architecture, particularly numerous monumental platforms (ahu) and statuary (moai). To date, however, we lack explicit modeling to explain spatial and temporal aspects of monument construction. Here, we use spatially-explicit point-process modeling to explore the potential relations between ahu construction locations and subsis- tence resources, namely, rock mulch agricultural gardens, marine resources, and freshwa- ter sources—the three most critical resources on Rapa …


Resource Scarcity And Monumental Architecture: Cost Signaling On Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile, Dylan Davis, Carl P. Lipo Apr 2019

Resource Scarcity And Monumental Architecture: Cost Signaling On Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile, Dylan Davis, Carl P. Lipo

Carl Lipo

Costly signaling theory (CST) explains a variety of elaborate behavioral displays as a consequence of competition over resources when the risk of direct conflict is high. Within an archaeological context, monumental architecture is potentially explained as a facet of costly signaling between individuals and groups. On Rapa Nui, CST offers an explanation for the construction of labor-intensive monuments including massive statues (moai) and ceremonial platforms (ahu). Using hypotheses derived from CST and spatial data about the distribution of archaeological features, the degree to which CST accounts for the investment in prehistoric monumental architecture on Rapu Nui is evaluated.


The Benefits Of Swir Imagery For Archaeological Landscape Analysis: A Case Study From Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile, Dylan Davis, Carl Lipo Apr 2019

The Benefits Of Swir Imagery For Archaeological Landscape Analysis: A Case Study From Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile, Dylan Davis, Carl Lipo

Carl Lipo

"The use of multispectral imagery is particularly effective for mapping the archaeological record of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) due to the island’s lack of vegetation and exposed surficial lithic features. In 2010, Flaws demonstrated that near-infrared (NIR) imagery can be used to identify “lithic mulch” gardens, areas of cultivation that are enhanced through the prehistoric addition of broken bedrock. Here, we evaluate newly available, high-resolution short-wave infrared (SWIR) imagery for its potential to provide additional resolution and discrimination in mapping “lithic mulch” features."


Combinatorial Structure Of The Deterministic Seriation Method With Multiple Subset Solutions, Mark E. Madsen, Carl P. Lipo Apr 2019

Combinatorial Structure Of The Deterministic Seriation Method With Multiple Subset Solutions, Mark E. Madsen, Carl P. Lipo

Carl Lipo

Seriation methods order a set of descriptions given some criterion (e.g., unimodality or minimum distance between similarity scores). Seriation is thus inherently a problem of finding the optimal solution among a set of permutations of objects. In this short technical note, we review the combinatorial structure of the classical seriation problem, which seeks a single solution out of a set of objects. We then extend those results to the iterative frequency seriation approach introduced by Lipo et al. (1997), which finds optimal subsets of objects which each satisfy the unimodality criterion within each subset. The number of possible solutions across …


Automated Mound Detection Using Lidar And Object-Based Image Analysis In Beaufort County, Sc, Carl P. Lipo, Matt Sanger, Dylan Davis Apr 2019

Automated Mound Detection Using Lidar And Object-Based Image Analysis In Beaufort County, Sc, Carl P. Lipo, Matt Sanger, Dylan Davis

Carl Lipo

The study of prehistoric anthropogenic mounded features– earthen mounds, shell heaps, and shell rings – in the American Southeast is stymied by the spotty distribution of systematic surveys across the region. Many extant, yet unidentified, archaeological mound features continue to evade detection due to the heavily forested canopies that occupy large areas of the region, making pedestrian surveys difficult and preventing aerial observation. The use of object-based image analysis (OBIA) as a tool for analysing light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data, however, offers an inexpensive opportunity to address this challenge. Using publicly available LiDAR data from Beaufort County, South Carolina …


Book Review Of 'Evolutionary And Interpretive Archaeologies' Edited By Ethan E. Cochrane And Andrew Gardner, Liane Gabora, Carl P. Lipo Apr 2019

Book Review Of 'Evolutionary And Interpretive Archaeologies' Edited By Ethan E. Cochrane And Andrew Gardner, Liane Gabora, Carl P. Lipo

Carl Lipo

Evolutionary and Interpretive Archaeologies, edited by Ethan E. Cochrane and
Andrew Gardner, grew out of a seminar at the Institute for Archaeology at
University College London in 2007. It consists of 15 chapters by archaeologists
who self-identify themselves as practitioners who emphasize the benefits of
evolutionary or interpretive approaches to the study of the archaeological
record. While the authors' theoretical views are dichotomous, the editors' aim
for the book as a whole is not to expound on the differences between these two
kinds of archaeology but to bring forward a richer understanding of the
discipline and to highlight areas of …