Archaeological Research Facility

All the artifacts were produced from the Cerro Toledo Rhyolite source from the Jemez Mountains, northern New Mexico, although the obsidian is available as secondary deposits in Rio Grande Quaternary alluvium (Church 2000; Shackley 2012; Table 1 and Figure 1 here).

The source provenance of the "lonely" bipolar core fragment is Cerro Toledo Rhyolite, and between the waterwom coftex and typical procurement in that par1 of New Mexico was likely procured lrom Rio Grande Quaternary alluvium where Cerro Toledo Rhyolite obsidian is the most commonlyrecovered secondarily deposited obsidian in the Rio Grande gravels at least as far as Las Cruces (Church 2000; Shackley 2005, 2020

The 2022 field season of "City Life at Classic Maya Palenque, Mexico" involved excavations in a densely built up neighborhood in the urban core of this site, most well known for the palaces, temples, and historical monuments of its ruling family, which reached an apogee ca. 600-800 AD. The 2022 excavations are the first season of a multi-season effort to explore a stratified random sample of presumed residential compounds of varied sizes and configurations, identified in our previous analyses as possibly representing different social strata. The first selected compound produced an assemblage from middens adjacent to two structures that reflects everyday life, and includes evidence of wealth in the form of imported obsidian and pieces of discarded white stone luxury objects. Like other known residential compounds of the ruling family and nobles who produced written monuments, the residents of this compound undertook ritual practices, but these appear to be distinct from what has previously been observed, with no evidence of burial in the compound, and possible evidence of feasting not seen in these other locations. This first season of excavation also included recovery through fine-grained excavation methods of soil chemistry samples, samples for micromorphology, and microbotanical samples, still under analysis. It provides a baseline for future excavations that will sample possible residences of less wealth and/or shorter histories of occupation.

Between July and September of 2019, I conducted dissertation research supported by a grant from the Stahl Endowment of the Archaeological Research Facility investigating how the inhabitants of 1st-century CE Pompeii (Italy) prepared their daily meals and what factors influenced their choice of cooking techniques. Through an examination of the frequencies of particular types of vessels (bronze and ceramic) and utensils used for food and drink preparation recovered in the course of earlier excavations from a series of properties in Pompeii, my research reconsiders what constituted the standard batterie de cuisine within the Pompeian kitchen and how this could be modified according to the needs and preferences of the one stocking the shelves. I also attempt to reconstruct the various cooking methods employed and preferences exhibited by the cooks who used these cookwares through an analysis of use alterations (e.g. sooting/fire blackening, scratching, denting, etc.) exhibited by these objects. My research in 2019 was principally devoted to documenting such signs of use. The properties selected for my study represent a range of property types – modest and grand houses, commercial food establishments, and suburban villas – allowing us to better appreciate how food preparation strategies differed between households, as well as residential and more commercial properties. These differences can be seen as indicators of the socioeconomic priorities and individual tastes of those who prepared and consumed the meals within these different contexts.

This chapter is part of an ongoing process in the construction of a recombinant history about Neolithic Anatolia and Southeast Europe called Dead Women Do Tell Tales (DWdTT). It is an extraordinarily complex tangle of fragments about the archaeological construction of Neolithic households, based in the records of the excavations themselves and their published interpretation and interpretive vignettes from my creative imagination. It addresses the question of how to turn this tangle of related fragments into a narrative that is both “landscaped” and “gendered”; and how to make this a narrative that is both engaging for professionals and draws our broader audiences into the glow of engaged curiosity that encourages them to participate in the enterprise of constructing gendered landscapes of the past. The response to these questions is my first step in the design of a serious game based in archaeological research.

This paper is a critical analysis of my own research and that of my U.S., and European colleagues who go to Southeast Europe to do their research. It analyses the nature of their collaboration with the local Balkan archaeologists. It looks at the effect on this collaboration  of the post-2nd World War Socialism/Communism. The aim of this paper is to help make more effective the collaboration between archaeologists coming from different political and philosophical backgrounds.

Clinton Hart Merriam, who signed his name C. Hart Merriam was a naturalist who spent part of his professional life studying California Indians. He worked assiduously with native informants. For Merriam's background, which was that of a biologist and not ananthropologist, the reader is referred to a following section written by Alfred L. Kroeber, "C. Hart Merriam as Anthropologist." Although Merriam had a formal tie with the Smithsonian Institution which held a bequest known as the E.H. Harriman Fund, he was not a member of the Smithsonian staff. He had, in brief, an institutional connection, but he did not work under the direction of that institution.

Merriam's lists are published here exactly as he recorded them. No changes have been made in conformity with the agreement made with his heirs when the Merriam Collection was accepted by the Department of Anthropology at Berkeley. Merriam's phonetic system can be found at the end of this section.