The Experts below are selected from a list of 15711 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Susan Pfeiffer - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a Monumental cemetery built by eastern africa s first herders near lake turkana kenya
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018Co-Authors: Elisabeth Hildebrand, Katherine M Grillo, Elizabeth A Sawchuk, Susan Pfeiffer, Lawrence B Conyers, Steven T Goldstein, Austin Chad HillAbstract:Monumental Architecture is a prime indicator of social complexity, because it requires many people to build a conspicuous structure commemorating shared beliefs. Examining Monumentality in different environmental and economic settings can reveal diverse reasons for people to form larger social units and express unity through architectural display. In multiple areas of Africa, Monumentality developed as mobile herders created large cemeteries and practiced other forms of commemoration. The motives for such behavior in sparsely populated, unpredictable landscapes may differ from well-studied cases of Monumentality in predictable environments with sedentary populations. Here we report excavations and ground-penetrating radar surveys at the earliest and most massive Monumental site in eastern Africa. Lothagam North Pillar Site was a communal cemetery near Lake Turkana (northwest Kenya) constructed 5,000 years ago by eastern Africa’s earliest pastoralists. Inside a platform ringed by boulders, a 119.5-m 2 mortuary cavity accommodated an estimated minimum of 580 individuals. People of diverse ages and both sexes were buried, and ornaments accompanied most individuals. There is no evidence for social stratification. The uncertainties of living on a “moving frontier” of early herding—exacerbated by dramatic environmental shifts—may have spurred people to strengthen social networks that could provide information and assistance. Lothagam North Pillar Site would have served as both an arena for interaction and a tangible reminder of shared identity.
Austin Chad Hill - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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unpiloted aerial vehicle acquired lidar for mapping Monumental Architecture a case study from the hawaiian islands
Advances in Archaeological Practice, 2021Co-Authors: Mark D Mccoy, Jesse Casana, Austin Chad Hill, Elise Jakoby Laugier, Mara A Mulrooney, Thegn N LadefogedAbstract:As lidar becomes a regular part of surveying, ground-based platforms (handheld, mobile, and terrestrial lidar) and airborne platforms (piloted aircraft) are being joined by unpiloted aerial vehicle (UAV)–acquired lidar. We present a method for leveraging UAV-acquired lidar data with data collected using different lidar platforms (terrestrial and piloted aircraft), at a range of resolutions (1 to +1,000 points per m2) and geographic scales. We use these instruments to document a dry-masonry stone wall enclosing a religious precinct within the royal center at Kealakekua, Kona District, Hawai'i Island. Prior to European contact in AD 1779, Kealakekua was the center of the island-wide polity during the annual Makahiki festival. Results of this study suggest that when the wall was constructed around AD 1640, it was the largest structure ever built on the island of Hawai'i as well as a strong material expression of the power of state religion and the Makahiki rituals.
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a Monumental cemetery built by eastern africa s first herders near lake turkana kenya
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018Co-Authors: Elisabeth Hildebrand, Katherine M Grillo, Elizabeth A Sawchuk, Susan Pfeiffer, Lawrence B Conyers, Steven T Goldstein, Austin Chad HillAbstract:Monumental Architecture is a prime indicator of social complexity, because it requires many people to build a conspicuous structure commemorating shared beliefs. Examining Monumentality in different environmental and economic settings can reveal diverse reasons for people to form larger social units and express unity through architectural display. In multiple areas of Africa, Monumentality developed as mobile herders created large cemeteries and practiced other forms of commemoration. The motives for such behavior in sparsely populated, unpredictable landscapes may differ from well-studied cases of Monumentality in predictable environments with sedentary populations. Here we report excavations and ground-penetrating radar surveys at the earliest and most massive Monumental site in eastern Africa. Lothagam North Pillar Site was a communal cemetery near Lake Turkana (northwest Kenya) constructed 5,000 years ago by eastern Africa’s earliest pastoralists. Inside a platform ringed by boulders, a 119.5-m 2 mortuary cavity accommodated an estimated minimum of 580 individuals. People of diverse ages and both sexes were buried, and ornaments accompanied most individuals. There is no evidence for social stratification. The uncertainties of living on a “moving frontier” of early herding—exacerbated by dramatic environmental shifts—may have spurred people to strengthen social networks that could provide information and assistance. Lothagam North Pillar Site would have served as both an arena for interaction and a tangible reminder of shared identity.
Elizabeth A Sawchuk - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a Monumental cemetery built by eastern africa s first herders near lake turkana kenya
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018Co-Authors: Elisabeth Hildebrand, Katherine M Grillo, Elizabeth A Sawchuk, Susan Pfeiffer, Lawrence B Conyers, Steven T Goldstein, Austin Chad HillAbstract:Monumental Architecture is a prime indicator of social complexity, because it requires many people to build a conspicuous structure commemorating shared beliefs. Examining Monumentality in different environmental and economic settings can reveal diverse reasons for people to form larger social units and express unity through architectural display. In multiple areas of Africa, Monumentality developed as mobile herders created large cemeteries and practiced other forms of commemoration. The motives for such behavior in sparsely populated, unpredictable landscapes may differ from well-studied cases of Monumentality in predictable environments with sedentary populations. Here we report excavations and ground-penetrating radar surveys at the earliest and most massive Monumental site in eastern Africa. Lothagam North Pillar Site was a communal cemetery near Lake Turkana (northwest Kenya) constructed 5,000 years ago by eastern Africa’s earliest pastoralists. Inside a platform ringed by boulders, a 119.5-m 2 mortuary cavity accommodated an estimated minimum of 580 individuals. People of diverse ages and both sexes were buried, and ornaments accompanied most individuals. There is no evidence for social stratification. The uncertainties of living on a “moving frontier” of early herding—exacerbated by dramatic environmental shifts—may have spurred people to strengthen social networks that could provide information and assistance. Lothagam North Pillar Site would have served as both an arena for interaction and a tangible reminder of shared identity.
Peter G Johansen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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landscape Monumental Architecture and ritual a reconsideration of the south indian ashmounds
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2004Co-Authors: Peter G JohansenAbstract:Abstract During the South Indian Neolithic period (3000–1200 BC), the agro-pastoral inhabitants of the South Deccan/North Dharwar region constructed large mounded features by heaping and burning accumulations of cattle dung. These ‘ashmound’ features were comprised of a myriad of variegated strata of ash, vitrified dung, and other culturally modified sediments, many of which reached Monumental proportions. Ashmounds have been the subject of considerable debate since coming to the attention of scholars in the early 19th century. Current debate has centered largely on the function and spatial context of these features in relation to Neolithic settlement. This article examines the South Indian ashmounds as Monumental forms of Architecture and the loci of ritual and ceremonial activity within the context of Neolithic agro-pastoral landscape production. By situating ashmound construction within the social rhythm of cattle pastoralism and carefully examining the emplotment, depositional histories, and post-Neolithic afterlives of these unique features this paper argues that social practices likely originating in quotidian activities were gradually transformed into regular, public ceremonial activities producing Monumental forms, relating and reinforcing socio-symbolically charged information.
Mark D Mccoy - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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unpiloted aerial vehicle acquired lidar for mapping Monumental Architecture a case study from the hawaiian islands
Advances in Archaeological Practice, 2021Co-Authors: Mark D Mccoy, Jesse Casana, Austin Chad Hill, Elise Jakoby Laugier, Mara A Mulrooney, Thegn N LadefogedAbstract:As lidar becomes a regular part of surveying, ground-based platforms (handheld, mobile, and terrestrial lidar) and airborne platforms (piloted aircraft) are being joined by unpiloted aerial vehicle (UAV)–acquired lidar. We present a method for leveraging UAV-acquired lidar data with data collected using different lidar platforms (terrestrial and piloted aircraft), at a range of resolutions (1 to +1,000 points per m2) and geographic scales. We use these instruments to document a dry-masonry stone wall enclosing a religious precinct within the royal center at Kealakekua, Kona District, Hawai'i Island. Prior to European contact in AD 1779, Kealakekua was the center of the island-wide polity during the annual Makahiki festival. Results of this study suggest that when the wall was constructed around AD 1640, it was the largest structure ever built on the island of Hawai'i as well as a strong material expression of the power of state religion and the Makahiki rituals.
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earliest direct evidence of monument building at the archaeological site of nan madol pohnpei micronesia identified using 230th u coral dating and geochemical sourcing of megalithic architectural stone
Quaternary Research, 2016Co-Authors: Mark D Mccoy, Helen A Alderson, Richard Hemi, Hai Cheng, Lawrence R EdwardsAbstract:Abstract Archaeologists commonly use the onset of the construction of large burial monuments as a material indicator of a fundamental shift in authority in prehistoric human societies during the Holocene. High- quality direct evidence of this transition is rare. We report new interdisciplinary research at the archaeological site of Nan Madol that allows us to specify where and when people began to construct Monumental Architecture in the remote islands of the Pacific. Nan Madol is an ancient administrative and mortuary center and the former capital of the island of Pohnpei. It was constructed over 83 ha of lagoon with artificial islets and other Architecture built using columnar basalt and coral. We employed geochemical sourcing of basalt used as architectural stone and high-precision uranium-thorium series dates (230Th/U) on coral from the tomb of the first chief of the entire island to identify the beginning of monument building at Nan Madol in AD 1180–1200. Over the next several centuries (AD 1300–1600) monument building began on other islands across Oceania. Future research should be aimed at resolving the causes of these social transformations through higher quality data on monument building.