Research Reports from the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project, Volume Three

Table of Contents : Archaeological Investigations of the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project: An Introduction to Volume Three / by Fred Valdez, Jr. and Rissa M. Trachman (p.1-6) -- Mount Allison University: The 2008 Archaeological Program in Northwest Belize / by Grant Aylesworth and Brent Suttie (p.7-14) -- Excavations (2008) at the Los Pisos Courtyard, La Milpa, Belize / by Maria Martinez (p.15-34) -- Investigations (2008) at La Milpa, Belize: Plaza A, Structure 4 / by Rissa M. Trachman (p.35-40) -- An Overview of Archaeological Investigations at Plaza B, La Milpa: The 2008 Field Season / by Brett Houk, Débora Trein, and Gregory Zaro (p.41-60) -- Excavations at La Milp, Belize: Structure 22 / by Gregory Zaro (p.61-70) -- Overview of the 2008 Excavations at Structures 23 and 27, Plaza B, La Milpa, Belize / by Antonio Padilla and Shannon M. Smith (p.71-80) -- Preliminary Investigations East and West of the Acropolis, La Milpa, Belize: The 2008 Field Season / by Brandon S. Lewis (p.81-84) -- The 2008 Field Season at Group A of the Medicinal Trail Site, Northwestern Belize / by David M. Hyde (p.85-96) -- A Late Preclassic Burial at Medicinal Trail: Excavation and Analysis of Burial 3 / by Angeliki Kalamara Cavazos (p.97-110) -- Group B of the Medicinal Trail Site: Select Excavations at Operation 12 / by Deanna M. (p.111-114) -- Group B of the Medicinal Trail Site: Operation 12 (Lots A, Q, and R) / by Lauri McInnis Martin (p.115-120) -- Operation 15: Berm Structures and Water Management at Medicinal Trail (RB 62), Belize / by Erin E. Gill (p.121-126) -- Medicinal Trail Archaeology: Investigations at Operation 13 / by Maia Dedrick (p.127-142) -- Excavations at the Medicinal Trail Site (2008): Operation 14 / by Madelyn Percy (p.143-144) -- RB 70: The 2008 Investigations (p.145-148) -- Excavations at La Milpa Easts and the Aguada Lagunita Elusiva: The 2008 Field Season / by Estella Weiss-Krejci (p.149-168) -- Plan for Phase Two Research at Wari Camp (RB 56): Household, Neighborhood, and Ward in the Prehispanic Maya City / by Laura Levi (p.167-176) -- Experimental Pottery Studies in Belize / by Sharon Hankins (p.177)Texas Archeological Research Laborator

Identifying the Burdens and Opportunities for Tribes and Communities in Federal Facility Cleanup Activities: Environmental Remediation Technology Assessment Matrix For Tribal and Community Decision-Makers

The cleanup of this country's federal facilities can affect a wide range of tribal and community interests and concerns. The technologies now in use, or being proposed by the Department of Energy, Department of Defense and other federal agencies can affect tribal treaty protected fishing, hunting and other rights, affect air and water quality thereby requiring the tribe to bear the burden of increased environmental regulation. The International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management developed a tribal and community decision-maker's Environmental Remediation Technology Assessment Matrix that will permit tribes and communities to array technical information about environmental remediation technologies against a backdrop of tribal and community environmental, health and safety, cultural, religious, treaty and other concerns and interests. Ultimately, the matrix will allow tribes and communities to assess the impact of proposed technologies on the wide range of tribal and community interests and will promote more informed participation in federal facility cleanup activities

‘The finest set of cup and ring marks in existence’: the story of the Cochno Stone, West Dunbartonshire

The Cochno Stone is one of the most extensive and highly decorated prehistoric rock-art outcrops in Britain. It is located on the northern urban fringe of West Dunbartonshire beside Faifley, Clydebank, in a park in the foothills of the Kilpatrick Hills. First re-discovered by antiquarians toward the end of the nineteenth century, this outcrop subsequently became the focus of the attentions of Ludovic McLellan Mann in the 1930s, who decorated the stone with an elaborate painted colour-scheme. Expanding urbanisation, visitor numbers and graffiti prompted the authorities to bury the stone beneath soil for its own protection in 1965. During two seasons of fieldwork in 2015 and 2016, the Cochno Stone was exposed for short periods of time to allow for an assessment to be made of the condition of the stone surface, and digital and photogrammetric recording to take place. Provisional results of the fieldwork are reported on here, but the main focus of this paper is to present as fully as possible for the first time the biography of the Cochno Stone from antiquarian discovery to the present day. The paper concludes with thoughts about the future of this monument

Historical geography III: hope persists

The final report in this series focuses on the emerging intersections between historical geography, archaeology and the law. Whilst staying attuned to the darkest of geographies emerging from the sub-field, this report turns its attention to the creative and critical ways in which the dead are being used to reveal past lives and worlds that have been destroyed and forgotten. Using soil and the archaeological imagination as a pivot, this report centres on the interweaving themes of fragile environments, resurfacing and legal worlds in order to suggest the emerging possibilities for a hopeful excavation of new historical geographies

Investigation of Lateral Stress Relief on theStability of PHI = 0 DEG Slopes Using Laboratory, Fracture Mechanics, and Finite Element Method Approaches

Total stress analyses of purely cohesive cut slopes utilize the undrained shear strength for slope stability analyses. These slopes can have an in-situ lateral earth pressure that is greater than the vertical pressure. Excavations into these materials results in expansion of the slope face due to release of confining pressure. When strains exceed that which can be internally absorbed through elastic deformation, failure planes or cracks may develop at the toe of the slope. However, conventional limit equilibrium methods of slope stability analysis do not account for the in-situ stress conditions or the development of shear zones or cracks that occur from lateral stress relief. Progressive failure of the slope may occur if internal lateral stresses are large enough to cause stress concentrations in front of the advancing toe cracks. Finite element methods using substitution methods reveal two distinct shear cracks at the toe of slope consisting of a horizontal and an inclined failure plane while a tension zone develops in the backslope region. The formation and extension of the shear cracks are strongly dependent on ko and they can extend to approximately 1/4 of the slope height due to initial lateral stress relief. Classical limit equilibrium solutions regarding the critical slope height have been revised to account for lateral stress relief. Analyses indicate good agreement with published case histories and they reveal how the shear zones propagate to create progressive slope failure in stiff clay slopes under total stress analyses

Site Interiography and Geophysical Scanning: Interpreting the Texture and Form of Archaeological Deposits with Ground-Penetrating Radar

The remarkable potential of geophysical scanning—to assess the internal variability of sites in new ways, to highlight important phenomena in the field, to exercise co-creation of interpretation and commitment to minimal destruction of community partners’ resources, and to aid in the practice of due diligence in avoiding desecration of the sacred—continues to be underutilized in archaeology. While archaeological artifacts, features, and strata remain primary foci of archaeological geophysics, these phenomena are perceived quite differently in scans than in visual or tactile exposures. In turn, new registers of site exploration afforded by geophysical prospection may be constrained by the language of site excavation and visual observation, requiring adjustments in the ways of thinking about and describing what the instruments are measuring. The texture and form of site deposits as rendered in ground-penetrating radar scans can be examined in detail prior to making interpretations of cultural features or stratigraphy. Far more than simple “anomalies” demanding our attention for excavation, patterns in geophysical data can be the focus of extensive archaeological analysis prior to, in conjunction with, or independent from excavation

Innovative Stormwater Treatment Technologies: Best Management Practices Manual

Urban stormwater carries a number of pathogens, nutrients, heavy metals, sediment, and other contaminants as surface runoff flows over land. The increase in impervious or paved surfaces associated with development in urban areas reduces the natural infiltration of precipitation into the ground. With impervious cover, precipitation collects and carries contaminants before draining into nearby surface waters. Stormwater runoff from paved surfaces in developed areas can degrade downstream waters with both contaminants and increased volumes of water. This publication aims to make information on innovative stormwater treatment technologies more available to New Hampshire’s urban planners, developers, and communities. Traditional runoff management techniques such as detention basins and infiltration swales may be preferable, but are not always practical for treating urban stormwater. Lack of space for natural solutions is often a problem in existing developed areas, making innovative treatment technologies an attractive alternative. Mostly designed for subsurface installation, urban “retrofits” use less space than conventional methods to treat stormwater. This manual provides information on the innovative stormwater “retrofit” technologies currently available for use in developed areas in New Hampshire

Ancient Urban Ecology Reconstructed from Archaeozoological Remains of Small Mammals in the Near East

Acknowledgments We especially thank the many archaeologists who collaborated closely with our project and invested pioneering efforts in intensive fine-scale retrieval of the archaeozoological samples that provided the basis for this study: Shai Bar, Amnon Ben-Tor, Amit Dagan, Yosef Garfinkel, Ayelet Gilboa, Zvi Greenhut, Amihai Mazar, Stefan Munger, Ronny Reich, Itzhaq Shai, Ilan Sharon, Joe Uziel, Sharon Zuckerman, and additional key excavation personnel who were instrumental in collection of the samples or in assisting the work including: Shimrit Bechar, Jacob Dunn, Norma Franklin, Egon Lass and Yiftah Shalev. Funding:The research was funded by a post-doctoral grant awarded to L.W. from the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007e2013)/ERC grant agreement number 229418. The laboratory work was also supported by funding by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 52/10). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Hampton-Seabrook Estuary Restoration Compendium

The Hampton-Seabrook Estuary Habitat Restoration Compendium (HSEHRC) is a compilation of information on the historic and current distributions of salt marsh and sand dune habitats and diadromous fishes within the Hampton-Seabrook Estuary watershed. These habitats and species groups were selected due to the important ecological role they play within the watershed and with effective restoration and conservation efforts, will continue to play. Other ecologically important habitats and species, such as avifauna, shellfish and eelgrass beds, currently are or historically were present within the watershed. Shellfish and seagrass are recognized as important habitats within the Estuary, but were not included in the current report because a different analytical approach may be required for such dynamic and/or short-lived species. A recent report by the New Hampshire (NH) Audubon Society details modern bird use of the Hampton-Seabrook Estuary (McKinley and Hunt 2008). Restoration opportunities have been identified within the watershed by evaluating habitat loss and changes in land use over time. Restoration opportunities are not prioritized in order to allow the goals and objectives of each restoration practitioner to govern project selection. However, in accordance with an ecosystem-based approach to restoration, areas containing multi-habitat restoration opportunities are considered to be of the highest priority. Furthermore, restoration efforts should ensure processes critical for the support of restored components are maintained or reestablished. The goal of this report is to identify restoration opportunities within the watershed derived from data on habitat change. Many other factors exist that are important in the identification and selection of restoration projects, including water quality and non-point source pollution, water withdrawal, harbor maintenance, recreational impacts, human history, and socioeconomic factors, among others. Although information regarding these factors is not explicitly included in this analysis, these factors must be considered and addressed as they may limit the potential for success in specific restoration efforts We present a series of maps detailing changes in the extent of sand dune and salt marsh habitats over time, the current and historic distribution of seven diadromous fish species, and restoration opportunities within the Hampton-Seabrook Estuary and watershed. A narrative describes the methods used, the results of analyses and examples of prominent restoration projects. Each major section concludes with references used in the narrative and maps. The maps are available for viewing as portable document format (.pdf) files. For those with GIS capabilities, the ArcMap 9.2 project files, associated data files and metadata are included on the compact disc as well. The underlying concept and methods for the HSEHRC stem from a previous project conducted within the Great Bay Estuary, the Great Bay Estuary Restoration Compendium (Odell et al. 2006)

Missing, Presumed Buried? Bone Diagenesis and the Under-Representation of Anglo-Saxon Children

YesSam Lucy (1994: 26) has stated that a `recognised feature of pre-Christian early medieval cemeteries in eastern England is the smaller number of younger burials recovered¿. Although taphonomic factors such as the increased rate of decay of the remains of children and shallow depth of burial have been suggested as possible explanations for this phenomenon, these have been disregarded in favour of cultural influences, with younger children thought to have been disposed of in a different way from adult remains (Lucy, 1994; Härke, 1997; Crawford, 1999). This paper will review the evidence concerning the treatment of the remains of children during the Anglo-Saxon period. It will then review the factors affecting bone preservation, with special reference to the bones of children, and attempt to assess to what extent the under-representation of children in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries can be attributed to bone preservation and soil type. It will show that hypotheses should not be formulated without full consideration of the taphonomy that may affect the completeness of the archaeological record