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In the United States, many archaeological excavations focus on precontact era Native American sites, and for the majority of American archaeology's existence, these have included a vast number of burial and sacred sites. When the human remains of Native American Ancestors, or remnants of sacred and ceremonial objects, are found, what implications does this have for the soil in which they rested? In addition to exploring questions regarding how backdirt is defined and assessed, we consider how backdirt may be interpreted as ecofact, as material culture, and even as NAGPRA-eligible funerary material or human remains. We hope to demonstrate that backdirt, as an example of some of the most insignificant archaeological material, poses interesting questions relating to interpretations of context, as well as consultation and collaboration with Indigenous communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines ancient Maya urbanization and neighborhood formation during the Preclassic period by focusing on evidence from five minor temple groups at Ceibal, Guatemala. During the Late Preclassic (ca. 350–75 b.c.) and Terminal Preclassic (ca. 75 b.c.–a.d. 300) periods, minor temple complexes were constructed at regular intervals in outlying areas of Ceibal. These complexes were built at different times, and each is distinct in size, shape, and construction materials. Geospatial analyses of settlement based on a lidar survey reveals residential clustering around the temples, and excavations of nearby patios indicate they were occupied contemporaneously with their associated temple. Together, the evidence suggests that local groups of people built their own temple complexes as they began to settle in new areas. Urbanization at Ceibal can be explained as a generative process involving an interplay between top-down influences from the epicenter and organic cooperation among incoming residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Native and Indigenous peoples' critiques of archaeological research address both methodological approaches to data recovery and the way data is interpreted. This paper addresses two such critiques concerning invasive excavation methods and static interpretations of the past. The authors argue that non-invasive archaeological techniques such as mapping are beneficial when investigating sacred sites. In addition, this paper argues that interpretations of data should not only rely on standardized categories for identification but also consider the specific environmental, historical, and cultural context of sites. This paper takes as a case study the investigation of pre-Contact Keahuamanono heiau (place of worship, shrine) in Haleakalā National Park, using plane table mapping paired with ethnohistorical data to interpret the structure within its local context. The resulting evidence supports the interpretation that Keahumanono heiau does not neatly fit into any existing Hawaiian heiau categories and was most likely used for celestial and political observation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Terminal Classic period (ca. a.d. 830–950/1000) in the Southern Maya Lowlands is known as a time in which investments in public architecture and vaulted masonry buildings began to wane. Masonry constructions have often been noted to be of poorer quality in comparison with previous phases. Moving beyond models of scarcity, this paper examines the aesthetics, meanings, and reorientations of architectural projects at the site of Ucanal, Petén, Guatemala during the Terminal Classic period. We highlight three processes that were central to the new architectural programs at the site: an emphasis on the aesthetics of wood, the reorientation of sacred space in residential contexts, and the fragmentation and reuse of buildings and monuments. Although these materials and processes are often associated with a loss of splendor, we suggest that they were part of an active architectural revisionism, one that remade history by reworking the old and reorienting the new. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The southern lowland Maya city of Nixtun-Ch'ich' exhibits an atypical gridded layout imposed in the Middle Preclassic period (800–400 b.c.). Sector Y, in the monumental core, consists of a two-part sub-structural platform with an "E-Group" quasi-astronomical architectural complex (Platform Y1) and a deep natural depression or fosa, Fosa Y (Platform Y2). Earliest construction began with bedrock leveling, probably around 1100–1000 b.c., followed by late Terminal Early Preclassic and transitional Terminal Early to early Middle Preclassic building, subsequent massive Middle Preclassic rebuilding, and Late Preclassic enlargement. Excavations in Sector Y provide evidence of the early phases of construction of a sacred landscape proposed to have been based on a mythical creation-crocodile's back. More broadly, this work contributes to studies of early societal complexity and urbanization in the Maya lowlands, in Mesoamerica, and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent fieldwork at Amarna, the short-lived capital city of Egypt in the late 2nd millennium B.C., added a second area of peripheral settlement, the Stone Village, to the well-known Workmen's Village, the subject of an intensive excavation campaign in the 1970s and 1980s. Both villages were evidently involved in tomb cutting and/or stone quarrying, but the Stone Village is smaller, conveys a particularly vernacular style of architecture, and seems to have had less state support than the Workmen's Village. This paper describes the Stone Village as a source for the study of urban life in ancient Egypt. The two village sites offer a case study of the tensions that arose from controlling human populations in a border zone and from long-established belief frameworks concerning desert landscapes and sacred space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]