Books by Sarah Newman
Garbage is often assumed to be an inevitable part and problem of human existence. But when did pe... more Garbage is often assumed to be an inevitable part and problem of human existence. But when did people actually come to think of things as “trash”—as becoming worthless over time or through use, as having an end?
Unmaking Waste tackles these questions through a long-term, cross-cultural approach. Drawing on archaeological finds, historical documents, and ethnographic observations to examine Europe, the United States, and Central America from prehistory to the present, Sarah Newman traces how different ideas about waste took shape in different times and places. Newman examines what people consider to be “waste” and how they interact with it, as well as what happens when different perceptions of trash come into conflict. Conceptions of waste have shaped forms of reuse and renewal in ancient Mesoamerica, early modern ideas of civility and forced religious conversion in New Spain, and even the modern discipline of archaeology. Newman argues that centuries of assumptions imposed on other places, times, and peoples need to be rethought. This book is not only a broad reconsideration of waste; it is also a call for new forms of archaeology that do not take garbage for granted. Unmaking Waste reveals that waste is not—and never has been—an obvious or universal concept.
Journal Articles by Sarah Newman
Antiquity, 2023
Studies of the rural landscapes around the Nabataean/ Roman city of Petra in Jordan have tended t... more Studies of the rural landscapes around the Nabataean/ Roman city of Petra in Jordan have tended to assume a developmental trajectory based on that of the urban centre. Recent archaeological investigations at the site of Umm Huwaiwitat, however, shed light on the longer-term histories of human occupation and land use in the region north of Petra. Excavation has revealed Late Neolithic deposits formed by the burning of animal dung and the disposal of ash. These deposits underlie walls, today serving as agricultural terraces, which date to at least the Early Bronze Age. Umm Huwaiwitat therefore provides a microcosm of the long-lived and constantly reworked agricultural landscapes of the Middle East.
Ancient Mesoamerica, 2022
This article investigates Classic Maya understandings of two particular animal species: the (gray... more This article investigates Classic Maya understandings of two particular animal species: the (gray) fox and the armadillo. We use these species as a point of entry into Classic Maya categorizations of the non-human animal world, examining the salient biological and physical characteristics of those animals that Classic-period artists and scribes chose to highlight. Rather than accepting the creatures depicted on painted pottery or referenced in hieroglyphic texts as generalized examples of particular kinds (i.e., simply “a fox” or “an armadillo”), however, we show how the evidence from ancient art, historical accounts, and contemporary ethnography points to an emphasis on specific beings, often named individuals, who engage in particular behaviors and relate to other entities (both human and non-human) in distinctive ways. Although this article focuses exclusively on the fox and the armadillo, those species serve as examples through which we consider the limitations of applying Western taxonomic categories to other systems of knowledge, as well as the possibilities for how we might catch glimpses of radically different ways of organizing the world.
Antiquity, 2020
A multidisciplinary project challenges traditional approaches to the rural landscape of Petra in ... more A multidisciplinary project challenges traditional approaches to the rural landscape of Petra in order to understand its agricultural systems and the quantitative and qualitative aspects of a lived landscape.
Norwegian Archaeological Review, 2019
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2018
This article questions the limits of archaeological categories. It highlights the ways in which l... more This article questions the limits of archaeological categories. It highlights the ways in which labels created to interpret archaeological phenomena can, over time, become reified and even appear as archaeological entities themselves. To illustrate this point, I provide a common example from Mesoamerican archaeology, where one particular archaeological category—"termination"—is applied to a diverse array of complex assemblages of fragmented materials. The "termination" label is widely accepted, but ambiguous. Over time, the term has become so capacious as to not only describe quite varied archaeological assemblages, but also explain how they came to be formed and why they exist. This article critically examines the history, usage, and limits of "termination" as a cultural concept, an archaeological category, and a hermeneutic tool. Drawing on a case study from the ancient Maya site of El Zotz, Guatemala, I show that attention to the specific ways that people in the past manipulated, collected, and buried the components of an assemblage can yield more nuanced interpretations of ancient practices than those provided by an a priori label like "termination". Extending indicators of pre-and post-depositional processes commonly employed in osteological analyses (e.g., visible burning, breakage, and surface modification patterns) to other types of artifacts (including lithics and ceramics) not only reveals the curation and ritual reuse of refuse by the ancient Maya of El Zotz, but also troubles the stability of the category of "termination". More broadly, I call attention to the fact that employing reified archaeological categories may actively impede the identification of differences among ancient activities. Reflexively reconsidering archaeological labels not only prevents archaeologists from seeing the past as a mirror of the present, effectively explained by the categories and concepts we generate, but also raises new possibilities for rethinking traditional interpretations and long-held assumptions.
Antiquity, 2016
Representations and remains of sharks are found in Mesoamerican art and archaeology from the firs... more Representations and remains of sharks are found in Mesoamerican art and archaeology from the first millennium BC onwards. They appear at coastal sites, but also remarkably far inland, hundreds of kilometres from the waters where they were sighted or hunted. For the Maya of the interior of the Yucatán Peninsula, encounters with live sharks would have been an exceedingly rare occurrence. Yet the animals arrived inland in piecemeal fashion—as chunks of meat and sets of teeth—and via stories. By following the procurement, transportation, representation and ritual use of sharks from the sea to the jungle, the author shows how the ancient Maya drew on both evidence and myth to imagine and explain these unfamiliar marine creatures.
Advances in Archaeological Practice, 2016
In 1876, Charles Warren described his method of tunneling excavations in Jerusalem as follows: "W... more In 1876, Charles Warren described his method of tunneling excavations in Jerusalem as follows: "We mined in this case down to the rock, and then run along its surface until we reached the great wall, and there we commenced our work, examining the masonry" (Warren 1876:149). Warren headed underground because he had angered a local sheik in his search for Herod's Temple, which lay beneath the Haram ai-Sharif. While the ethics of this somewhat secretive approach have been rightfully questioned, the tunneling methodology stands as a meaningful contribution to archaeological ABSTRACT Archaeological tunneling is a standard excavation strategy in Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya built new structures atop older ones that were no longer deemed usable, whether for logistical or ideological reasons. This means that as archaeologists excavate horizontal tunnels into ancient Maya structures, they are essentially moving back in time. As earlier constructions are encountered, these tunnels may deviate in many directions in order to document architectural remains. The resultant excavations often become intricate labyrinths, extending dozens of meters. Traditional forms of archaeological documentation, such as photographs, plan views, and profile drawings, are limited in their ability to convey the complexity of tunnel excavations. Terrestrial Lidar (light detection and ranging) instruments are able to generate precise 3D models of tunnel excavations. This article presents the results of a model created with a Faro™ Focus 3D 120 Scanner of tunneling excavations at the site of EI Zotz, Guatemala. The lidar data document the excavations inside a large mortuary pyramid, including intricately decorated architecture from an Early Classic (A.D. 300-600) platform buried within the present form of the structure. Increased collaboration between archaeologists and scholars with technical expertise maximizes the effectiveness of 3D models, as does presenting digital results in tandem with traditional forms of documentation.
Journal of Archaeological Science, 2015
This article examines the application of Reflectance Transformation Imaging to the study of archa... more This article examines the application of Reflectance Transformation Imaging to the study of archaeological bone specimens. Visible surface modifications on ancient bone offer evidence of the human behaviors and natural taphonomic processes involved in artifact histories and site formation processes. Reflectance Transformation Imaging allows a researcher to record and represent an object from multiple light angles, as well as to manipulate its color and reflectance properties. Subtle bone surface details, including cut marks, striations, etching and polishing, are highlighted by this technique. Reflectance Transformation Imaging is a highly mobile process that can be completed at archaeological field sites, as well as a relatively inexpensive technique requiring only standard digital photography equipment and software that is freely available (for non-commercial use). Finally, the end result produces a digital image that can be shared with and manipulated by other researchers in order to better evaluate hypotheses and conclusions. Although the technique is limited by the degree of magnification that can be achieved using standard camera lenses and equipment, it offers a useful means of identifying specimens that require more detailed analysis or higher resolution imaging, particularly in cases where export of cultural materials is restricted or prohibited. Using a collection of worked bone artifacts from the ancient Maya site of El Zotz, Guatemala as a case study, this paper presents Reflectance Transformation Imaging as a viable tool in the analysis of worked bone production technologies and use-wear, as well as post-depositional processes and conditions.
Stable oxygen isotopic studies of migration and mobility using human tissue are based on the prem... more Stable oxygen isotopic studies of migration and mobility using human tissue are based on the premise that δ 18 O values of potable water sources are relatively stable over time and vary predictably across the landscape. Local variability of δ 18 O is generally assumed to be negligible and negated by an averaging effect as oxygen is consumed primarily as imbibed liquid and incorporated into tissue. This study tests the assumption that variability of δ 18 O ratios of water from within a region are insufficient to impact the reconstruction of ancient mobility using isotopic measures of human tooth and bone. This case study focuses on the Maya area of Guatemala and Mexico, a region where many analyses of oxygen isotopic ratios in ancient human tissue has been conducted. 71 water samples were obtained over the course of five years, from precipitation, streams, rivers, lakes, aguadas (watering holes), civals (perennial wetlands), and caves. Unlike most baseline studies, the objective here was the repeated testing of a diversity of sources from the same location. δ 18 O VSMOW values from surface and meteoric water range from −16.0 to +3.6‰. The precipitation range is −16.0 to 1.58‰ (n = 22) with the highest and lowest values measured at the same location (El Zotz, Guatemala). The surface water range is − 9.2 to 3.6 (n = 48), the lowest value is the Usumacinta River at Yaxchilan and the highest value is from a lake located 65 kilometers away. The δ 18 O values of local streams were remarkably stable over time. Major rivers, such as the Usumacinta River, have relatively constant values. Closed water basins (lakes, aguadas, and civals) demonstrated an evaporative effect and δ 18 O was variable both between basins and in individual basins over time. In the Petén region, mean δ 18 O of precipitation is statistically different than that of lake and aguada water. Local δ 18 O differences in consumed water likely explain the variability observed in human tooth enamel at Tikal and other Petén region sites. This case study demonstrates that local isotopic values may be more diverse than is generally assumed in studies of human mobility that rely on little to no baseline data. Future studies of mobility based on oxygen isotopic measures of ancient human tooth and bone should include measures of both meteoric water and a diverse range of surface and groundwater to develop more robust interpretations of oxygen isotopic values in ancient human tissue.
Book Chapters by Sarah Newman
Substance of the Ancient Maya: Kingdoms and Communities, Objects and Beings, 2024
Food Provisioning in Complex Societies: Zooarchaeological Perspectives, 2023
De olfato. Aproximaciones a los olores en la historia de México, 2020
Los seres humanos perciben olores en todas partes. Al inhalar y exhalar experimentan el mundo a t... more Los seres humanos perciben olores en todas partes. Al inhalar y exhalar experimentan el mundo a través de las fosas nasales, que contienen receptores que transmiten al cerebro las señales captadas por esa vía. Sin embargo, el olfato es el sentido más difícil de describir. Así, las analogías pueden ayudar cuando sugieren que algo es capaz de incluir entre sus características la de presentar un olor o sabor "ahumado", "afrutado" o "dulce", y una variedad de emociones, que van del disgusto al placer, a la intoxicación, contribuyendo a describir los efectos de los estímulos en la nariz.
The Routledge Handbook of Sensory Archaeology, 2019
The cultural construction of experience and perception has been a topic of interest among scholar... more The cultural construction of experience and perception has been a topic of interest among scholars working in Mesoamerica for decades. Archaeological remains, art, ancient and historic textual sources, and ethnographic observations complement and inform one another in those investigations, many of which stress the particular conceptions of bodies, sensorial hierarchies, and lived experiences across the culturally and linguistically connected region extending geographically from northern Mexico to Costa Rica. This chapter provides an overview of sensorial studies in Mesoamerica that highlights the rich and diverse evidence available. It emphasizes a diachronic, comparative approach, common in Mesoamericanist archaeology, which forces scholars to go beyond the identification of specific stimuli on discrete senses and enables them to study contexts of heightened synaesthetic experience, as well as those contexts' affective and symbolic meanings. Finally, I suggest possibilities for considering an archaeology of the senses that extends beyond the limits of a singular human body in order to more fully embrace the conceptual nature of ancient Mesoamerican experience.
An Inconstant Landscape: The Maya Kingdom of El Zotz, Guatemala, 2018
Palimpsests: Buildings, Sites, Time. Edited by Nadja Aksamija, Clark Maines, and Phillip Wagoner. Brepols, Turnhout, 2017
ACS Symposium Series, 2013
This project focuses on the characterization of materials from burial offerings and painted decor... more This project focuses on the characterization of materials from burial offerings and painted decoration in a royal Maya tomb at El Zotz, Guatemala, and their association with mortuary rituals. Archaeological findings included vessels, jade masks, organic materials (wood, cord, and textiles), specular hematite cubes, shells with powdered cinnabar, green (malachite) painted stucco assumed to have decorated the wooden bier where the king was resting, and caches of lip-to-lip Aguila Orange bowls containing human phalanges. In this paper we describe preliminary findings from non-invasive and non-destructive analytical techniques including XRF, VPSEM-EDS, and XRD, emphasizing the potential of these combined technologies in the identification of organic and inorganic markers to infer burial customs. The nature and location of the findings, the evidence of pigment coloration on the bones employing hematite and cinnabar, and the indication of exposure of the bones to high temperatures suggest highly complex, even protracted mortuary practices of Maya elite.
Theses by Sarah Newman
Master's Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Brown University, 2011
In 2010, members of the Proyecto Arqueológico El Zotz excavated the intact tomb of a Maya royal a... more In 2010, members of the Proyecto Arqueológico El Zotz excavated the intact tomb of a Maya royal at the civic-ceremonial complex known as El Diablo, a satellite group located approximately 1 km to the west of the site of El Zotz itself, in the central Petén region of Guatemala. The tomb, known as Burial 9, dates to the Early Classic period (ca. AD 250-600) and was found to contain ten large jade objects, over one hundred marine shells, well-preserved objects including wood, stucco, and textiles. The associated grave artifacts also included twenty-three complete ceramic vessels (including several lidded bowls and dishes) with various shapes, designs, and surface finishes.
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Books by Sarah Newman
Unmaking Waste tackles these questions through a long-term, cross-cultural approach. Drawing on archaeological finds, historical documents, and ethnographic observations to examine Europe, the United States, and Central America from prehistory to the present, Sarah Newman traces how different ideas about waste took shape in different times and places. Newman examines what people consider to be “waste” and how they interact with it, as well as what happens when different perceptions of trash come into conflict. Conceptions of waste have shaped forms of reuse and renewal in ancient Mesoamerica, early modern ideas of civility and forced religious conversion in New Spain, and even the modern discipline of archaeology. Newman argues that centuries of assumptions imposed on other places, times, and peoples need to be rethought. This book is not only a broad reconsideration of waste; it is also a call for new forms of archaeology that do not take garbage for granted. Unmaking Waste reveals that waste is not—and never has been—an obvious or universal concept.
Journal Articles by Sarah Newman
Book Chapters by Sarah Newman
Theses by Sarah Newman
Unmaking Waste tackles these questions through a long-term, cross-cultural approach. Drawing on archaeological finds, historical documents, and ethnographic observations to examine Europe, the United States, and Central America from prehistory to the present, Sarah Newman traces how different ideas about waste took shape in different times and places. Newman examines what people consider to be “waste” and how they interact with it, as well as what happens when different perceptions of trash come into conflict. Conceptions of waste have shaped forms of reuse and renewal in ancient Mesoamerica, early modern ideas of civility and forced religious conversion in New Spain, and even the modern discipline of archaeology. Newman argues that centuries of assumptions imposed on other places, times, and peoples need to be rethought. This book is not only a broad reconsideration of waste; it is also a call for new forms of archaeology that do not take garbage for granted. Unmaking Waste reveals that waste is not—and never has been—an obvious or universal concept.