North America - Southwest (Geographic Keyword)
51-75 (899 Records)
In the 1960s women were beginning to make major strides in the field of archaeology. It is also during this time that informal mentoring relationships began between women active in the field and young women interested in pursuing their interests in archaeology. One such example is the role of Bertha Dutton with the Girl Scouts during the early 1960s. Working out of Camp Elsa Seligman, Girl Scouts conducted survey and excavation within Sandoval County. Their field notes, archaeological field...
The Archaeology of Aztec North (2017)
Our paper reports on our recent archaeological testing at the previously unexcavated Aztec North great house at Aztec Ruins National Monument. Standing on the river terrace behind and above the better-known valley great houses, Aztec North is out of sight of those great houses but tightly bound to them as part of the formalized cultural landscape of Aztec Ruins. It is a crucial site for understanding the development of Chaco Canyon’s outliers, as it was likely the earliest great house built in...
An Archaeology of Becoming (2017)
From the emergence into this world to the settling of the modern villages, the Pueblos view their own history as a dynamic, living process. While key elements of Pueblo identity and worldview have always been with the people, migration experiences and the amalgamation of people with diverse backgrounds and beliefs were essential in shaping the culture and cosmology of each Pueblo group. This process – called ‘becoming’ by Pueblo scholars – is never complete and represents the malleability of the...
The Archaeology of Clovis Landscape Use at the Mockingbird Gap site, New Mexico and Surrounding Regions (2016)
In this paper we discuss recent work at the Mockingbird Gap Clovis site, New Mexico, and the surrounding region, designed to understand how Clovis hunter-gatherers utilized and adapted to the regional landscape and its available resources. Focusing on lithic raw material use, we show that the Clovis occupants of Mockingbird Gap had access to a wide diversity of high quality raw materials from a large area of the Southwest. Moreover, Clovis raw material network analysis across the continent...
An Archaeology of Skiing (2015)
Archaeologists have explored the prehistoric development of skiing, but its study as a modern recreational activity, lifestyle, and commercial practice has generally been left to historians. Yet snow sports entail a unique material culture, are a vibrant link between past and present, and leave a visible environmental impact. Recent consolidation of ownership and demographic shifts has spurred the closure of numerous ski areas in North America. This has lead to both the abandonment of slopes and...
Archaeology?! Yadilah! Collaborative Archaeology and Lessons from the Navajo Nation (2015)
For many Native American tribes, archaeology has been a tool used to dismantle and displace tribal narratives of the past. However, with the development of such approaches as Indigenous archaeology and community based participatory approaches, innovative collaborative projects have emerged, which have changed the way tribes view archaeology and how they engage with archaeological practice. My experiences working with Navajo communities have changed my approach and assumptions when engaging with...
Architectural Communities of Practice: Identifying Kiva Production Groups in the Northern Southwest (2017)
Researchers in a number of fields have come to recognize the vital importance of the built environment not only as material culture, but as symbolic expressions of the larger cultural framework through which social relations are produced and reproduced. Over the last half-century, studies have demonstrated how architectural characteristics—such as building size, shape, and the presence of various architectural materials, features, and furnishings—have a direct influence on human behavior and...
Architectural Specialization in Basketmaker III Proto-Villages (2015)
The foundations of Ancestral Pueblo community organization were codified in aggregated communities during the Basketmaker III Period (A.D. 500-725). This study compares morphological differences in public architecture and habitation pit structures at several aggregated sites in the Northern San Juan Region to reveal functional specialization of space associated with both long-term habitation and periodic communal gathering behavior. This specialization may reflect the primary social institutions...
Architectural Wood Use in Chaco Kivas (2015)
The architecture of Chacoan kivas was markedly unlike far more numerous non-Chacoan kivas. While Chaco is famous for its stone masonry, we focus here on wood use, and specifically on radial beam pilasters and wainscoting. Both are enigmatic and, consequently, both have often been overlooked during excavation and sometimes even removed in modern stabilization. But when the kivas were in use these features would have been dominant, eye-level aspects of kiva interiors. Using examples from Chaco...
Architecture of the late Pueblo in southern Southwest and Northwest Mexico. (2016)
The pueblo tradition, located in the American Southwest and Mexican Northwest, has received greater attention in the United States than in Mexico until recently. The present research evaluates how the Mexican Northwest differs from the southern portion of the American Southwest using architectural characteristics. The use of consecutive rooms at ground level characterize the architecture of the puebloan communities in the study area. These room-blocks had different construction techniques and...
Around the Lower Pecos in 1,095 Days: A Baseline Rock Art Documentation Project (2017)
The Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas and northern Mexico houses some of the most complex and compositionally intricate prehistoric rock art in the world. Presently, there are over 300 archaeological sites reported to include rock art in Val Verde County Texas, with a vast majority not being revisited since they received their site designation 30 to 50 years ago. In January 2017, Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center launched the Baseline Rock Art Documentation Project: a...
The Art of Footwear, Footwear as Art: Thirteen Hundred Years of Twined Sandal Production in the Northern Southwest (2015)
Finely woven yucca cordage sandals appeared in the northern Southwest 2000 years ago as a fully formed craft tradition and continued in use until the early A.D. 1200s. Their complex, labor-intensive weave structures, ornate toe finishes, and elaborate iconography suggest that these sandals played important social and symbolic roles in communities of the San Juan region for more than a millennium before disappearing from the archaeological record in the mid-thirteenth century. In this diachronic...
Artifact-Based Measures for Scaling Research in the Rio Grande Pueblos (2017)
Initial applications of settlement scaling theory focused on measures derived from the built environment, such as house density and settled area. Although this is appropriate, the theory actually focuses on the role of social networks in socioeconomic rates, and thus connects to a variety of artifact-based measures of such rates. In this paper, we develop these connections using data from the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico. We first compare pueblo room areas to show that socioeconomic outputs...
Assemblage Perspectives on Salado Polychrome (2016)
The Salado Phenomenon has long been of interest to Southwestern archaeologists, and perhaps the most notable signifier of the phenomenon is a suite of pottery types collectively referred to as Salado Polychromes or Roosevelt Red Wares. Previous researchers have tended to focus their ceramic studies on the Salado Polychrome pottery itself, and few have attempted to situate these vessels within the context of the broader ceramic assemblages of which they were part. Often, this kind of information...
An Assessment of Archaeological Bison Remains in the American Southwest and the Wildlife Management Implications for the Grand Canyon National Park Bison Herd (2016)
The historically introduced House Rock Valley bison herd in northern Arizona has, in recent years, migrated from the eastern Arizona Strip onto the Kaibab Plateau within Grand Canyon National Park. Bison are considered a nonnative species to the southern Colorado Plateau, and the animals adversely impact sensitive ecosystems prompting National Park Service wildlife managers to pursue their removal. Archaeofaunal evidence of bison in the Grand Canyon and neighboring regions, however, raises...
Awanyus, Kachinas and Birds, oh my: Exploring Changes in Iconography in the Contact Era Rio Grande Pueblo World (2017)
The Spanish conquistadors and missionaries created upheaval in the Pueblo world and increased interaction with external groups upon their arrival in the Rio Grande area during the 16th century. The social tensions that were exacerbated forced a blending of ideas and culture. Important concepts to the Pueblo people were often displayed through ceramic iconography. Whether the transference of ideologies exists in ceramic iconography becomes a focal question. Archaeologists have suggested that...
Aztec at the End of Days: Great House to Crossroads (2017)
New investigations of primary source material reveal that the final days of Aztec were extensively recorded (but not published) by Earl Morris. This paper will present analyses of burial, feature, architectural and artifactual data that indicate a chaotic and tumultuous end at Aztec preceded by behaviors that differed drastically from Chaco Canyon or in other 12th century great house sites. These practices are seen in mortuary data, in room remodeling the increased frequency of habitation of...
Aztec Ruins, 2.0 (2015)
This poster will present a "new" view of Aztec Ruins -- particularly Aztec West -- which refines modern base maps with historic data. This latter includes data drawn from Morris-era excavation photos, as well as additional information from unpublished sketch maps, correspondence, and field notes. This 'new' map will include unpublished locational data on mounds, burials, floor features, wall features, remodeling, refuse, burning... etc etc. Almost no reading required. SAA 2015 abstracts made...
Aztec’s Textiles, Baskets, and Other Perishable Traditions: Contributions of Recent Perishables Research to a New Understanding of the West Ruin (2017)
Earl Morris recovered more than 1500 perishable artifacts from the West Ruin of Aztec, but his publications provide only a glimpse of the diversity, richness, and strong research potential of this relatively well-preserved and well-provenienced perishable collection. In this paper, we discuss our recent re-analyses of these assemblages and present new insights related to Chaco-Aztec relations and the organization of ritual practice, society, and craft production at Aztec. We also highlight...
A’tzi-em and Po-ya-o-na: archaeological and historical insights into the native-Spanish encounter in New Mexico’s Piro province, 1581-1681 (2015)
This paper presents an outline of the colonial encounter between the A’tzi-em/Piros and Spaniards during the years 1581-1681. Archaeological evidence of Spanish-induced settlement changes comes from two long-term archaeological projects at the sites of the Piro pueblos of Teypana and Pilabó, Socorro County, New Mexico. Analysis of primary documents provides additional information on such issues as native accommodation and resistance, factionalism, and the ultimate disintegration of the last Piro...
Back in Time: Research at Rock Art Ranch (2015)
In 2011 the Homol’ovi Research Program (HRP) launched a fieldschool at Rock Art Ranch (RAR) 8 km south of Chevelon Pueblo and nearly 25 km from the Homol’ovi core (Homol’ovi I-IV) to investigate (1) the relationship of the many small pueblos in the area to those occupied at the same time in the core Homol’ovi area and ultimately to the large Pueblo IV villages; (2) the location and age of sites associated with the major petroglyph panels at The Steps in Chevelon Canyon generally dating...
Batacosa, a Río Sonora or Serrana site? (2015)
Our work conducted in 2009 and 2010 in Batacosa, an archaeological site first recorded in 1967 by William Wasley, and later visited by Victoria Dirst, allowed us to determine their full extent and material culture, in addition to date this site to the Batacosa (200 -700 AD) and early Cuchujaqui phases of the south branch of what Richard Pailes defined in 1973 as Río Sonora culture, geographically located in the Sonoran lower foothills. In this paper we present the results obtained by Proyecto...
Beads, Myth, and Ritual Practice: Tracing Traditions of Ornament Use in Ceremonial Deposition and Costuming in the Northern U.S. Southwest (2017)
As early as the sixteenth century, Spanish explorers noted the abundance of turquoise and shell jewelry adorning the Pueblo residents of the Rio Grande Valley and southern Colorado Plateau. In addition to serving as aesthetically pleasing objects of bodily decoration, these ornaments figure prominently in Pueblo creation and migration stories and are vital to the performance of various ritual practices, including ceremonial dances and the making of offerings and prayers. Archaeological research...
Behind the Bear's Ears: Climate and Culture in the Early Pueblo Era on Elk Ridge, Southeast Utah (2017)
The Pueblo I period was a time of tumultuous throughout the Four Corners region. Long regarded as an era of gradual transition, it is now recognized by most authors as a discrete and decisive turning point in North American prehistory. While this topic has been studied extensively in the central Mesa Verde area of southwestern Colorado, very little formal research has occurred for the early Pueblo era in southeast Utah. The high uplands area of Elk Ridge contains probably the greatest...
Believing is Seeing (2015)
Humans use an array of senses to experience the world, vision being how we primarily characterize most experiences. Color, contrast, and brilliance are all factors that are both consciously and unconsciously considered when visually interacting with the material world. These are not passive factors that are simply filed away by the brain, but active communicators that trigger responses in the mind of the viewer. This influence on human behavior has a direct impact on material culture. Since...