North America - Southwest (Geographic Keyword)
576-600 (899 Records)
As a scholar, novelist and poet, Diane Gifford Gonzalez’s contribution to archaeology is proof that the pursuit of the arts as a personal endeavor enriches practice. Artistic practice fosters perception of associative relationships, develops a trust in the intuitive, and cultivates personal skill sets linking material media, form and meaning. In engaging in such parallel practices Gifford Gonzalez has fostered an approach to archaeology that has bridged the gap between positivist and post-modern...
Parasites in Antelope Cave (2015)
Human and animal coprolites revealed an interesting group of parasites, some of which have never been found before in archaeological context. The Rocky Mountain Wood Tick, Dermacentor andersoni, were found in two human coprolites. These were probably crushed and ingested. Acanthocephalan eggs found in the human coprolites were consistent with Macracanthorhynchus ingens. This is the first well-documented infection among Ancestral Puebloans and suggests that people at Antelope Cave had different...
Partitioning variance in maize landrace flowering time by cultural affiliation, geography, and genetic relatedness (2016)
Domesticates are uniquely both biological organisms but also cultural artifacts. As organisms, domesticates are shaped by the natural history of the progenitor and adaptation to diverse environments. As artifacts, domesticates record the cultivation practices, migration histories, cultural interactions and values of associated human groups. Using a population of maize landrace hybrids from the Greater Southwest (US and Mexico) that have been phenotyped for flowering time, we test how much of the...
Partnerships between the USFS and New Mexico SiteWatch (2016)
In 2002 the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division (SHPO) established a statewide site stewardship program, New Mexico SiteWatch, that works with federal and state agencies to help preserve archaeological sites. The program is organized into local chapters and has integrated two established programs--one for the Santa Fe National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management in northwest New Mexico. The USFS has been a partner from the beginning. In addition to monitoring threatened sites,...
Past, Present, and Future of Archaeological Legacies: Reassessing the Chavez Pass Burial Collections for NAGPRA Repatriation (2015)
A recently completed NAGPRA documentation project for the Chavez Pass Burial Collections at Arizona State University facilitated a multi-faceted reassessment of the expansive collections of the site, originally recovered from 1976 through 1982 by ASU archaeologists. In the reassessment, teams of physical anthropologists and archaeologist used original site records, maps, specimen logs, museum catalogs, photographs and reports to reexamine contextual identification of burials and associated...
Patch choice model predictions for jackrabbit processing at Antelope Cave, Arizona (2015)
Zooarchaeological research conducted under the conceptual realm of behavioral ecology has generally focused on the decision-making processes made during and immediately after hunting activities, at the cost of studies that explicitly attempt to predict culinary processing according to ecological or social conditions. It is critical that archaeologists develop tools for predicting and identifying culinary processing methods if our goal is to fully understand prehistoric foraging decisions. Since...
The Path of Hua’m A Nui: Aggrandizement among the Classic Period Phoenix Basin Hohokam (2017)
O’Odham oral histories describes the overthrow of Hua’m a Nui (Yellow Buzzard) and other arrogant rulers of platform mound villages in the Phoenix Basin. These oral histories are consistent with archaeological data that point to increasing social stratification during the Classic Period. This paper addresses the question of how the household-based egalitarianism of the Preclassic developed into Late Classic hierarchy. Leveling mechanisms that previously channeled aggrandizers into socially...
A Perfect Pothunting Day - An Examination of Vandalism to the Cultural Resources of Canyon de Chelly National Monument (2015)
It has been postulated that one-third to one-half of all known archaeological sites in the US Southwest have been vandalized; however there are few accurate and complete datasets available to prove this assumption, or to determine exactly which factors encourage illicit activity. In fact, in 1987 the Government Accounting Office identified this lack of data as a major reason for not fully comprehending the archeological vandalism problem on public lands in the United States. For over 20 years,...
The Perkinsville Valley: The Fishes Enter the Uncharted Waters of the Upper Verde Valley (2017)
In the 1960s, a group of students at Arizona State University organized a multi-year program of archaeological survey and excavations in the Perkinsville Valley, an archaeologically unknown region briefly visited by Jesse Walter Fewkes in 1906. Starting with a wide-ranging reconnaissance, a survey identified 21 sites, indicating a long-term occupation throughout the entire cultural sequence of the Verde Valley, from the Early Archaic through the terminal A.D. 1300-1400 periods. A number of sites...
Petroglyphs of East Tank Mesa and the Mac Stod Great House: Using Rock Art to Gauge Regional Influences in Petrified Forest National Park (2016)
East Tank Mesa is a prominent landform located within the new expansion lands of Petrified Forest National Park: harboring a high concentration of Pueblo II-Pueblo III petroglyph panels and one of the region’s few possible Chacoan outliers. This possible outlier is the Mac Stod site: a seven-room pueblo possessing some of the hallmarks of Chacoan architecture (core veneer masonry, large rooms, long straight walls, and well constructed rectangular doorways). The nature of Mac Stod, and whether it...
Petrographic analysis of ceramics and construction materials: The dwellers of Cueva del Maguey in the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Ferreria site of the Guadiana valley in Durango, Mexico. (2015)
The archaeological site of the Ferrería (550-1350d.C), is undoubtedly the most important prehispanic settlement of Chalchihuites Culture in the Guadiana valley in Durango. The work done was based on a chronology made for Charles Kelley who divides into two main branches (Súchil and Guadiana). The presence of archaeological materials allowed reconsider the provenance of ceramics Madero Fluted type in the Guadiana valley and the Sierra Madre Occidental, activities and tasks has been important in...
A Petrographic Analysis of Jemez Black-on-white Pottery from Five Classic Period Sites in the Jemez Province, New Mexico (c. 1350-1700 AD) (2016)
Unlike many other ceramic types in the American Southwest, Jemez Black-on-white is commonly regarded as a distinctive locally-made type that remained both stylistically and compositionally unchanged for three centuries. This generally accepted status of Jemez Black-on-white, however, has meant that until recently, little additional work has been done to better understand its origins and development. Here, I present the results of a petrographic analysis of 15 Jemez Black-on-white sherds taken...
The Petrographs of Janos, Chihuahua and its Archaic Community (2016)
In this paper, we will present the preliminary results of the first field season of the El Peñón del Diablo, Janos, Chihuahua Project, focused on an interesting rock art site on the chihuahuan prairie. We like to emphasize, that this archaeological project was created under the Janos community initiative, which wanted to know more about the site for its protection and for tourist development in the area. Thanks to the close collaboration between the Janos municipality, the Centro INAH Chihuahua,...
Petrography, Pots and People: Determining the source of Hohokam plainwares at Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora, Mexico. (2016)
Late prehistoric Sonora, Mexico was a dynamic landscape of warfare, mass migration and trade networks spanning modern international borders. At around AD1300 archaeologists have clear evidence of Hohokam populations moving from southern Arizona and displacing indigenous Trincheras populations in the Altar River Valley of Sonora. With a ceramic type called Sells Plain, Hohokam potters introduce a new ceramic manufacturing technology –paddle-and-anvil ceramics- to the region. In response to this...
Phytolith Analysis of Sediments from Early Agricultural Fields at Las Capas, Arizona (2015)
Phytolith analysis of field sediments at the Early Agricultural site of Las Capas document a rich microfossil record of the plant communities that grew in farmed irragric soils and the local environment. Although irrigation water tapped from the Santa Cruz River carried a significant load of naturally derived phytoliths, the signature of cultivated and encouraged plants was clearly recognizable among the diverse identified genera and species. Maize is well-represented, but there is a strong...
Pima County Cultural Resources Management on County Conservation Lands: Predicting Archaeological Sensitivity Zones and Refining Spatial Models (2017)
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) modeling is vital to improve and focus cultural resources management strategies on the approximately 100,000 acres of conservation lands acquired by Pima County since 1997. These lands are dedicated for cultural and biological resource conservation and are the result of lands identified in the Pima County Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan (SDCP). The SDCP includes a static model depicting archaeological sensitivity that combines all archaeological site types...
The Pine Lawn-Reserve Area Archaeological Project: Results and Prospects (2015)
Between 1939 and 1955, Paul Sidney Martin and John Rinaldo of the Field Museum excavated or tested more than 30 archaeological sites in the Pine Lawn/Reserve region of New Mexico. Researchers from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the United States Forest Service, and elsewhere have since 2010 been working to re-locate and record those sites, many of which were never properly registered with state and federal authorities. This paper shares results of that research as well as exploratory...
Pithouses and Placemaking on the Southern Colorado Plateau (2015)
Pithouse period settlement on the southern Colorado Plateau was the subject of vibrant research in the mid-twentieth century as Southwest archaeologists explored the validity of the Mogollon and Anasazi archaeological culture areas. In subsequent years the region became a laboratory for anthropology, as the rich data lent itself to studies of population dynamics in the famously heady days of New Archaeology. Since the mid-1970s, research on these first millennium A.D. sites has been confined to...
Pithouses in the Taos Valley: What Don't We Know? (2016)
Pithouse occupations in the Northern Rio Grande, specifically the Taos Valley, occurred late in time and at high elevations. There is little evidence of a transitional period from a mobile to sedentary lifeway in this area. Pithouse occupations also occurred during a time when, as little as 30 miles away, multistory pueblo communities were thriving. This change has raised questions and sparked many archaeological investigations over the years. Why do we see this transition from hunter-gatherer...
Pithouses, Pueblos, Projectile Points, Petroglyphs, and Possible Plazas: An Update on the 2015 Petrified Forest National Park Boundary Expansion Survey (2016)
Petrified Forest National Park is in the third and final year of its Boundary Expansion Survey, which has nearly doubled the park’s size to 221,552 acres. Over the last three years researchers have identified and recorded over 300 archaeological sites in a variety of ecological zones. Our survey focuses on a 640-acre parcel that encompasses flat grasslands, dune-covered Triassic ridges, washes, and mesa tops. Site types range from large Basketmaker II habitation sites, to Pueblo II and Pueblo...
Place, Place Name and Property in the identification of O’odham and Pee Posh TCPs. (2015)
Ethnogeography considers the ways in which human beings invest places, spaces, or points on the land with names and information that render them culturally meaningful. Many places in a culture’s ethnogeography are also Traditional Cultural Properties or TCPs. TCPs are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and by definition are significant to the perpetuation of traditional worldview and living indigenous cultures. This presentation reports on recent advances in O’odham and Pee...
PLAIN AND INTERESTING: AN EVALUATION AND REDEFINING OF NON-DECORATED POTTERY FROM NUVAKWEWTAQA, CHAVEZ PASS, CENTRAL ARIZONA (2015)
Long ago, Southwestern archaeologists realized the value of non-decorated pottery as a source of cultural information. The fundamental work of Colton and others (e.g., Pilles and Wood) have established the examination of non-decorated pottery as a key aspect for understanding the Sinagua Culture of central Arizona. This poster represents a continuation of the work began by Henderson (1978, 1990) and later refined by Henss (1990) on the non-decorated pottery excavated from Chavez Pass Ruin (13th...
Plainware Ceramics from the Surface of the 76 Draw Site, Luna Country, New Mexico (2015)
The 76 Draw archaeological site (LA 156980) is located in southwestern New Mexico. This Medio period (A.D. 1200-1400) site is situated within the northern edge of the Casas Grandes interaction sphere just south of Deming, New Mexico. It includes the remains of pueblo-like adobe structures overlain with a scatter of thousands of artifacts including lithic and mixed ceramics. In the summer of 2013, the University of Missouri and University of North Florida surface sampled the site. One purpose of...
Plants in a Day: A Cost Distance Analysis of Single Day Distance to Floral Resources of the Ancestral Puebloans at Goat Springs Pueblo (LA 285) (2015)
The way in which groups interact with their surrounding environment can provide insight into the importance of natural resources for a social group, despite having a large reliance upon cultivation for subsistence. For this study the landscape around Goat Springs Pueblo (LA 285) was analyzed to identify accessible botanical resources for the pueblo’s inhabitants. Current research has indicated that abiotic natural resources were not frequently accessed, therefore site use may have been related...
Playing with Fate: A Relational and Sensory Approach to Pilgrimage at Chaco Canyon (2017)
Chaco Canyon is generally understood to have derived its regional influence by virtue of ceremonial power. But what exactly - experientially, sensorially, affectively – was so compelling about the experience of Chacoan ritual, and how might we approach these immaterial dimensions of the archaeological record? In this paper, I suggest that ceremonial gambling/gaming was an important practice during Chacoan gatherings that allowed participants to interact directly with supernatural forces. After...