North America: Northern Southwest U.S. (Geographic Keyword)
26-50 (133 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Coloring the World: People and Colors in Southwestern Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The placement of colorful ornaments, marine shell, and minerals in discrete ritual deposits is a long-lived practice in the Ancestral Pueblo region. This tradition is exemplified in Chaco Canyon, where numerous ceremonial deposits comprised of such objects have been documented in kivas and other rooms within great houses....
The Early Brown Ware Horizon in East-Central Arizona, AD 300-550: Preliminary Results from Recent Survey, Excavation, and Collections-Based Research (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Early Brown Ware Horizon, also known as the Basketmaker II-III transition, is one of the most pivotal yet poorly understood temporal intervals in the Prehispanic northern Southwest. This poster reports on recent site reconnaissance, small-scale excavations, and collections-based analyses focused on an area with a dense occupation at this time, East Central...
Earning Their Living: Archaeologies of Ideation, Ritual, and Agricultural Practice in the Southwestern Pueblo Landscape (2018)
Agriculture among the northern Southwest’s Pueblo communities traditionally and historically was more than merely an economic activity through which the people "made their living." Steeped in ritual and informed by principles of stewardship, spiritual ecology, and ensoulment that explicate their orientation within the Natural World and their obligations to the Supernatural World, indigenous agricultural practice was literally and figuratively a key element in each individual’s everyday...
An Examination of Food Storage Patterns in the Northern Southwest (2018)
The purpose of this project is to identify patterns in Ancestral Puebloan food storage across the northern Southwest between AD 950 and 1300. Using legacy data from the Grand Canyon, I examine characteristics of food storage in canyon environments and then compare the results to southeastern Utah. To combat harsh environmental conditions and secure reliable resources, ancient people stored food in sealed masonry structures, or granaries, protected in alcoves high on canyon walls. These...
Examining the Architectural Technology at Lava Ridge Ruin, Arizona (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One component of the archaeological record that can shed light on human behavior is architectural remains. Architectural studies in archaeology have mostly focused on evaluating the mechanical properties of construction materials, the amount of labor, time, and materials needed for construction, and room function to make...
Examining Turkey Husbandry in the Northern Southwest Using Legacy Museum Collections (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Current Research on Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) Domestication, Husbandry and Management in North America and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this paper, I examine some of the details of turkey husbandry by analyzing avian remains and associated material culture, including feathers and cordage. The North American turkey (Meleagris gallopavo spp.) has had a significant and enduring presence in many of the...
The Far View Archaeological Project: An Introduction (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the history of Mesa Verde National Park (MVNP), the Far View community has been the focus of multiple, yet discrete, archaeological projects, from Fewkes’ excavations in the 1920s to more recent architectural documentation and stabilization in 2012. However, there are gaps in survey coverage, site forms require updating, and the community lacks an overall...
Feasting and Shrine Formation at Mitchell Springs and Champagne Spring (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although most archaeologists agree that large-scale feasting occurred in the prehistoric Southwest, excavations have produced little direct evidence for it. Villages where feasting has been asserted had large populations, public architecture (monumental buildings, shrines, plazas, etc.), and often deep antiquity. Recent excavations at two such sites in...
The Final Frontier: Chaco Great Houses in the Great Sage Plain of Southwestern Colorado (2018)
The expansion of the Chacoan regional system into Southwestern Colorado was relatively late compared to other areas, occurring for the most part from A.D. 1080 to 1140. This poster examines this late expansion by focusing on Chaco-style great houses located in the Great Sage Plain of southwestern Colorado. Information on these Chacoan sites has been compiled during a series of projects that began in the late 1980s and continued with 2017 fieldwork during the Community Center Reassessment...
The First Excavation of a Pithouse Site in the Mt. Trumbull Area (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The first excavation of Virgin Ancestral Pueblo structures was conducted at Mt. Trumbull during the summer of 2018 after more than 15 years of intense surface surveys. The goal of this study is to gain a better understanding of the settlement patterns and changes in adaptive strategies among the Ancestral Puebloans who lived in...
Flying Colors: Local and Non-local Birds in Chaco Canyon Archaeological Sites (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Coloring the World: People and Colors in Southwestern Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bird species found in archaeological contexts throughout Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, include a range of local and non-local birds, as well as game and non-game birds. We analyzed the set of 5,350 identified bird bones and compared species composition to the local and regional avifaunas that we expect to have occurred ~1000...
Food and Firewood in Gallina, New Mexico (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Growing, collecting, preparing, storing, and using food and fuel are practices that illustrate environmental, community, and interpersonal relationships at the smallest and largest archaeological scales. This paper explores the plant landscape of the Gallina region and phase within the Ancestral Puebloan world. As understandings of this period and its...
Fremont Legacy in Capitol Reef and the Waterpocket Fold: A Radiocarbon Analysis of the Pectol Collection Coiled Basketry Using Bayesian Modeling (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Socioecological Dynamics of Holocene Foragers and Farmers" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Perishable artifacts provide ample opportunity to understand the past, and radiocarbon dating is one area where artifacts constructed from annual plants can make a significant contribution. The analysis and dating of basketry from the Pectol Collection, an important collection of Fremont baskets from Utah’s Capitol Reef...
Fremont Paleocuisine: Reconstructing Recipes from Rectal Remnants (2018)
The role of maize agriculture among the Fremont has been debated for decades. Archaeologists have organized dietary evidence from these widely dispersed communities, including faunal and floral debris, dental calculus studies,and experimental farming and foraging, to examine farming in the high desert. The Fremont farming/foraging frontier provides a framework to explore agriculture along the margins and the importance of diversified subsistence strategies across a network of rural communities....
Fremont Villages in Their Cultural Landscapes (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Sacred Southwestern Landscapes: Archaeologies of Religious Ecology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Physical and cultural landscapes are integral aspects of everyday life; however, traditionally Fremont archaeologists have focused on studying sites or even features as discrete units instead of attempting to understand them in the broader context of their natural and cultural landscapes. Many Native American groups...
From Grandma’s Attic to Amnesty Programs: Adventures in Accessioning Archaeological Collections (2019)
This is an abstract from the "To Curate or Not to Curate: Surprises, Remorse, and Archaeological Grey Area" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. It is said that the best deaccession policy is a strong accession policy - never accession anything that is beyond your collection scope and institutional mission, and you will never need to deaccession. In a perfect museum world all incoming collections will meet institutional mission, scope of collection...
Geochemical Characterization of Sediments for the Understanding of Site Occupation History in Mt. Trumbull (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The first excavation of the pithouse structure site was conducted during the summer of 2018 in Mt. Trumbull as a part of settlement pattern investigation in this area. A long trench excavation conducted at the center of a depression observed in this site revealed a large pithouse floor in the limestone bedrock. The profile of...
A GIS Predictive Model of Early Archaic Site Locations on the Taos Plateau (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Research in the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, Northern New Mexico" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological record within the recently designated Rio del Norte National Monument is the subject of on-going investigations. This presentation will discuss the use of Geographic information Systems (GIS) in predicting the locations of Early Archaic sites within the monument, which straddles the Rio...
A GIS-Approach to a Prehistoric Travel Corridor in the Phoenix Area (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster presents the preliminary results of a GIS-based approach for the documentation and interpretation of a prehistoric Hohokam travel corridor in the South Mountains of Phoenix, Arizona. Trails, their associated features and co-occurrences of artifacts, when combined with settlement data, provide important clues about intercommunity relationships and...
Glaze-Paint Pigmenting Strategies in the Upper Little Colorado and Western Zuni Regions (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Attention to Detail: A Pragmatic Career of Research, Mentoring, and Service, Papers in Honor of Keith Kintigh" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We report on research that uses LA-ICP-MS to examine glaze-paint pigmenting strategies and lead isotopes to investigate lead sources used during the Pueblo IV period in the Upper Little Colorado and Western Zuni Regions of the American Southwest. Pigment data suggest that...
Hard Times and Mobility in Thirteenth-Century SE Utah: A Chronometric Study (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Large areas of the western Northern San Juan Region were repopulated in the early AD 1100s and mid AD 1200s, but the overall lack of systematic chronometric dating has complicated our understanding of events during these critical periods of settlement and abandonment. The Wood Project has...
Held Hostage by a Paradigm (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Nat’aah Nahane’ Bina’ji O’hoo’ah: Diné Archaeologists & Navajo Archaeology in the 21st Century" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Anyone who has studied southwestern archaeology is familiar with the paradigm that dictates how Navajos are understood in the trajectory of indigenous life written by anthropologists and archaeologists in the academic study of the southwest. The paradigm is this: descendants of migratory...
High-Precision AMS Radiocarbon Chronologies Demonstrate Short-Lived Agricultural Village Occupations on the Northern Colorado Plateau (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Socioecological Dynamics of Holocene Foragers and Farmers" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Fremont archaeological complex provides an important window into the socioecological dynamics underwriting the formation of settled pithouse communities in the western North America drylands. We developed high-precision AMS radiocarbon chronologies based on short-lived annuals for four Fremont sites (Cub Creek, Caldwell...
An Historic Summary of Parashant National Monument, Arizona (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The land that now comprises Grand Canyon - Parashant National Monument has a long, unique history stretching back to the early years of exploration and discovery in the American Southwest. This paper summarizes the history of the area that became Parashant NM and introduces several methods that the National Park Service uses to...
The Homol’ovi Research Project – The View from ASU (2018)
It is unlikely that we will see a research effort of the scope and duration of the Homol’ovi Research Program project replicated in the Southwest. It is the successful execution of this work by Chuck Adams and Rich Lange, unfolding over more than three decades, that we will attempt to contextualize from the vantage point of that other university in Arizona, ASU. We begin by reviewing the intellectual context of Southwestern research preceding the Homol’ovi project, in particular how the...