North America - Southwest (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Herrick.

Traces of early modern European presence in the Sonoran Desert endure today as plaster-white mission churches dotted across the arid landscape. Established by Jesuits as early as 1691 AD, Mission San Xavier del Bac in Tucson, Arizona is unique in its continued usage as a modern Catholic church. Its long-standing occupation necessitates nearly-constant conservation practices, which must be complementary to the church’s original construction. However, the absence of nearly two-hundred years’...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Reitze. Amy Schott.

In 2004 Congress authorized Petrified Forest National Park to more than double in size, in part to protect unique cultural resources. This poster introduces the preliminary results of three seasons of pedestrian survey in these new lands. So far this research has recorded archaeological resources dating across the spectrum of the human habitation of North America, beginning with Paleoindian lithics and extending through the historic period. Sites ranging from lithic landscapes covering hundreds...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth McCarthy.

Faunal material has been recovered throughout the Casas Grandes world, from the cultural center of Paquime to the borderlands sites of Joyce Wells and 76 Draw. This study aims to compare the faunal assemblages of several Casas Grandes related sites to examine patterns of faunal utilization through time and space. Our results demonstrate that sites closer to Paquime (including Paquime itself) tend to have a more diverse faunal assemblage as well as having a higher percentage of high-ranked...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Mathwich. Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman.

The introduction of livestock to the Pimeria Alta (northern Sonora and southern Arizona), was one prong of Spanish imperial expansion into North America initiated largely by Jesuit missionization. Unlike other areas of North America, the missions in this region experienced an enormous bureaucratic transition following the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, and the subsequent arrival of Franciscan missionaries. Historians and historical anthropologists debate the social and economic impacts of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Todd Scarbrough. Kristin Corl. Dylan Clark. Sunnie Sartin.

What is the significance of multiple burning events at Cottonwood Spring Pueblo (LA 175) an El Paso Phase (A.D. 1300-1450) Mogollon village in Southwest New Mexico? What do these burning events tell us about the life history of the pueblo? When did they occur? How do they compare to burning events at contemporary sites in the American Southwest? Contextual evidence suggests they are separate ritual events. What purposes did these events serve? How do they differ from other purposeful pueblo...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carolyn Boyd. Kim Cox.

The White Shaman Mural (~2000 BP) is a planned composition with rules governing the portrayal of symbolic forms and the sequencing of colors. Using digital microscopy we determined that all black paint was applied first, followed by red, then yellow, and last white. Complex images were woven together to form an intricate visual narrative detailing the birth of the sun and beginning of time. One of the key figures in this creation narrative is a small anthropomorphic figure bearing red antlers...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Candice Disque.

Settlement locations and the resultant built form are an essential part in understanding the social and cultural ideals of prehistoric peoples. Vital information pertaining to intracultural diversity is lost when the ideals, beliefs, values, and identities of multiple communities within a culture are homogenized. Landscape analysis of the Sand Canyon Pueblo community, Cajon Mesa communities, and the Ten Acres Community has revealed distinct differences in site location and orientation; masonry...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Hackbarth.

Recent excavations at Pueblo Patricio and La Ciudad have uncovered Pioneer Period components that provide new insight about early Hohokam chronology, settlement, and irrigation in Phoenix. Red Mountain phase occupation at Pueblo Patricio began before the fifth century A.D. with seasonal use of small structures exhibiting highly variable architectural forms and small groupings of structures. A dramatic change in Pueblo Patricio settlement patterns occurred by the middle of the mid-sixth century...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Victoria Bowler. Emily Jones. Cyler Conrad.

Domestic dogs were an important part of human cultures in the prehistoric American Southwest; the significance of these animals is apparent from ceramic decorations and clay figurines, as well as faunal remains. But how these animals functioned within Southwestern cultures is less well-understood. Prehistoric dogs’ roles in some cases seem to have been similar to those of modern dogs: protector, worker, and pet. However, zooarchaeological data have shown that dogs, like turkeys, were also used...

DOCUMENT Citation Only B. Sunday Eiselt.

Plains-Pueblo Exchange is the study of interregional interactions during the Protohistoric Period (ca. AD 1450 to 1700) between the people and cultures of the Southern Plains and the eastern, frontier Pueblo communities associated with the Rio Grande Valley and its tributaries. Plains-Pueblo research has focused generally on issues of culture contact, culture history, and social evolutionary trajectories leading up to European Colonization, but has skirted the increasingly obvious fact that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alyssa Willett. Ryan Harrod.

This project focuses on the assessment of individuals who appear to have held a lower status, worked harder, and been at more risk for trauma then other members of the same community. The West Ruin site of Aztec Ruins is an important site in the U.S. Southwest that came into prominence after the decline of Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon. Within this site there are two individuals who appear to have suffered significant traumatic injuries that healed. Both individuals were young adults; one...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Elson. Maren Hopkins.

Recent fieldschool excavations at University Indian Ruin, under the direction of Drs. Paul and Suzanne Fish, have uncovered a wealth of new data. University Indian Ruin is a large Classic period Hohokam village situated in the eastern Tucson Basin. The site likely contains hundreds of adobe rooms and at least two platform mounds, a form of monumental architecture built by or for elites. In the late 1930s, such archaeological luminaries as Byron Cummings and Emil Haury investigated the site and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Judith Van Roggen (Paterson).

Archaeobotanical re-analysis of plant remains from the late Pueblo III Mesa Verde site of Sand Canyon Pueblo has yielded pharmacological plants and presence of clans. In this presentation the social organization of the site is explored through mythic and historic relationships recorded in Emergence narratives and ethnography. Plants, art, artefacts, architecture and disease at Sand Canyon Pueblo provide compelling evidence of Bear clan shamans, who, through their association with the mythic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Spears. Damian Garcia.

This poster presents a collaborative archaeological project between the Pueblo of Acoma Historic Preservation Office (HPO) and the University of Arizona, School of Anthropology. The project began as an internship that fulfilled a requirement of the Applied Archaeology MA program. The internship was designed to better understand the Tribal Historic Preservation Program in residence at the Pueblo of Acoma, while providing professional archaeological assistance to the HPO by compiling a database of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tobías García Vilchis. Emiliano Gallaga.

The Raramuri, an indigenous people from Chihuahua, Mexico, has occupied the western part of the country for over 1000 years. As many authors claim, their ways of life have changed little, and they remain as one of the only, if not the only, living seminomadic groups existing in North America. In this paper, we will focus on recent ethnoarchaeological research carried out by students and professors of the EAHNM. This research allows us to create an explanatory model to comprehend the nature of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dan McArthur. David Robinson.

This study aims to explore the purpose and use of bifurcated sticks found in cache caves of Southern California. Known as ‘witchsticks’ or ‘spirtsticks’, little formal research has been undertaken on these enigmatic cave sticks. As suggested by their naming, interpretations presume a ritual connotation despite little evidence; alternately, a purely practical application has equally been poorly considered. With the discovery of new Cache cave comes the ability to observe well preserved cave...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer McCrackan. Eric Weaver.

The El Malpais National Monument located roughly 100 miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico, borders the southern part of the San Juan Basin and the southeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau. The extensive geologic history of volcanic activity has created a seemingly hellish volcanic field rightfully named "the badlands" by Spanish explorers. However, the region is in fact home to a rich cultural history that heavily utilizes the natural environment, including its many cave systems. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wendy Sutton.

Commonly known as “rock art,” pictographs (pigment on rock) and petroglyphs (images pecked or incised into rock) are much more than art. They reflect the history and values of peoples who once lived here and are a tangible reminder of their connection to the landscape. The Gila National Forest is installing interpretive signage at or near multiple well-known “rock art” sites in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). These signs, and additional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Maria Del Roble Rios Ortega.

In this paper I present the historic and archaeological records, of social gatherings that formed an integral part of the mining way of life and the material culture that represents it. The study is focused on the town of Magistral del Oro, Durango in northern Mexico. This region was forged by mining activity in colonial times. Though the village today has been largely abandoned, traces of both labor and domestic areas still remain. Furthermore, photographs and interviews with people who worked...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jerry Lyon. Jeffrey Jones.

The transition from hunting and gathering to increased reliance on farming and the subsequent development of distinct regional cultural traditions represent critical processes in the prehistory of southern Arizona. Previous research at the site of Valencia Vieja in the southern Tucson Basin suggests the development of a distinct Hohokam cultural identity began during the Tortolita phase (Red Ware horizon) when significant population aggregation could be maintained and supported with dependable...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marco Martinez.

Casas Grandes is an archaeological prehistoric site located in the state of Chihuahua, Northwest Mexico. The region’s chronology remains unclear, with knowledge gaps between its time periods, one of these gaps includes the possible social configurations after the collapse of Casas Grandes. This research aims to provide new data obtained from the analysis of the ceramic assemblage of an archaeological site whose architecture seems to linger between late Casas Grandes and Spanish. This site, 291,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Krystal Britt.

As is true today, migration throughout the past had a phenomenal impact on communities through the renegotiation of cultural practices, community and social identity. Using LA-ICP-MS I investigate community formation through shared ceramic production practices in Northern Arizona during the Pueblo III period (1125-1275 C.E.). This paper introduces the preliminary results of ceramic compositional analysis from contemporaneous sites in the middle Little Colorado River valley. During short-term...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha Linford.

Tracing complicated social links such as kinship through the material record has fallen in and out of favor in anthropological discourse. The ceramic sociologists of the 1960s and 1970s (Hill 1966; Longacre 1970) focused on tracking kinship through spatial patterning of ceramic designs among Pueblo sites in the American Southwest. The concept of ceramic sociology sparked many critiques within archaeology (Allen and Richardson 1971). These critiques were tied to a need for better understanding of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Byron Estes. Claire S. Barker. Vincent M. La Motta.

RAR-2 is a small Pueblo III period site located on private land outside of Winslow, Arizona. Excavations in 2011-12 by the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Arizona Field School at Rock Art Ranch have revealed the production of local utility ware, Rock Art Ranch utility ware, in addition to a variety of imported, non-local utility wares, including Tusayan Gray ware, Mogollon Brown ware, and Puerco Valley utility ware. This study analyses the technological style of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Donelle Huffer.

Zooarchaeological analyses of faunal bone assemblages often focus on the role of animals in human diet and subsistence and as sources of raw materials. Yet animals also fill social and symbolic roles in human societies, and ceremonially and ritually associated archaeofaunal remains have significant interpretive potential. Recognizing the special emphasis accorded to certain animals and their remains and the social factors that shape faunal bone assemblages permits explanation within broader...