North America - Southwest (Geographic Keyword)
251-275 (899 Records)
Requiring students to analyze individual site reports in terms of theoretical schemes presented in lectures has yielded very positive results. Students have come away from this experience with excellent comprehension of both the site reports and difficulties involved in fitting the data contained therein to a theoretical framework. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital...
Effects of Clay Shrinkage on Sex Estimation of Dermatoglyphic Impressions on Ceramics (2016)
Dermatoglyphic impressions - the patterns of ridges and furrows, whorls, loops, and arches present on human hands and feet - are recognized by forensic scientists as having sexually dimorphic characteristics. Sex and age can be estimated from these impressions achieving rates of accuracy similar to other metric methods utilized in physical anthropology and bioarchaeology (Marasco et al. 2014, Mundorff et al. 2014). Despite this potential, analysis of dermatoglpyphic impressions left on plastic...
The effects of temporal coarse-graining on inferred networks of human movement (2015)
Analyses using tree-ring dates provide an attractive test-bed for examining effects of temporal coarse-graining in archaeological contexts, due to the high-resolution of dendrochronology. After compiling a database of every known tree-ring date in the U.S. Southwest, we use tree-ring-date counts and locations as proxies for gridded human population estimates in the upland portions of the SW US. Grid-squares that lose dates are connected to nearby grid squares that gain dates as we move from one...
El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro – Public Perceptions and Management (2017)
Management of the Jornada del Muerto segment of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail over the last 9 years has provided insights into a wide range of behaviors and perceptions about a physical manifestation of history and its meaning and role in our lives. As with many historic/archaeological sites, there is a mythic El Camino as well as an archaeological/historic El Camino. Trail management is sometimes a question of balancing and enhancing and sometimes a question of...
Elemental and Isotopic Variability in Mogollon-Datil Province Archaeological Obsidian, Western New Mexico (2015)
The Mogollon-Datil Volcanic Province in western New Mexico has been a subject of geological and geoarchaeological research for over three decades. These Tertiary Period major events incorporated significant areas of crust over tens of thousands of km2 and the rhyolite glass produced from these events are consequently similar in elemental composition even though the five major sources are isolated over a 100 linear km radius, and cross a number of cultural territorial boundaries in the late...
Eligible Recommended Archaeological Sites? Biases and Caveats: A view from New Mexico (2017)
Eligibility of an archaeological site in the National Register is determined on four basic criteria. This research discusses the nature of eligible nominated sites in regards to their temporal and spatial affiliation on New Mexico State Trust Lands as they are recorded in the New Mexico ARMS database. Correlations with available archaeological surveys, terrain visibility, and the way we regard and define what an archaeological site is are also examined.
Embodied rock art motifs in far west Texas and northern South Africa (2017)
In this paper, I consider embodied rock art motifs in two rock art regions: far west Texas and northern South Africa. By employing the tools of embodiment theory, certain motifs in both regions can usefully be seen as expressions of how indigenous ontologies were perceived, how things were, and how identities were tied to physical beings and manifestations of physical beings. As with research on ritualistic ontologies and the process of making rock art, embodiment theory can help us overcome the...
The Emergence of Tewa Pueblo Society (2016)
This poster explores the emergence of Tewa Pueblo society in northern New Mexico and uses archaeological methods to understand the ways in which disparate communities (of migrants and autochthonous people) coalesced to create a novel social, ceremonial, and residential organization – the hallmarks of Tewa village life – in the mid-fourteenth century. While recent research demonstrates where and when these changes occurred, archaeologists know little about why and how the ancestral Tewa...
Engaged Anthropology at Cuyamunge, New Mexico (2015)
In 2014 The Pueblo of Pojoaque and University of Colorado-Boulder began a collaborative project at Cuyamungue ( K’uuyemugeh ‘stones falling down place’), an ancestral Tewa village. The goals of the project are to increase awareness of local ancestral sites in contemporary Pueblo communities; to strengthen local community identities; and to integrate archaeological, historical and traditional knowledge in telling the story of Cuyamungue. The first season of work involved surface survey,...
ENSO and the rabbits of Baja California (2015)
The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a major source of climatic variation worldwide, with significant impacts on modern human and animal populations. However, few detailed records exist on the long-term effects of ENSO on prehistoric vertebrate populations. Here we examine how lagomorph deposition rate, population age structure and taxonomic composition from Abrigo de los Escorpiones, a well-dated, trans-Holocene vertebrate fauna from northern Baja California, Mexico, vary as a function of...
Entangled Identities on the American Frontier: Army Laundresses as Cultural Brokers at 19th Century Fort Davis, Texas (2017)
This paper focuses on the cultural slippage that occurs in frontier zones where competing worldviews create conditions for alternative, innovative, and layered performances of intersecting identities. As spaces of translation, frontiers are the ideal location to study entangled identities. Inhabitants of these queer landscapes constantly negotiate the multiple lived realities of often conflicting ideologies. I propose the use of third-space as a framework for understanding the fragmentation and...
Entangled Prehistories: A Physics Idea and Culture Change in Chaco Canyon (2017)
Recent work by physicists on "entangled histories" offers archaeologists an alternative perspective for studying prehistoric culture change. The conventional wisdom of archaeology’s contribution to the broader discipline of anthropology is its ability to study change over long spans of time. In recent years, archaeologists have done this using increasingly precise dating techniques combined with processual, multi-scalar, and comparative approaches. The concept of entangled histories expands this...
Environmental History of an Early Agricultural Period Irrigation Canals Network at Las Capas (Site AZ AA:12:753 [ASM]), Tucson, Arizona (2015)
The Santa Cruz Drainage Basin contains a rich record of prehistoric irrigation for at least 3200 years. Archaeologists and paleoecologists have identified the evolution of this agricultural technology from opportunistic to systematic canal operation. The present study documents the first detailed analysis of a networked canal system during the Early Agricultural Period (1200 BC – AD 50) using ostracodes, micro-mollusks, calcareous algae and the geochemical signatures of ostracode (Ilyocypris...
Environmental reconstruction at Pueblo Grande, Arizona through stable isotope analysis of Leporid bone (2015)
Stable isotope analysis of faunal bone can provide valuable information about the environments in which the animals lived. Reconstructing paleoenvironments at archaeological sites permits a better understanding of the factors that influenced their social development and decline. In this poster we present results of stable isotopic analyses (d13Capatite, d18Oapatite, d13Ccollagen and d15Ncollagen) of leporid bone apatite and collagen to investigate temporal changes in environmental conditions at...
Estimating the Scale of Social Groups in the Ancient Southwest, A.D. 650-900 (2016)
The scale of social groups (such as households, lineages, moieties, factions, and clans) can have a profound effect on the development of political hierarchies. The household is an important building block of larger sociopolitical formations. Similarly, the village is theorized as an important political entity that is sometimes characterized by unequal power relations among individuals and groups. In this poster, I explore the scale of households, the architectural spaces they inhabited, and how...
Evaluating and Re-evaluating the Importance of Cacao, Nicotine, and Macrobotanicals at Alkali Ridge Site 13, an Early Pueblo I Site in Southeast Utah (2017)
Alkali Ridge Site 13 is one of the largest and earliest Pueblo I sites ever found in the American Southwest. Located in southeast Utah, the site was originally excavated by J.O. Brew in the early 1930s. Brew’s final site report includes brief descriptions of most major artifact types found at the site, but largely ignores the abundant botanical remains discovered there. Even though little research has been conducted on the macrobotanical remains, recent residue studies on pottery have shown...
Evaluating Multi-Sector Supply and Demand on Canal System 2 as a Component of a Complementary Hohokam Economy (2015)
As one of the largest canal systems in the Phoenix Basin, Canal System 2 likely served as the economic, social, and political center of life for thousands of people residing on the north side of the Salt River. Canal System 2 capitalized on a fortuitous geographic location that permitted irrigation systems and associated fields to extend miles from the river. Despite the large size of the canal infrastructure, the low population density relative to the size of the system indicates that local...
An Evaluation of Modeling Soil Moisture and Crop Growth at Fine Spatial Scales in the Mesa Verde Region, Southwestern Colorado (2016)
Soil moisture can have profound impacts on crop success and failure. Although soil moisture can be modeled at multiple spatial scales, most studies rely on remotely sensed data that are at resolutions of 1-km or greater, where soil moisture is averaged or interpolated within spatial units. However, crop growth can vary considerably across even small distances. The effects of soil moisture on growth variability at finer resolutions have not been thoroughly studied. Therefore, we are developing a...
The Evaluation of the Labor Costs of Stone Boiling Dried Maize During the Early Agricultural Period in the Southwest (2017)
The Early Agricultural period (2100 BC-AD150-500) in the Southwest begins with the presence of maize and ends with the advent of ceramic vessel use. It is assumed maize was dried out and stored for future consumption. Once dried, maize required extensive processing to gelatinize the endosperm starch, or transform the polysaccharides back to a digestible monosaccharide, through techniques such as: parching, steeping, grinding, and/or boiling (Hard et al. 1996). Little, however, is known about the...
Evaluation of the Village Ecodynamics hunting and domestication models (2016)
The Village Ecodynamics Project simulation ("Village") incorporates paleoenvironmental and archaeological data to understand the human and environmental interactions that occurred during the Ancestral Pueblo occupation of portions of the Colorado Plateau of the US Southwest. Village predicts the available populations of deer, jackrabbits, and cottontails across the simulated landscape—as well as the sample of those fauna hunted by households—and how these vary with such parameters as household...
Evolving Histories and Changing Archaeologies on the Santa Fe National Forest (2015)
The management of cultural resources on the Santa Fe National Forest includes interpreting the evolving histories of communities and coordinating those histories with the present state of archaeological practice. At the time of its desgination in 1915 the Forest had active excavations and ethnographic research being conducted on it with continuous research since that time. This research has consistently involved using local community members as participants or interpreters. Frequently these...
An Evolving Partnership: the San Juan National Forest, the Chimney Rock Interpretive Association and a New National Monument. (2016)
Chimney Rock National Monument, designated by President Barack Obama on September 21, 2012, is located within the San Juan National Forest in southwestern Colorado. The 4,726 acre monument preserves and protects hundreds of prehistoric sites (including a Chacoan outlier great house and kiva) and resource gathering and use areas associated with the ancestors and families of numerous Native American groups with ties to the greater American Southwest. The stewardship and sustainability of this...
An Examination of Gallina Utility Ware: Vessel Morphology and Function (2015)
The morphology of a ceramic vessel is directly related to intended use, and potters consider function during manufacture. Functional types such as cooking vessels, ollas, water jars, seed jars, bowls, and pitchers, are common in our ceramic lexicon. However, the relationship between morphology and function is not always intuitive, especially when considering secondary function and special use. The Gallina (A.D. 1050-1300) produced a wide variety of utility wares, but archaeologists have...
Examination of Organic Residues and Tribochemical Wear in Low Fired Casas Grandes Pottery Vessels (2017)
Extensive ethnographic evidence of tribochemical globular pitting in brewing vessels exists throughout Africa and Mesoamerica. Current hypotheses, however, do not extend this brewing tradition into the Casas Grandes region until after Spanish Contact. Sherds of pottery vessels collected from the Casas Grandes region (AD 1200-1450) exhibit extensive pitting, which some researchers suggest is due to the fermentation of alcohol and production of hominy. To evaluate these hypotheses, we utilized...
An Examination of Spatial Relationships using GIS data from the Basketmaker Communities Project (2015)
The Basketmaker Communities Project (BCP) is a multiyear investigation by Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, Colorado of one of the largest Basketmaker III communities known in the central Mesa Verde region. This paper examines a combination of artifact, architectural, and spatial information from 97 sites collected by Woods Canyon Archaeological Consultants and Crow Canyon Archaeological Research Center. By using ESRI’s GIS software to analyze (BCP) data this study applies...