North America - Southwest (Geographic Keyword)
676-700 (899 Records)
Micro-flotation, a specific gravity separation technique, was successfully used to remove coal contaminants from radiocarbon samples obtained from profiles, unit excavations, and solid sediment cores in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Coal from the Cretaceous Menefee Formation occurs throughout Chaco Canyon in aeolian, alluvial, colluvial, and anthropogenic sediments. The Menefee Formation contains carbonized broadleaf angiosperm and gymnosperm plants and, as such, paleobotanical analysis was not...
Renegotiating Identity in a Cultural Crossroads: Salado in the Safford Basin (2015)
Current perspectives on the origin and nature of the Salado phenomenon vary amongst Southwest archaeologists. Evidence from the Safford Basin in southeastern Arizona suggests that in this area, Salado came about as a response to multiple waves of migration of various sized groups from the Kayenta and Tusayan regions of northeastern Arizona. Following the arrival of these migrants, the archaeological record shows that both migrants and groups indigenous to the Safford Basin renegotiated their...
Repeat Photography and Cultural Resource Management: A Case Study from Glen Canyon, Arizona (2017)
Repeat photography, the collection of multiple photographs of the same subject from an identical location, is an effective technique for documenting the natural and cultural processes impacting archaeological sites, yet remains underutilized in cultural resource management. Analysis of repeat photographs may yield important data for understanding the processes affecting site integrity, which could result in improved site preservation and management. In this paper, repeat photographs collected...
Research Analysis of Tool-Stone Procurement Patterns in the Gila Forks Region and Beyond (2017)
Lithic data from Twin Pines Pueblo in the Gila Forks region of New Mexico can shed new light on tool-stone procurement strategies in the American Southwest. The goal of this research is to track the economic strategies among the Mimbres people by investigating stone-tool raw material distributions and procurement strategies. I begin by defining local, semi-local, and non-local lithic materials in the Gila Forks region. Then, I investigate how groups in this region procured and used different raw...
Research and curatorial work on the archeological collections recovered in Sonora by Dr. Richard A. Pailes (2015)
Since 2009, following Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) implementation of new public registration protocols for the cultural material heritage, we started an intense work of inventorying, cataloging and registration of the archaeological artifacts recovered during the Sonora –Sinaloa Project/1967 and the project Economic Networks: Mesoamerica and the American Southwest between 1975 – 1978, both conducted by Dr. Richard Pailes. These studies provided the foundations for new...
The Reserve Area Archaeological Project (2016)
The Reserve Area Archaeological Project (RAAP) is a collaborative effort between the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS) and the United States Forest Service. Centered in the Reserve/ Pine Lawn region of the Gila National Forest in New Mexico, this project brings together many extant datasets, such as existing collections in the Field Museum from the 1940s/50s, GIS data from the Forest Service, paleoclimate data, and new research that to date has focused on non-invasive methods. Project...
The Reserve Area Archaeological Project (2017)
Since 2014 archaeologists from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Reserve Area Archaeological Project (RAAP) have conducted survey work in the greater Reserve, New Mexico region. They examined numerous tracts in a range of biomes to better understand the highly variable topographic setting and archaeological settlement patterns, documenting dozens of new sites in the process. After spending a week in the New Mexico site files in Santa Fe in March, 2016, the team also spent substantial time...
Residue Analysis for Cacao in Southeastern Utah Ancestral Puebloan Ceramics, Montezuma Canyon, Utah (2017)
In 2009, theobromine, a biomarker for Theobroma cacao, was found and reported in an analysis of cylindrical vessels from Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (Crown and Hurst 2009). Washburn's positive results from ceramics recovered from Brew's excavations at Alkali Ridge, Utah (Washburn et al. 2013) dating to the Pueblo I period, pushed the time depth of cacao use centuries earlier than the findings from Chaco Canyon. They suggest cacao was brought from the south as a journey food and later used as a food...
Residues of ancient food preparation in sheltered bedrock features (2015)
Recent analysis of bedrock features located in several dry rock shelters across the arid western U.S. indicate that such settings provide favorable contexts for organic residue preservation. Residues extracted from these contexts can provide a unique window into past functions and resource use. Gas chromatography / mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was used to identify and quantify very small amounts of lipids absorbed and preserved in the various bedrock features. Though organic residue studies are...
Restoration of Sandia Cave, NHL, New Mexico (2017)
Sandia Cave is a National Historic Landmark that has played an important role in the history of archaeological thought about the Paleoindian period and Southwestern archaeology. The cave is also a designated traditional cultural property that is culturally significant to numerous Pueblo groups. Despite its cultural and historical significance and popularity as a tourist destination, the integrity of the cave has been severely diminished by heavy and repeated acts of vandalism over the years. It...
Results of a new method for characterizing Casas Grandes polychromes (2017)
Through time, the analyses of archaeological ceramics have produced a diverse number of characterization techniques. These various techniques have allowed us to create multiple understandings of style, production, and exchange patterns, building a formidable toolkit that is able to speak to many aspects of human behavior. However, though our standard set of techniques is imposing and productive, they may not automatically produce data sets that naturally lead to concrete patterns and natural...
Results of Petrographic Analysis of Polychromes across the Casas Grandes World (2015)
This research, part of my dissertation, focuses on the mineralogical variability of Casas Grandes polychromes. Whereas past studies have suggested that some Casas Grandes polychrome types are more common in some geographic areas than others (see Brand 1935; De Atley 1980; Findlow and DeAtley 1982; Kelley et al. 1999; Larkin et al. 2004 for more complete discussions), these studies have been challenged as they assume polychromes recovered at sites are made locally, rather than imported (Douglas...
Results of Petrographic and NAA of Ramos and Babicora Polychromes from Across the Casas Grandes Region (2016)
Whereas past studies have suggested that some Casas Grandes polychrome types are more common in some geographic areas than others (see Brand 1935; De Atley 1980; Findlow and DeAtley 1982; Kelley et al. 1999; Larkin et al. 2004 for more complete discussions), these studies have been challenged as they assume polychromes recovered are made locally, rather than imported from other sites (Douglas 1995; Minnis 1984, 1989). As a result, recent studies refocus on polychrome production (Carpenter 2002,...
Revealed by Flames: Modeling Site Distribution in Arizona's White Mountains after the Wallow Fire (2015)
EcoPlan Associates developed a site spatial density model for, and in partnership with, the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests (ASNF). In 2011, the Wallow Fire started in the Bear Wallow Wilderness in the White Mountains of East Central Arizona, eventually burning over 538,000 acres within 840 square miles of Arizona and New Mexico. Four contractors and ASNF inventoried 63,424 acres in various portions of the burned area after the fire, much of it at high elevation. Unexpectedly, the surveys...
Revisiting the Mogollon Early Pithouse Period (2017)
The beginning of the Early Pithouse period in the Mogollon region, around A.D. 200, was marked by a fundamental shift in material culture and lifeways. This major shift included the introduction of ceramics and the construction of more substantial habitation structures as well as communal structures. Yet, relatively speaking, few Early Pithouse period sites have been excavated, and many of the sites that have been excavated were excavated 30 or more years ago. This poster presents new data from...
Revisiting the Stylistic Similarities of Utah's Barrier Canyon and Texas' Pecos River Murals (2015)
Polly Schaafsma was among the first to recognize the many stylistic elements shared between Utah's Barrier Canyon rock art and the Pecos River style along the Lower Pecos Canyonlands in Texas. While the Barrier Canyon murals are markedly simpler in execution, common elements include anthropomorph shape and torso decoration, composed sets of zoomorphs, and the depiction of wild plants. During this initial study, Schaafsma (1971) defined the Barrier Canyon style based on nineteen sites located in...
Rio Grande Glaze Ware Knowledgescapes (2017)
Research by Katherine Spielmann and many of her students highlights the economic and social significance of glaze-decorated ware vessels during the 14th through 16th centuries AD. We take a new approach to Rio Grande Glaze Ware in this paper, examining the role of knowledgescapes in structuring economy in Ancestral Pueblo middle-range societies. Knowledgescapes encompass economic, social, technological, and ritual aspects of glaze ware production, use and exchange. We explore the origins and...
Riparian Oases and Environmental Variation during the Archaic Period in Southern Arizona, 4000 to 2000 BP (2016)
Late Archaic forager-farmers in the Sonoran Desert lived in a resource-rich but water-poor environment. Rivers that flowed through major valleys supported lush riparian habitat, creating linear oases bounded by foothills covered by desertscrub vegetation and “sky island” mountain ranges. Hunting and foraging in these diverse ecosystems supported small but stable populations throughout the region, and by 4000 BP low-level maize agriculture was incorporated into the subsistence diet....
Risk in Collaborative Archaeologies of Place as Engaged Scholarship (2017)
Drawing on examples from my community-engaged work in post-apartheid South Africa and post-annexation New Mexico, I want to talk about the kinds of risk my community partners navigate in our collaborative archaeologies. Both communities are focused tightly on colonial-era processes that have translated into dimensions of racialized inequalities, against which we hope archaeological partnerships might be employed and produce tools that do more good than harm.
Ritual and Feasting in the Field: The Role of Theoretically Informed Practice In Creating Resilience within the Archaeological Field Crew (2017)
Katherine Spielmann has contributed to the scholarly literature on ritual and feasting, the archaeology of sustainable and resilient societies, and long-term economic and social changes in archaeological record of the Salinas region in central New Mexico. Less well known, however, are her long-term contributions to the performance dimensions of these models. In fact, her theoretically informed archaeological practices, implemented in the context of the undergraduate field school, illustrate the...
Ritual Modification in the Context of Social Unrest in the Northern San Juan (2016)
Among the Ancestral Pueblo peoples of the northern San Juan, outbreaks of warfare coincided with periods of environmental deterioration and subsistence stress. The archaeological record of this region contains abundant data that reflect a final period of heightened lethal interactions in the late A.D. 1200s. The data reveal a pattern of attacks that ended the occupations of several villages just before the northern San Juan was permanently depopulated by Pueblo peoples about A.D. 1280. Evidence...
Ritual or dietary use? Wild and domestic turkeys at Tijeras Pueblo (LA 581) (2015)
Recent work on turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) in the prehispanic Southwest (e.g., Speller et al. 2010, McCaffery et al. 2014) has highlighted both the long history of domestic turkey use in the Southwest and the concurrent exploitation of the local wild Merriam’s turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo merriami). This new information has added to the ongoing debate over whether turkeys were domesticated for ritual or for dietary purposes. At Tijeras Pueblo (LA 581), turkeys eating a maize-heavy diet...
Ritual Practice and Exchange in the Late Prehispanic Western Pueblo Region: Insights from the Distribution and Deposition of Turquoise at Homol’ovi I (2015)
Archaeological and ethnographic evidence demonstrate the importance of turquoise among past and present Pueblo groups. In this paper I examine the social uses of turquoise and other blue-green minerals at Homol’ovi I, a late prehispanic Hopi village and the most intensively excavated site within the Homol’ovi Settlement Cluster. I explore intra-site patterns of deposition (i.e., the content and context of turquoise deposits) and stylistic variation among objects in an effort to identify...
Ritual Smoking: Evidence from Archaeological Smoking Pipes (2017)
Answering the question of what was smoked in prehistoric pipes benefits from a multi-proxy approach. Partially charred residue (dottle) provides more answers than does the black carbon that often lines the interior of archaeological pipes. Pipes examined from the American Southwest and Great Basin attest to use of a variety of plants, sometimes including ground maize, as smoking mixtures. Remains within the partially burned dottle are identified by pollen, phytolith, starch, macrofloral, and...
Ritual Use of Fauna in the Casas Grandes Region (2015)
The use of faunal remains for ritual purposes was an important part of Casas Grandes society throughout the Medio period (1200 – 1450 A.D.). The past inhabitants of this region utilized the bones of numerous animals for ritual and symbolic functions, as well as for personal adornment. Past archaeological and zooarchaeological research conducted within this region has focused significantly on the site of Paquimé and the artifacts/remains recovered from that site. This paper, although considering...