North America - Southwest (Geographic Keyword)
876-899 (899 Records)
Not much is found in the scholarly literature regarding site boundary definitions: boundaries defined for management purposes may be different from pre-Columbian geographical boundaries. This is the case at University Indian Ruin (UIR), a 13-acre parcel listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and owned by the University of Arizona. Homeowners in the neighboring community, also listed on the National Register as Indian Ridge, routinely retrieve sherds while performing yard...
When in the World? A Comparative Debitage Analysis of Single-component Sites through Time at Petrified Forest National Park (2015)
Both Paleoindian and Archaic sites hold valuable information concerning some of the first people in North America, yet these sites remain to be some of the most difficult to identify. Without diagnostics like architecture and ceramics to turn to, projectile points are what are most commonly depended on when trying to date these locales. However, debitage makes up the bulk of the artifacts found on these sites and sites of later dates, and it is highly plausible that debitage characteristics will...
When is a fieldhouse? Reconsidering fieldhouses on the Pajarito Plateau using GIS modeling and excavation data (2017)
Archaeologists often assume that Ancestral Pueblo groups in the North American Southwest built small one- to three-room structures to serve as temporary fieldhouse shelters for extracting agricultural resources during the farming season, and to minimize transportation to and from their larger villages. If fieldhouses were associated with agriculture, then they should be found near agriculturally productive fields. To determine if there is an association between agriculture and fieldhouses during...
When is a Pithouse a Pithome?: Reconstructing a Fremont Household Underneath the Book Cliffs of Utah. (2017)
Perched along the northern edge of the Colorado Plateau, the Tavaputs Plateau is best known among archaeologists for its interior canyons, including the incredible rock art in Nine Mile Canyon and the well-preserved Fremont communities located in Range Creek Canyon. Despite the greater water resources and arable land along the Book Cliffs escarpment of the plateau, it has received little professional attention. This research program focuses on a small segment along the Grassy Trail Creek, a...
When Pots Walk: Reverse Archaeology at a Chaco Outlier Site in the Central Mesa Verde Region (2017)
More often than not, cultural resources on private land experience development and/or intentional disturbance. Data from sites are often lost or compromised during these activities. Occasionally, landowners keep notes on material culture that may be passed on to archaeologists. Incorporation of these data is important to understanding the condition of the site and maximizing interpretations of the past. As Crow Canyon Archaeological Center embarks on a new multi-year research project, the...
When Should I Stop? Discerning the Minimum Number of Lithic Artifacts Required to Accurately Characterize Mode of Reduction (2016)
Several methodologies have been developed to analyze flaked stone debitage. Among the more popular methodologies are flake typologies similar to Sullivan and Rozen’s (1985) "interpretation free typology", which focused on measuring breakage patterns by classifying debitage into complete flakes, broken flakes, flake fragments and debris. While many discussions have focused on the usefulness of these measures, especially in regards to gaining an understanding of reduction methods via the relative...
When the desert meets the sea: the annual journey of quitovaquenses to the San Jorge beach as a community of practice (2017)
This paper presents an ethnographic account of the people of Quitovac, Sonoras yearly journey to the sea. The village is set amidst the Altar desert. Every year the people of this town take a trip to the Sea of Cortés and make the shore a very special place. I present this account from the perspective of communities of practice emphasizing how the activities they undertake are the result of a continual interaction between people and places and between the distinct actors present. I also take...
Where the Conventional and Unconventional Meet: Marrying Tradition and Innovation in Lithic Use-wear Analysis (2016)
The majority of lithic use-wear research has been geared towards the development of newer more quantitatively precise methods involving evermore sophisticated forms of microscopy. As vital as such efforts are there is still a place in today’s interdisciplinary world for more traditional approaches when coupled with new ideas. This presentation will look at the results of a GIS analysis of experimental use-wear traces from images generated using conventional incident light microscopy....
Which Neolithic House? Pithouses and Pueblos in the U.S. Southwest. (2015)
The archaeology of the United States Southwest permits examination of the process of Neolithisation with chronological precision in a wide range of contexts. In broadest outline, Southwestern data parallel social, economic and technological patterns documented worldwide. The recency, large sample, and fine resolution of Southwestern data allow recognition of multiple divergent and convergent patterns shaped by local environments and cultural traditions that are difficult to observe in other...
The White Shaman Mural: The Story Behind the Book (2017)
The prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands created some of the most spectacular rock art of the ancient world. Perhaps the greatest of these masterpieces is the White Shaman mural. This presentation provides an introduction to our recently-published book The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative, which is one of the most comprehensive analyses of a rock art mural ever attempted. Drawing on twenty-five years of archaeological research and analysis, as well as...
Who are the Martinez? A Report on and Examination of High Elevation Aspen Dendroglyphs in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, New Mexico (2015)
This paper reports on mid-20th century aspen dendroglyphs from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in extreme north-central New Mexico. A class III archaeological survey conducted by Envirosystems Management, Inc. in July 2014 recorded ten previously unknown historic sites between 10,400 and 11,000 feet in elevation on the Carson National Forest. Each contains at least two and up to twenty-one carved aspens that date from the 1930’s to the 1950’s. Upon initial assessment, these sites appear to have...
Who Goes There? Tracing San Pedro Phase Migration and Social Dynamics in the Borderlands with a Revised Projectile Point Typology (2015)
The projectile point assemblage from Las Capas (AZ AA:12:111 [ASM]) provides a case study for using a social dynamics model to explain shifts in point design during the San Pedro phase (1200-800 B.C.) in the Tucson Basin. Available evidence indicates that the population of Las Capas and the residents of a possibly related settlement directly across the Santa Cruz River maintained a separate projectile point design orientation from other settlements in the northern Tucson Basin during the early...
Why Fake it? Counterfeits, Emulation and Mimicry: Symbolic and Practical Motives for the Imitation of Crafts (2017)
I examine the behavior of emulation wherein an artisan reproduces a craft on a less valuable or precious material to mimic a desired symbolic prestige good. I present cross-cultural examples of artisans making copies of a craft using different materials. Under what circumstances do people create counterfeit objects? Examples from the Gallina area (AD 1100-1300) of the American Southwest are discussed. The Gallina occupied an area on the periphery of a more socially complex polity (Chaco) and...
Why raise Turkeys in the Mesa Verde Region? (2017)
Lipe et al. (2017) present estimates of the costs of raising maize fed turkeys. Raising a turkey required approximately one-third as much maize as a Puebloan ate in a year. Here we present the probable reason for engaging in this costly behavior. Pueblo III Mesa Verdeans had a diet heavily dependent on maize and short on other protein sources. Most importantly, it was short on two essential amino acids, lysine and tryptophan. We begin by reconstructing the height and weight of Pueblo III Mesa...
Wildfires, Forests, and the Archaeological Record: Investigating Complex and Persistent Human-Landscape Legacies (2017)
Recent wildland fires of western North America are occurring in some landscapes at intensities, severities, and extents that are far outside the historical record. These fires and their ecological and social consequences are highly-reported, and there is emerging awareness of the potential for large and severe wildfires to alter or destroy cultural legacies in fire-prone landscapes. Contemporary anthropogenic land use and management have contributed to altered wildfire regimes, but this can be...
Windes Matters (2015)
Chaco Matters because Windes Matters. There are few subjects in Chacoan prehistory for which Tom has not contributed thoughtful analysis - from ants to Zuni spotted chert. His insights regarding agriculture in the Chaco Core are basic to understanding the long history of farming in this area. Some of those insights are reviewed. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital...
Windes Was Here (2015)
Documenting field work has been standard archaeological practice for over a century. Long-term preservation and continuing use of those records has been less standard. Tom Windes’ documentary record of his work in Chaco Canyon is an example of what best practices can achieve. In particular, Windes developed a style of mapping archaeological sites that has proved invaluable in relocating, monitoring, and maintaining Chaco’s World Heritage resources. Standards for archaeological site documentation...
Women's Mobility and Inter-Pueblo Exchange in the Salinas area, AD 1100–1300 (2017)
Katherine Spielmann's work in the Salinas Pueblo area of New Mexico has, among other things, emphasized how ritual and economic interconnectivity among late prehistoric pueblo villages articulates with internal social and cultural changes. One thread of this work, developed by several of her students, has been change in gender relations during the rise of the large towns of the Pueblo IV period (AD 1400–1600), especially involving women's roles in exchange, production, and ceremonial life....
Woodrats Rule! Climbing and Coring in Southeast Utah Cliff Dwellings (2015)
For the past decade Tom Windes and his volunteer band of merry beamsters--the Woodrats-- have been collecting dendrochronological samples from cliff dwellings in the Natural Bridges and Cedar Mesa areas of southeastern Utah. As a result, the number of dated sites has increased dramatically, and it has become clear that in the AD 1200s, building in these canyons declined before the onset of the "great drought" of 1276-1299. The meticulous maps and records made by the Woodrats also enable...
Wrinkle-free Clothing: Conservation and Rehousing of Prehistoric Cotton Textiles from Navajo, Walnut Canyon, and Wupatki National Monuments, Arizona (2016)
In 2014 the Flagstaff Area National Monuments received funding to conserve and re-house more than 300 non-burial related prehistoric cotton textiles from Navajo, Walnut Canyon, and Wupatki National Monuments housed at the Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA). The textiles were woven in the 1100s A.D. and range from expediently constructed objects to technologically complex clothing with dyes. These prehistoric remnants of cloth were excavated by archaeologists in the 1930s and 1960s, and many...
Zooarchaeological Analysis of Dog Pathology in the American Southwest: A Case for Interpreting Dogs as Companions as Opposed to Beasts of Burden (2017)
This presentation provides an update on prehistoric Southwest dog pathologies from the Museum of Northern Arizona’s curated faunal collections. Our zooarchaeological analysis of healed cranial lesions and tooth wear has not only expanded on earlier research accomplished in previous years but it has redefined the prehistoric dog’s role in the agricultural Southwest. Typically, domesticated dogs are identified as beasts of burden, which has inhibited sufficient and further analysis of the...
A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Subsistence Stress at Elden Pueblo: A Final Report (2016)
This paper discusses zooarchaeological analysis conducted at Elden Pueblo in Northern Arizona. As one of the last remaining Sinagua occupation sites in the San Francisco Peaks region, the site’s abandonment during a cool and dry period suggests that the occupants may have left the area because of resource shortages. I hypothesize that populations must change acquisition and processing strategies in order to adapt to these shortages. Evidence of subsistence stress over time appears in...
Zooarchaeological Evidence of Human Niche Construction at Cottonwood Spring Pueblo (LA 175) (2016)
Cottonwood Spring Pueblo (LA 175), an El Paso Phase (A.D. 1275-1450) horticultural village in southern New Mexico is one of the largest pueblos in the region. Understanding what animal communities were included in the subsistence strategies people living in this village used will aid in understanding strategies that people relied upon to support a large population in the Northern Chihuahuan Desert. Were prey animals (such as desert cottontails, black-tailed jackrabbits, whitetail deer, mule...
Zooarchaeology in the Southwest: Ritual Consumption and Faunal Resources at Ridge Ruin Pueblo (2015)
The greater Sinagua region spans a distinct convergent geographical and cultural setting which provides a range of resources. Ridge Ruin is a prominent Sinaguan site occupied during the transition from the Pueblo II to Pueblo III period. In 1941, John MacGregor published a bulletin summarizing the results of his Winona Village and Ridge Ruin excavations. In MacGregor’s report and in the few publications on Ridge Ruin since, the majority of research has concentrated on the famous burial of the...