North America - Southwest (Geographic Keyword)
701-725 (899 Records)
Archaeologists typically dissect rock art stylistically, symbolically, and chronologically. Symbols, in particular, lead to studies of representational imagery, entoptic phenomena, or religious icons. What remains underexplored is the concept of animism and its related behavioral activities. This paper applies a behavioral theory of communication to study the interactions between people and things. It uses performance characteristics analysis to determine the activities associated with...
Rock Art Conservation in the Gila River Indian Community, Arizona (2017)
The Gila Indian River Indian Community is dedicated to preserving its heritage, and consequently has developed a rock art conservation program in order to care for, restore, and protect petroglyphs within community lands. The proximity of the large Phoenix metropolitan area increases the risk of trespass and vandalism within the GRIC. In recent years, damage at archaeological sites has included defacement and graffiti, and the theft of rock art boulders. Current restoration work has experimented...
Rock Art Heritage Conservation and Management (2015)
The Gila River Indian Community is actively engaged in the inventory and documentation of petroglyphs located within the Community. These recording efforts also include oral history interviews with tribal members who have knowledge of the areas where the art occurs. Rock art sites include prehistoric and historic period figures, and they are found throughout the buttes and mountains surrounding the Middle Gila River. This art often occurs along trails, and in prominent locations such as...
Rock Art Site Protection: Lessons Learned in 50 Years of Trying (2017)
The shared attributes of two successful rock art site preservation projects near metropolitan areas will be discussed. They started with different backgrounds. The Adams School Site (now Chitactac-Adams Heritage County Park) in California was a neglected and vandalized park whose property had been donated. Picture Canyon (now Picture Canyon Natural and Cultural Preserve) in Arizona was neglected State Trust land being used as an illegal dump that needed to be purchased to become a preserve. Both...
The Role of Rare Animals During the Pueblo IV Period: Evidence of Ritual at Sapa’owingeh (LA 306) (2016)
Examining the relationships between humans and animals during the Classic period contributes to our understanding of life in the Northern Rio Grande region and the larger Pueblo world. Utilizing ethno-historic and archaeological evidence for the use of mammalian and avian fauna, this poster demonstrates the significance of rare animals from midden, room, and kiva contexts from the ancestral Tewa site Sapa’owingeh (LA 306). Ritual fauna in the Southwest were often carnivores and birds. Species...
A Room Remembered: Room Closure through Material Deposition at Homol’ovi I (2016)
Material deposition involves a range of social practices that enact negotiations of identity and interrelationships between people and spaces. Through the deliberate accumulation of artifacts and sediment in certain locations, these negotiations are materialized in the archaeological record. The reciprocal creation and expression of the meaning of spaces and objects can begin to be understood by analyzing the materials deposited in rooms post-occupationally. In this poster, I examine the ways...
Rooting the Kiva: The Placement of Coal in Ancestral Pueblo Construction Rituals (2015)
Architectural construction is the process by which material and non-material elements and overall spatial setting are made fixed. Consideration of the ways in which physical space-defining elements function can provide insights to the ways in which space was used and understood by the occupants or builders. This study illuminates how ancestral Pueblo kiva construction rituals were integrated within Pueblo worldview concepts in the northern Southwest during the Pueblo II (A.D 1050-1150) and...
Ruins and Restoration on the Colorado Plateau: Earl Morris and the PWA (Public Works Administration) (2015)
In 1934, the Carnegie Institution "loaned" archaeologist Earl Morris to the National Park Service to supervise the repair of ruins in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, and Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico. The NPS had received funding in 1933 for long-term development projects through New Deal emergency work relief programs, one of which was the Public Works Administration. The PWA provided money for physical improvements in parks and monuments, including funding for restoration and...
Sacred vs Secular: Pre-Hispanic Village Landscapes in Southwest New Mexico (2015)
In the pre-Hispanic Southwest, it is well known that certain places on the regional landscape were considered sacred or ritually charged, such as summits, springs, and caves. Less understood is the way that sacred and secular spaces were partitioned within prehistoric villages. In this paper we examine the relationship among secular and sacred spaces during the PIII/PIV periods at two villages along the Rio Grande. Each village includes roomblocks, agricultural features, resource processing...
Saenger Pottery Works: Preliminary Report: Unlocking a Town’s History through their Pottery (2017)
This investigation of historical ceramics is conducted on a collection that dates from 1886 to 1915. Saenger Pottery Works was in operation from c.a.1885 through c.a. 1915. The size, form, and function variability of the ceramics inform about production techniques used and what forms are preferred over others. The sherds previously collected are currently dated based on makers’ marks, stylistic attributes, and the period of kiln operation. However, issues with the dating method need resolution...
Salado in the Upper Gila (2015)
Salado archaeology in New Mexico was largely defined in the Upper Gila, where the regional name "Cliff phase" originated. Early work by Kidder and the Cosgroves in the 1920s and several professional and avocational projects in the 1960s-70s included important Salado sites. Despite this early promise many projects were underreported, and there has been comparatively little research with modern methods. Recent research by Archaeology Southwest addresses this gap. A strong base of survey and...
The Salado Preservation Initiative: Combining Research Investigations with Regional Preservation Planning (2015)
Regional planning is an essential element of comprehensive archaeological management programs. The Salado Preservation Initiative at Archaeology Southwest is linked to our research agenda focused on Salado and related developments across the Southwest in the late precontact period. Working exclusively within a temporally defined period of record (1250-1450) and conscribed geographically by the distribution of Roosevelt redware, Archaeology Southwest conducted a series of expert workshops and...
Salt Pollution and Climate Change at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (2016)
In order to determine if the water management systems of ancestral Puebloans caused salt pollution during periods of climatic change and increased aridity, sediment samples were collected from ancient irrigation features and reservoirs in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Today, these features are filled with sediments. Periods of climate change were determined with AMS radiocarbon and OSL dating. Soil salinity was measured using a conductivity cell and plotted against age in order to illustrate changes...
Salvage Excavation: NMSU Summer Field Project at the South Diamond Creek Pueblo in the Northern Mimbres Region (2017)
New Mexico State University (NMSU) anthropology students spent the summer of 2016 getting to know a bit more about the Mimbres people who lived more than 1,000 years ago, and along the way helped preserve their history. Eight NMSU students joined community volunteers for four weeks to explore and excavate areas of the South Diamond Creek Pueblo (SDCP) in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico. The project had three major goals: 1) to contribute to our understanding of cultural trajectories in the...
Sandals from the Center Place, Footprints on the Pots: Continuity and Change in Twined Sandal Tread Designs from Chaco, Aztec, and Beyond (2017)
Twined sandals were important components of Ancestral Pueblo ritual paraphernalia for a millennium. They were expensive and time consuming to make and many had patterns of raised knots woven into their treads that stamped footprints with complex geometric designs on the ground when worn. Scholars have postulated that twined sandals were likely used in communal rituals, dance performances, and even foot races. During the Pueblo II period, their use appears to have been connected with communal...
Scales of Analysis, Scales of Interpretation: Interpretive Scope and Analytical Precision in Lithic Use-wear Research or ‘Trees are great but don’t forget about the forest!’ (2015)
Ever since the inception of the New Archaeology back in the 1960s there has been an emphasis within the discipline on increasing analytical rigor through ever-more precise quantification of material culture variability. While striving to improve and expand our analytical arsenal is always a worthy pursuit, these efforts must be accompanied by critical reflection on how and why we use our increasingly refined analytical techniques to address larger behavioral and cultural questions. Precise and...
Scales of Identity and Scales of Analysis in western New Mexico (2015)
Archaeologists typically use the term "identity" to refer to the ways in which individuals define membership in larger social groups through direct interaction or the perception of similarities and differences with others. Such social groups can be defined at a variety of scales (e.g., family unit/household, community, ethnic group/culture, etc.) and most archaeological studies tend to focus at only one particular scale. Recent archaeological research across a broad range of social and political...
Scarred Ponderosas, Rock Art, and other Traces of Ute History: New Evidence from the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument (2017)
This poster reports on an archaeological survey in the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument that has revealed important new evidence of the Ute and other hunter-gatherers dating to the late pre-colonial and early colonial periods. Of particular interest are a series of culturally modified Ponderosa pine trees, which are likely linked to Ute foodways employed during period of starvation or want. I examine these culturally modified trees as artifacts on the landscape within the context of the...
The Science and Performance of Ritual Drinking in Chaco Canyon (2017)
Consumption of caffeinated drinks made with cacao and perhaps holly is well documented for Chaco Canyon. Less understood is the context of consumption. Evidence for cylinder vessel production, use and termination particularly reveals aspects of drinking ritual, including frothing. New compositional analysis demonstrates how Chaco potters decorated pots with post-firing pigments on stucco, permitting repeated decoration and cleansing of drinking vessels. Changes in the sizes, shapes, and...
Searching for Cochise: The 2015 Archaeological Survey for an Apache Campsite associated with the Bascom Affair (2016)
In the winter of 1861 an event took place between the U.S. military and the Chokonen band of Chiricahua Apache under the leadership of Cochise that intensified Apache-U.S. military hostilities for another 10 years. This paper presents the initial pedestrian and metal detector survey results from the Bascom Affair project. Archaeologists utilizing metal detector surveys at military sites have met with great success (e.g., Adams 2000a, 2000b, 2001; Laumbach et al. 2001; Ludwig and Stute 1993;...
Searching for the Big House: Ritual Spaces of the Sextin Valley, Durango, Mexico (2017)
Many archaeologists have recorded plazas, altars, and rock art in Durango's pre-Hispanic landscapes. These spaces are often characterized as settings for ritual activities. Nevertheless, few researchers have posited the kinds of activities that were carried out in these spaces. In this paper I analyze data from excavation of the sites of Corral de Piedra and Los Berros in the Sextin valley in northern Durango, Mexico. The materials, architecture and spatial distribution suggest a variety of...
Seeds of Memory: A long-term study of life and plant use in the Sextin river valley of Durango, Mexico (2015)
The relationship between people and plants is basic to all of human existence. Many archaeologists have considered this relationship as primarily economic, yet ethnographic accounts reveal important social aspects of human-plant interactions. In this paper we consider the long-term relationship between certain plant species (both wild and domesticated- beyond the triad of corn, beans and squash), botanic knowledge and memory in the Sextin valley. Here we present macrobotanical, phytolith and...
Seeking New Metaphors for Communities and Households in the Ancestral Pueblo Southwest (2015)
Investigations of households and communities have long been strengths of archaeological research in the American Southwest. As the spatial breadth and temporal resolution of these studies has improved, the archaeological record has raised key challenges to our preconceptions of the scale, stability, and structure of Ancestral Pueblo communities and households. Newer models must reconcile evidence for the frequent movement of individuals and households with contrasting data attesting to long-term...
Seeking Strength and Protection: Tewa Mobility during the Pueblo Revolt Period (2017)
The Pueblo Revolt period (1680-1700) was a time of considerable social unrest and instability for Pueblo Indian people. The return of the Spaniards twelve years after the 1680 revolt required new strategies of resistance. Mobility became a key form of resistance and, the Tewa world in particular, provided a landscape in which pueblo communities could seek the strength and protection to survive. Many families left their home villages and took refuge with their relatives on mesa villages and in...
Selective Influence of West Mexico Cultural Traditions in the Onavas Valley, Sonora, Mexico (2015)
Recent archaeological work at El Cementerio, a burial mound located in southeast Sonora, Mexico dated between AD 897 and 1635, has identified a local cultural tradition exhibiting selective influence from contemporaneous traditions in west Mexico. The vast majority of material culture reflects local manufacture and evolution, however, the presence of shell (from the Pacific Ocean) jewelry and the incorporation of biocultural practices of cranial deformation and dental modification suggest a link...