North America: Southwest United States (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Krantz.

This paper examines what might be called the "palimpsest panel" rock art tradition of the northern Rio Grande region of New Mexico. Palimpsest panels are rock faces with petroglyphs that have accrued in a layered fashion through time. Prior research into such panels has typically focused on questions of chronology, each layer representing a distinct culture-historical era of iconographic production or a chapter in a linear chronology. Here, however, I move away from the traditional chronological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ray Matheny. Winston Hurst. Joel C. Janetski.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Research in Montezuma Canyon, San Juan County, Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Montezuma Canyon is a large entrenched north to south drainage in southeastern San Juan County, Utah. Significant tributary canyons join it along its course to the San Juan River. Our focus here is the canyon segment from near the head down to the Navajo Nation border. There are a few records of early explorers and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mindy Bonine.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From mid October 2018 to early April 2019, archaeologists from AmaTerra Environmental, Inc., Texas State University and the Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio conducted data recovery excavations at the Headwaters Site (41CM204), in New Braunfels, Texas. The Headwaters Site is located on a deeply stratified terrace...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Franklin. Caitlin Ainsworth. Emily Lena Jones.

Archaeological sites are attractive places for burrowing rodents, but determining which specimens are intrusive can be a challenge. The fauna from the 2013 re-excavation of Room 28, due to its complex depositional history and rich rodent assemblage, provides an opportunity to explore different methods of identifying intrusive rodents in archaeological sites. In this paper, we use four lines of evidence to identify intrusive remains from human subsistence activity: 1) frequency of surface...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Randee Fladeboe.

Macaws were imported into the pre-Hispanic American Southwest from central Mexico for hundreds of years; it is generally projected that the purpose of this practice was to supply feathers for ritual purposes. Recent zooarchaeological research has demonstrated that the wing feathers of Southwestern turkeys were regularly plucked, as evidenced by significant scarring on the birds’ ulnae. The author observed the presence of this scarring on the wing elements of archaeological macaw specimens from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelly Jenks.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For three centuries, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail served as the main wagon road transporting people and merchandise between the New Mexico colony and the interior of New Spain. Most archaeological investigations of this trail have focused on only two types of sites: actual trail segments, and associated camping areas known as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kendall Baller.

Social network analyses provide insight into the strength and weakness of social connections across geographic areas. Discussions in the literature of the Mimbres region in New Mexico have stated that during the Classic period, the Mimbres ceramic tradition is confined to southwestern New Mexico, though this has not been tested with statistical assessments of data. Using ceramic style data from sites within and surrounding the Mimbres region, I investigate the levels of social ‘boundedness’ in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Phillips.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lithic scatters are commonly the most abundant site type recorded in regional archaeological surveys. Paradoxically, lithic scatters are widely considered typologically homogeneous and are typically classified as limited-activity sites. These practices have contributed to the view that lithic scatters are of limited research value in understanding the origins...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandon McIntosh. Andrew Duff.

This is an abstract from the "Current Research on Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) Domestication, Husbandry and Management in North America and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Growing research in animal domestication in the prehistoric western hemisphere has revealed a complex relationship between humans and the only originally domesticated animal in North America, the turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Research suggests reasons for turkey...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Danielle Soza.

From 2011-2016 Dr. E. Charles Adams and Richard Lange have organized and directed the Rock Art Ranch field school, a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) Program from 2013-2016. Rock Art Ranch, located just southeast of Winslow, Arizona contains evidence of use/occupation from Paleoindian to Pueblo periods, and yielded a wealth of data that has inspired dissertations, masters theses, senior theses, and student projects. As a participant of the NSF-REU at...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Ahlstrom. Heidi Roberts.

This is an abstract from the "Adopting the Pueblo Fettle: The Breadth and Depth of the Basketmaker III Cultural Horizon" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Data recovery for the Jackson Flat Reservoir, Kanab, Utah included the excavation of 60 habitations at six sites. Thirty-eight structures were radiocarbon dated, mostly with samples of maize from hearth and floor contexts, to the Early Agricultural and Basketmaker II through Pueblo I periods. We...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lucy Schuyler.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and Public Education at Tijeras Pueblo, New Mexico" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beads, pendants, and other items of personal adornment were recovered during excavations at Tijeras Pueblo in 1948, 1968, the 1970s, and 1986, and are stored at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology in Albuquerque and the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe. Shells from the Gulf of California, turquoise,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Tim Hovezak. Gary Ethridge. Gay Ives.

Site preservation has been an essential function at Mesa Verde National Park for a full century as well as a major prerogative of the National Park Service since its very inception. Early archaeological investigations at the park and attendant preservation efforts were instrumental in the definition of Ancestral Pueblo culture history by players who themselves were instrumental in the development of the science of North American archaeology. This presentation chronicles some of the remarkable...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Phil Geib.

More than 50 years ago archaeologists identified a high-density of Puebloan habitations on the Kaiparowits Plateau in southern Utah. Analysis of pottery from these habitations by James Gunnerson and Florence Lister resulted in conflicting interpretations of cultural affiliation. Gunnerson argued for a Virgin affiliation whereas Lister argued for a Kayentan affiliation. Lister’s interpretation triumphed and the Puebloan occupation of the Kaiparowits was attributed to migration from the south...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carol Patterson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Runners have always played an important role in Pueblo life, as with all tribes in the Southwest. They carried messages and trade items across great distances between prehistoric villages. Ritual racing around villages and out to sacred shrines have served to inspire the clouds to bring rain and keep the Sun and Moon on track during their annual journeys. A...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leon Natker. Ramson Lomatewama.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Katsinam are an iconic symbol of the Native American southwest, but the origin of the religion, sometimes referred to as the Katsina cult, has been elusive. In this paper I review earlier research on the origin of the Katsina culture and the conclusions these researchers came to, taking into account the theoretical constructs and assumptions these earlier...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Atherton.

This is an abstract from the "Hill People: New Research on Tijeras Canyon and the East Mountains" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Founded in 1765 in the foothills northeast of Albuquerque, San José de las Huertas was the byproduct of Spanish imperial policy and the aims of largely landless families and a category of people known as genízaros to make better lives for themselves. The crafting of this community, and its accompanying identity, amidst a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Harkness.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mimbres Classic Black-on-white is the hallmark of the Mimbres Classic period (A.D. 1000-1130) in prehispanic Southwest New Mexico. Bowls from this region are often marked by an interesting practice where holes, called kill holes, are punched out of the bottom. Kill holes are found across sites in the Mimbres archaeological region, however, little statistical...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jim Railey.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. LA 38326 encompasses what was apparently a sustained settlement on a high bluff edge overlooking the Pecos River Valley in the Carlsbad area of southeastern New Mexico. The site was first recorded in the 1980s during investigations for the Brantley Reservoir, and recently SWCA and Lone Mountain Archaeological Services conducted work here as part of a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy B. Graves. Myles Miller.

This is an abstract from the "Hot Rocks in Hot Places: Investigating the 10,000-Year Record of Plant Baking across the US-Mexico Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A decade of investigations of earth oven baking pits and their associated burned rock discard middens across southern New Mexico and west Texas have revealed new insights into the economic and social roles of these ubiquitous features. Investigations range from pedestrian and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Turney.

There is a contentious history between Navajo families living in the Wupatki Basin, ranchers, and the National Park Service. The creation of the monument in 1924 gradually displaced indigenous residents from ancestral homelands leading to loss of territory and connection to family. Here I focus on change in Euroamerican demands for land and federal management policies, as well as Navajo kinship, family dynamics, and oral history as told by descendants of the first Navajo settlers in the Wupatki...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephanie Egurrola.

This is an abstract from the "Community Matters: Enhancing Student Learning Opportunities through the Development of Community Partnerships" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One hundred and seventy sites were identified during the Burro Creek-Pine Creek (BCPC) Survey conducted by Pima Community College between 2003 and 2018. The BCPC project area is located on BLM land within Yavapai County, Arizona, north and east of the Burro Creek wilderness, in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only R. E. Burrillo. Joan Brenner-Coltrain. Michael Lewis. William Lipe.

This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For non-industrial communities, subsistence strategies are tightly constrained by ecological factors. Prehistoric peoples in the Bears Ears area were entirely dependent upon maize—a cultivar adapted to low-altitude, subtropical conditions in Mesoamerica—by at least 400 BC. Given the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristy Primeau.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Like visibility, audibility can be an actively managed aspect of the built environment, and one can question the relationship between site and sound in the landscape. As approached via the combined frameworks of phenomenology, performance theory, and political theater, interaudibility between sites would have served to create, manipulate, and reinforce...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ronald Towner. Stephen Uzzle.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Landscapes tell stories. They contain evidence of past cultural and environmental change and the relationships between the two. Dendroarchaeology—the use of tree-ring data from past human activities—is uniquely positioned to provide the fine-grained temporal resolution necessary for understanding these relationships. This paper examines 150 years of...