North America: Southwest United States (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Grant Coffey. Mark Varien. Kyle Bocinsky.

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. The Basketmaker III period (A.D. 500 to 725) in southwestern Colorado was a time of fundamental social and demographic change. The area witnessed dramatic population growth after A.D. 600 that was due to immigration and increases in fertility. This growth was accompanied by changes in settlement...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charles Andrews.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paleodemographic reconstruction is an essential prerequisite for understanding human ecology of ancient societies. In the US Southwest several studies have employed Bayesian statistical methods to improve population estimates. This paper compares two alternative implementations of Bayesian statistics to demographic reconstruction in the US Southwest –...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Baxter. Steve Nash. Michele Koons. Erick Robinson.

This is an abstract from the "The Expanding Bayesian Revolution in Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Seventy years after the Field Museum’s excavation at Tularosa Cave (1000 BCE–AD 1200) in the Mogollon Highlands of west-central New Mexico, its stratigraphic integrity remains a contentious topic. Bayesian analysis on a series of new AMS dates from sandals and corn found within different levels of the cave demonstrate that much of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sean Field. Donna Glowacki. Kay Barnett.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. More than a century ago, Jesse W. Fewkes excavated Far View House, a large mesa top pueblo in Mesa Verde National Park. Despite a long history of research, interpretation, stabilization, and maintenance since its initial excavation in 1916, a complete construction history of Far View House has never been produced. New research at Far View, including...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Theodore Tsouras. William Bryce. Michael Terlep.

Based on recent pedestrian survey of approximately 1,500 acres of BLM-managed land in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument of southern Utah, this paper examines new evidence from 129 archaeological sites that demonstrates a deep settlement history as well as both expected and unexpected changes resulting from the so called "Kayenta Intrusion" of the Pueblo II period. The Jenny Clay study area is located in a broad alluvial valley surrounded by the Vermillion Cliffs, and contains...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jim Railey.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bedrock mortars are common features in various parts of the world, including western North America. They are most often viewed as food-processing facilities, and indeed there is ample historical evidence for this function, especially from California and parts of the Great Basin. However, there is also evidence that bedrock mortars, or similar features, were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Schwartz.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper reports on the presenter's master's thesis research which examined painted white ware vessels from the Sand Canyon Pueblo site using an adapted 18-point attribute analysis developed by Patricia Crown for determining the age and skill level of producers of painted designs of pre-Hispanic southwestern ceramics. The thesis attempted to understand...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brendon Asher. Heather Smith.

This is an abstract from the "Touching the Past: Public Archaeology Engagement through Existing Collections" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Blackwater Draw Locality 1 is one of few archaeological sites in North America open to the public with exposed cultural deposits on permanent display and protected by an enclosed structure. With deposits spanning the last 13,000 years, the locality provides a unique opportunity to interpret in situ past human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Kroot. Matt Peeples. Jessie Kortscheff.

This is an abstract from the "Training a New Generation of Heritage Professionals in the Valley of the Sun: The ASU Field School at S’eḏav Va’aki" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2021 the City of Phoenix’s Archaeology Office invited Arizona State University instructors and students to assist in the development of a management plan for a parcel of land within the S’eḏav Va’aki Museum and Archaeological Park lands via a field training program in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Snow. Lynn Kim. Steve Davis.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The *Journal of Texas Archeology and History (JTAH) has developed a comprehensive new program for recording gunflint attributes (50+ potential) and site data (40+ items) based on a set of universal standards, taxonomy, methods, and procedures that allow a cloud-based, open-access comparative database to be constructed comprised of North American artifacts. In...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Heather Atherton.

This is an abstract from the "Chicanx Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research on Hispanic-descent communities in the American West appears to be betwixt and between discussions of indigeneity and nation-building, and for good reason. Drawing on historical and archaeological research of Spanish colonial land grants from the northern and middle Rio Grande, this paper examines some of the ways "Spanish" settlers navigated the tumultuous...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Charlotte Vendome-Gardner.

This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Approaches to Rock Art Documentation, Research, and Analysis" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Fluteplayer is widely recognized within rock art, characterized by a figure holding and/or playing a flute. It has been misinterpreted as the Kachina Kokopelli. As a result it is now entangled with modern, predominantly Western, interpretations of the Kokopelli character, which are subsequently rooted in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Dombrosky. Susan Ryan. Steve Copeland. R. David Satterwhite.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Haynie site (5MT1905) is an ancestral Pueblo village that was intermittently occupied from approximately AD 700 to 1280. The formation of this village is extremely complex, as it includes multiple occupations and significant modern disturbance. The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center has conducted research at Haynie since 2017, focusing on reconstructing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Baustian.

This is an abstract from the "Cooperative Bodies: Bioarchaeology and Non-ranked Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Mimbres culture of the American Southwest is most recognized for its beautiful black-on-white ceramics but recent research is revealing greater understanding of social organization, community interactions, and the response to social and cultural change. Bioarchaeological and mortuary data are contributing important evidence...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katelyn Bishop.

As one of the only classes in the animal kingdom capable of flight, birds are privy to a realm of movement that humans can only partially control. Birds possess specific traits and engage in a variety of behaviors that directly affect the mechanics of capture and use, such as gregariousness and flock size, preferences in nesting and feeding locations, wing strength and readiness to flush, and aggressiveness and territoriality. Human-bird relationships also move beyond the semantics of capture to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Katelyn Bishop.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Birds have remained one of the most symbolically valued animals in human cultures, from prehistoric past to ethnographic present, and across the globe. Especially in the North American Southwest, whole birds and their parts have been an integral part of Pueblo ceremonial life for centuries. Their ritual and symbolic value has been demonstrated both...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jack Treichler.

This is an abstract from the "Historical Archaeologies of the American Southwest, 1800 to Today" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Following the invention of the airplane in 1903, the early 20th century saw the rapid development of aviation technology, both for commercial and recreational purposes. As early pilots struggled to effectively navigate during an era characterized by unruly aircraft and sparse ground support, concrete arrows, beacons, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bruce Huckell.

Along the western edge of the Rio Grande Valley in Central New Mexico is a huge expanse of late Cenozoic volcanics, including a high-quality hydrothermally altered rhyolite. Colloquially known as Socorro jasper, at least one source of this material was exploited frequently by Clovis groups. This paper describes this source—the Black Canyon quarry—and the physical and geochemical properties of the "jasper" from it. Recent and continuing studies of its use by Clovis groups are reviewed, and its...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Mallouf. Erika Blecha.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An unusual and highly significant Late Prehistoric mortuary feature in eastern Trans-Pecos Texas was discovered in 1992 by a group of relic collectors who carried out an uncontrolled excavation. The feature, which contained 7-9 human interments and over 500 associated objects, consisted of a circular, 6.0 m diameter stacked rock cairn on the summit of a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bruce Huckell. Nadine Navarro. Christopher Merriman. Joseph Birkmann. Steven Shackley.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Opportunities to learn more about Clovis technological behavior at lithic material procurement and workshop sites are rare, particularly in the Southwest. The Blue Canyon site is a rare example of such a site—an artifact scatter covering some 16,000 m2 and consisting of Clovis projectile points and preforms, end scrapers, bifaces, and lithic debitage...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Keely Yanito.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Jornada Mogollon cultural area, anthropomorphic representation in rock art and ceramics provides evidence for prehistoric body modification, specifically tattooing. This presentation will focus on the history of the Jumanos, Tompiro and the Mansos. When the Spanish arrived in El Paso in the 14th century, they encountered the Manso, Jumanos, Tompiro...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Autumn Myerscough.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Through conducting a microwear analysis, I argue that the use wear of the bone tools examined will determine their functional use. The collections of bone tools for this study are from various Mimbres (AD 200–1130) and Chacoan (AD 850–1250) sites (located in the North American Southwest). Many bone artifacts with narrow, pointed distal ends are defined as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard McAuliffe.

This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Eagle Nest Canyon, Texas: Papers in Honor of Jack and Wilmuth Skiles" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bonfire Shelter in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas provides evidence of sporadic human occupation of the site across the Archaic period. The deposits known as the Intermediate Horizon, bound by two bison bone beds dating to ca. 12,000 BP and 2500 BP, do not reflect the persistent site...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Munro. F. Joan Mathien.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the San Juan basin, two multi-century ancestral Pueblo architectural traditions are well documented: orientations to the south-southeast and to the cardinal directions. Beginning in 2007, new surveys at 21 Great Houses and two stand-alone Great Kivas were conducted under a series of NPS and BLM permits. These surveys confirmed the two aforementioned...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Weston McCool.

This is an abstract from the "Global Perspectives on Human Population Dynamics, Innovation, and Ecosystem Change" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. With the transition to agricultural economies human populations underwent profound changes including, in many regions, rapid growth accompanied by marked volatility. The Colorado Plateau in western North America offers unique insights into volatile population dynamics, as it represents one of the few...