North America: Southwest United States (Geographic Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Claira Ralston. Debra Martin. Pamela K. Stone. Ventura Perez.

This is an abstract from the "Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Debra L. Martin" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Nuestra Señora de Belén Archaeological Project explores a colonial mission church and plaza site dating to the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Belén, New Mexico. The colonial village of Belén was populated by a diverse community of Spanish and mixed-heritage individuals, including a number of Native American...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Markle. Shannon Cowell. Esmeralda Ferrales.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the summer of 2018, New Mexico State University (NMSU) staff and students surveyed 120 acres on the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. The New Mexico Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages this monument, provided funding for this project. The survey occurred in seven high-priority parcels near Bishop’s Cap, where frequent recreational...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Willis.

Where people choose to settle can be thought of in part as a behavioral response to the ecological constraints placed on a society’s ability to meet its needs through interacting with its environment. While humans are indeed not always completely rational actors, their endeavors require either basic raw materials or environmental conditions that, when absent, either force them to seek out other regions for exploitation or adapt to new conditions. Because of this, archaeologists have long been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Mattson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Several decades ago, the NPS Chaco Project revealed evidence for widespread, small-scale ornament manufacture at small house sites in Chaco Canyon, as well as possible workshop-scale production at two locations. As consumption of finished jewelry items is clearly concentrated at great houses, it was suggested that lapidary production was part of a larger...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laurie Webster.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the past decade, the Cedar Mesa Perishables Project has documented nearly 5,000 perishable artifacts from alcoves in southeastern Utah. As part of this work, the project has generated about 100 radiocarbon dates from well-preserved woven textiles, sandals, baskets, wooden implements, and other perishable items from the Grand Gulch, Butler Wash,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Walker. Judy Berryman.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists in the North American Southwest and other regions recognize that ritual closure of structures reveals information about relations with ancestors, fear of dangerous forces, and other interactions between spiritual and material realms. We want to understand how such ceremonies might differ through time or place. Perhaps they form regional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Schaefer. Leslie Aragon.

Regional Influences on Cliff Phase Ground Stone in the Upper Gila Area Jonathan Schaefer and Leslie Aragon Ground stone tools are a productive means of studying subsistence and technology practices in the American Southwest. Excavations at the Gila River Farm Site and other nearby settlements have provided a large collection of ground stone objects used for various tasks. Here, we evaluate the use of the tools from these sites and compare their morphology to tools recovered elsewhere in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason Sherman.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The primary aim of the Sierra Blanca Archaeological Survey—located in the heart of the Sierra Blanca highlands of southeastern New Mexico—is to collect regional data that will enhance our understanding of settlement aggregation, community organization, intra- and interregional interactions, and ideational landscapes during pre-Hispanic times. Data from the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Mills. Sarah Herr. Matthew Peeples.

This is an abstract from the "Essential Contributions from African to Global Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Igor Kopytoff’s (1987) model of the African Internal Frontier has impacted archaeological research in many areas of the world, including the US Southwest. His model has undergone considerable rethinking, such as Akinwumi Ogundiran’s (2014) work on the historical period of southwest Nigeria. We revisit the internal frontier model...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Lambert.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Wetherill’s Cave 7 in Grand Gulch, Utah, has long been considered a massacre site, notable in particular for the large number of individuals in the assemblage (~90) and for its temporal placement in the Basketmaker II period. Recent debate concerning these remains has centered around the chronology of burials in the cave, as establishing contemporaneity of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Mary Weahkee. Edward Jolie. Benjamin Bellorado.

This is an abstract from the "Approaches to Archaeological Footwear" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Until recently, the memory of ancient footwear traditions was only retained in the oral histories and stone-hewn writings of Pueblo scholars. Previous interpretations have suggested that footwear was as an everyday item used only to increase mobility and ensure survival in diverse surroundings. For Pueblo people, ancestral footwear was and is a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelsey Hanson. Steve Baumann. Todd Scissons. Octavius Seowtewa. T. J. Ferguson.

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most American archaeology is driven by the proverbial goal of listing properties on the National Register of Historic Places. As the comprehensive “list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of protection,” the National Register is a prestigious means of creating and memorializing our national history. After almost 55 years of implementation,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Oas.

This is an abstract from the "Thinking about Eating: Theorizing Foodways in Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The fundamental importance of food to mind, body, and society makes foodways important to our understanding of past social phenomenon. In this presentation, I highlight the importance of engaging with the social dimensions of food to address the multifaceted relationships between broader changes in the environment and political...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cynthia Bradley.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In contrast to the ubiquitous Ancestral Pueblo practice of residential burial, at least 32 deceased were transported 10 kilometers or more for deposition within the Wallace Ruin great house. This Chacoan outlier, situated near Mesa Verde, Colorado was a ritual-economic center c. AD 1060-1150. Upon the collapse of the Chacoan system, habitation of this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gwenn Gallenstein.

This is an abstract from the "To Curate or Not to Curate: Surprises, Remorse, and Archaeological Grey Area" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Millions of surface-collected artifacts (and natural features for that matter) have been and are being stolen from public lands by visitors. Some are returned, often with letters indicating guilt and remorse. Most of these items have little to no provenience information attached. This paper demonstrates the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Witt.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster demonstrates recent applications of remotely sensed data to track Chacoan roads in the Middle San Juan Region, specifically the use of high resolution (1 meter) Digital Elevation Models obtained from Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data and multispectral imagery obtained from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Reflectance Radiometer...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy De Smet. Sean Field.

The focus of this research is to demonstrate the efficacy of data processing methodologies of remotely sensed data to detect the Chacoan Great North Road between Pueblo Alto and Pierre’s group. This research highlights a scaled approach to the analysis and processing of remotely sensed data to efficiently identify prehispanic roads. The data analyzed in this project includes: thermal infrared multispectral scanner (TIMS), light detection and ranging (LiDAR), orthoimagery from Google Earth and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Davina Two Bears.

This is an abstract from the "Nat’aah Nahane’ Bina’ji O’hoo’ah: Diné Archaeologists & Navajo Archaeology in the 21st Century" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. My research documents the history of the Old Leupp Boarding School (OLBS), a Navajo federal Indian boarding school in operation from 1909-1942, as it explores Diné (Navajo) survivance within the context of this school. Aside from documenting the history of this school, which has never been...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Barry Price Steinbrecher. Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa. Maren Hopkins.

Over millennia, Hopi people have established a rich landscape of significant places throughout the American Southwest and beyond. The significance of many of these places is rooted in Hopi traditional beliefs and practices and they are vital components to the cultural identity of the tribe. The Hopi Cultural Preservation Office (HCPO) and their research partners have established protocols for documenting Hopi traditional cultural places and incorporating this information into the regulatory...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Trevor Gittelhough.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Reservoirs have been an integral part of American history since the nations founding, culminating in over thirty million acres of land being submerged. Inundated by the waters of these man made lakes were innumerable cultural resources that have been lost. Lost to the communities who lived there, to archaeologists, and to the population at large....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeremy Brunette.

This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of the Eastern Jemez Mountain Range and the Pajarito Plateau: Interagency Collaboration for Management of Cultural Landscapes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster outlines a re-examination of historic Anchor Ranch on the Pajarito Plateau in north-central New Mexico. Anchor Ranch was developed as a modern, working cattle ranch on the western end of the Pajarito Plateau during the early twentieth...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Deborah Huntley. Suzanne Eckert.

Every site has at least one: the worked sherd. Game piece? Scraper? Spindle whorl? Miscellaneous ceramic object? Different analysts categorize these easily recognized but not always easily interpreted artifacts in different ways. In this presentation, we examine worked sherd assemblages from three 13th-15th century Ancestral Puebloan villages. Differences among these assemblages attest to variable contexts of use and meaning for worked sherds. We argue that individual worked sherds should be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kailey Martinez.

This is an abstract from the "Local Development and Cross-Cultural Interaction in Pre-Hispanic Southwestern New Mexico and Southeastern Arizona" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Gila National Forest and Gila Wilderness are the names ascribed to rich mountainous land spanning between western New Mexico and eastern Arizona. This land was once home to the people of the Mimbres culture. The environments within the Gila vary due to different...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Janes.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Several ongoing large-scale ground surveys in the southern San Juan Basin suggest that previously unmapped Chacoan roads may cross from Chaco Wash to Lobo Mesa. In addition to the South Road three more roads have been identified. One road extends from Chaco Canyon through South Gap and an additional 40 km southwest to the Dalton Pass great house community. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erik Simpson.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Upper San Juan region of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado is an area of unique cultural developments related to, but differing from, the adjacent Chaco, Mesa Verde, and Rio Grande regions. Our knowledge of both internal developments and status of relations with external groups is poorly understood in comparison to those neighboring regions. This...