North America: Southern Southwest U.S. (Geographic Keyword)
151-175 (195 Records)
This is an abstract from the "WHY PLATFORM MOUNDS? PART 1: MOUND DEVELOPMENT AND CASE STUDIES" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As time passes, fewer and fewer of us retain an intimate knowledge of the site of Las Colinas and the excavations that took place there in the 1960s and 1980s. Published artifact data for the site do not accommodate certain research interests, including inquiry into Salado polychrome ceramics, a significant ceramic category...
The Relationship between Human Subsistence Strategies and Late-Quaternary Paleoenvironmental Changes in the Northern Chihuahuan Desert of Southwest Texas (2024)
This is an abstract from the "American Foragers: Human-Environmental Interactions across the Continents" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous studies of the northern Chihuahuan Desert and Trans-Pecos region of west Texas primarily used plant macrofossils from Neotoma sp. middens to reconstruct Holocene and late Pleistocene paleoenvironments, offering researchers a general understanding of bioclimatic change for the period of record. Given the...
Repeat Laser Scanning for Deformation Analysis in Prehistoric Earthen Architecture Rockshelter Sites: A Case Study at Tonto National Monument (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Vanishing Treasures Program: Celebrating 20 Years of National Park Service Historic Preservation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Terrestrial laser scanning has emerged as a versatile tool and standard practice for the documentation, analysis, and storage of spatial information related to cultural resource management. While laser scanning surveys are completed with multiple outcomes in mind, cultural resource...
Research Questions Driving Rock Art Recording Methodology in the Alexandria Project (2018)
For over twenty years, Shumla Archaeological Research & Education Center has studied and promoted the preservation of rock art in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands along the U.S.-Mexico border. In July 2017, Shumla launched the three-year Alexandria Project designed to gather an extensive dataset from over 350 known rock art sites in Val Verde County, where the majority of US sites are located. Research questions driving data collection reflect two main aspects: geospatial distribution and...
Resilience in an Arid Environment: Long-Term Climate Change and Human Adaptations in Sonora (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent interdisciplinary investigations have revealed that the Sonoran Desert region is not only one of the earliest regions occupied in the Americas, but also demonstrates one of the longest continuous occupation records. The earliest Sonorans were proboscidean hunters...
Ritual Deposition of Avifauna in the Northern Burial Cluster at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon (2018)
Birds are an important part of both modern and historic Puebloan ceremonialism: live birds, stuffed birds, and bird wings and feathers are used in prayers, in ceremonies, as sacrifices, and in the creation of ritual paraphernalia. Archaeological evidence suggests birds held a similar role in the past for some prehispanic Southwestern groups, including members of the Chaco phenomenon. Pueblo Bonito is one member of the Chaco system that might be expected to contain evidence of ritual use of...
The Ritual Lives of Southwest Dogs (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dogs, as the first domesticated species, have held a wide range of roles in human societies including hunting assistants, guardians, companions, and food sources. In this poster we will explore their ceremonial roles through a comparative analysis of the life histories of ritually deposited dogs. Specifically, we will compare Southwest dog burials to a late...
Rock Art Sites in the Permian Basin, New Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Role of Rock Art in Cultural Understanding: A Symposium in Honor of Polly Schaafsma" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sacred Sites Research, Inc. and Versar Inc., working in cooperation with the Mescalero Apache Tribe and the Hopi Tribe, recorded and evaluated 17 rock art sites in New Mexico's Permian Basin, a project supported through the Bureau of Land Management programmatic agreement. Sixteen of the sites...
The Role of Future Discounting in Subsistence Decisions: The Case of Hohokam Agave Farming (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Life Is Risky: Human Behavioral Ecological Approaches to Variable Outcomes " session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation will investigate the relevance of future discounting behavior to precolonial subsistence decisions by examining *Agave sp. bajada cultivation among the Hohokam of southern Arizona during the Classic period, AD 1150–1450. The Hohokam Classic period was tumultuous and included a variety of social...
RTI Photography inside a Hohokam Great House (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Vanishing Treasures Program: Celebrating 20 Years of National Park Service Historic Preservation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Great House at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument is a monumental 11 room, three/four story structure made of puddled mud "caliche" that has been called "the pinnacle of Hohokam architectural achievement" and is significant for its high degree of preservation. The building is home...
Sacred Places and Rock Art Sites in the Sonoran Desert: Defining Common Patterns (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Sacred Southwestern Landscapes: Archaeologies of Religious Ecology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Based on landscape archaeology, achaeoastronomy, the analysis of rock art iconography, and ethnohistoric and ethnographic documents, this paper proposes to define the factors that determine the sacredness of rock art sites in the Sonoran Desert. Well characterized common patterns can be found in most of the rock art...
Sclerochemistry in Northwest Mexico: Evaluating Marine Shell Conveyance through Stable Isotope Analysis (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Isotopic and Animal aDNA Analyses in the Southwest/Northwest" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents an updated interpretation of marine shell exchange in the NW/SW. Isotopic analyses of marine shell can yield novel insights into regional trade networks. Our paper reviews C and O assays from archaeological assemblages in the NW/SW. These results demonstrate that the northern stretches of the Sea of Cortez...
Secret Identities and X-Ray Vision: Applying CT-Scanning to Roosevelt Red Ware Formation Techniques in the Tonto Basin (2018)
The techniques used to form ceramic vessels—in this case, coiling and scraping as opposed to the use of a paddle and anvil—have long been treated as key elements differentiating among archaeological "cultures" in the US Southwest. At the same time, finished vessels often retain little or no obvious visual evidence of the technique used in their formation, and this low visibility has implications for both ancient practice and modern archaeological analysis. We utilize computed tomography (CT...
Setting Things Right: Indigenous Archaeology in Sonora, México (2018)
Larry Zimmerman taught us how to do Indigenous archaeology. He told us do not rob graves or lick bones, to ask questions that Indigenous people need answered, to put aside academic capital, to collaborate, to be radical, to listen, to be humble and to atone for the transgressions of our discipline. Such a transgression occurred in the Sierra Mazatan of Sonora, México. In 1902, a party of Yaqui warriors freed hundreds of enslaved Yaquis from haciendas near Hermosillo, and they sought refuge in...
Shaded Canyons and Mesquite Fires: 13,000 Years of Ethnobotany in Eagle Nest Canyon (2024)
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. The value of several significant archaeological sites investigated by the Ancient Southwest Texas Project in Eagle Nest Canyon (Val Verde County, Texas) is a testament to the conservation and stewardship of landowners Jack and Wilmuth Skiles. From the beginning it was anticipated that these...
Shell Jewelry Exchange and Social Status in Central Sonora (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Crossing Boundaries: Interregional Interactions in Pre-Columbian Times" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological site of El Cementerio, dated between the Middle and Late Sonoran Ceramic Period (circa AD 1000-1521) and located in central Sonora along the Yaqui River, displays several characteristics suggestive of closer links to West Mexican coastal settlements including the presence of shell jewelry and...
Shell, Trade, and Systems of Value at the Dawn of Agriculture in the Tucson Basin (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Current studies on nacreous shell jewelry, those with an iridescent inner layer, during the Early Agricultural period (2100 BC - 150 AD) (Vint 2017) have chiefly examined how the material was brought into the Tucson Basin without much consideration for if it’s presence in the region was purely due to chance or if it was specifically chosen. Central to that...
Similarities and Differences Between Upper Gila and Mimbres Valley Ceramics in Southwestern New Mexico (2018)
Although both the Mimbres and the Gila valleys are within the Mimbres region and are not far apart, they seem to have rather major differences in the numbers of rooms per room block, the numbers of room blocks per site, and the designs painted on Mimbres black-on-white pottery. In this poster, we report similarities and differences between Mimbres Valley (MV) and upper Gila/western Mimbres (UGWM) pottery designs. We start by defining and quantifying style elements seemingly more common in the...
Simulation and the Identification of Archaeologically-Relevant Units of Analysis in the Study of Prehistoric Cultural Transmission (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Novel Statistical Techniques in Archaeology I (QUANTARCH I)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Reconciling the archaeological record’s coarse grain with the person-to-person information exchanges central to cultural transmission (CT) models will allow us to better tap this powerful body of theory. Previous efforts at reconciliation demonstrated that within- and between-assemblage coefficients of variation (CV) are...
Situating Rancho Johnson: Landscape transitions in Baja California (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The U.S.-Mexico borderlands have been shaped by cultural exchange, binational power dynamics, and its unique ecosystems. This paper explores the political ecology of landscape transformations in northwestern Baja California in the nineteenth century at the site of Rancho Johnson, located near Punta Colonet and today a working ranch. In the nineteenth and early...
Soul Expression: Speech-Breath in Pecos River Style Rock Art (2018)
Pecos River style rock art was produced in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico during the Archaic beginning around 2700 BC. This style is characterized by finely executed anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures arranged in highly-ordered, complex compositions. Pecos River style anthropomorphs are frequently portrayed with a series of dots emanating upwards from an open mouth. Zoomorphic figures of felines and deer are also represented with this pictographic...
Status Differentiation in the Mortuary Practices and Architecture of Paquimé, Chihuahua, Mexico (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Paquimé in Chihuahua, Mexico, is part of the debate of social organization of prehistoric pueblos. Using statistical and Geographic Information Systems this research attempts to determine the degree of status differentiation and intra-site organization of the site by revisiting published archaeological data and using a revised classification and...
Stepping Towards a Paradigm Shift: The White Sands Footprints (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prehistoric footprints indicate presence, behaviour, and the interactions between different animal species. The discovery of footprints at White Sands National Park in New Mexico has shown how tracks can transform our understanding of American prehistory and crucially the history of its first indigenous inhabitants. In September 2021 we announced...
Strange Birds: Avian Remains in the Upper Gila and Mimbres Drainages (2018)
Bird remains are seldom abundant in archaeological assemblages in the Mimbres region of southwest New Mexico. Despite their relatively low frequency, many of the occurrences of bird remains in this area are derived from interesting or unusual archaeological contexts, and provide a wealth of information on cultural practices and local and regional environmental conditions. This study examines data from over 70 archaeological assemblages from the upper Gila area and elsewhere in the Mimbres...
A Stratified Past: A Geoarchaeological Perspective of the Sayles Adobe Terrace Site (2024)
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. This paper is a condensed summary of master’s thesis “Stories in the Sand: Excavation and Analysis of The Sayles Adobe Terrace (41VV2239) In Eagle Nest Canyon, Langtry, Texas” (Pagano 2019). It presents an overview of the background, methodologies, analyses, and conclusions of work completed at the...