Southwest (Other Keyword)
51-71 (71 Records)
Cowboy Wash Pueblo (5MT7740), south of Sleeping Ute Mountain in the Northern San Juan Region, is the largest and latest pueblo in the Cowboy Wash Community. In collaboration with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Potter and colleagues (2013) recorded a large rubble area (~1000 m2), 13 pit structures, a potential D-shaped structure, and a surprisingly sparse surface assemblage (n=206). They also noted that the east edge of the pueblo is endangered by arroyo cutting. Due to this and because it was...
A Preliminary Analysis of Chipped and Ground Stone Artifacts from Garden Canyon Village (2015)
Garden Canyon Village is a large multi-component site located in southeastern Arizona. The main occupation dates to the Classic Period, but the rich resources of the Huachuca Mountains drew ancient people to the site from Preceramic times through the end of the Prehistoric Period (A.D. 1450). Located 10 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico Border and 65 miles southeast of the Tucson Basin, Garden Canyon Village was located on the frontier of the Hohokam, Mogollon, Mimbres, and Trincheras culture...
The presence and potential representation of turquoise at the Mimbres Site of Galaz (2017)
Turquoise, both the mineral and the color, are inexorably linked to contemporary ideas of the indigenous Southwest. Without doubt, the importance of turquoise extends back into prehispanic times, although we know relatively little about its cultural significance. The mineral turquoise may also have been represented in a more abstract way; J.J. Brody and Stephen Plog have suggested that Chacoan contemporaries of the Mimbres tradition may have used hachured elements on pottery to represent the...
Problems at the Peaks: A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Subsistence Stress at Elden Pueblo (2015)
When past populations experienced extended periods of resource shortages, acquisition and processing strategies changed to secure enough food. Understanding how faunal materials reflect those prehistoric reactions to subsistence stress remains a relatively unexplored topic in Southwest archaeology. Elden Pueblo, located in Northern Arizona, provides insight into this topic. As one of the final Sinagua occupation sites in the San Francisco Peaks region, the site’s abandonment during a cool and...
The Public Benefit of Archaeology: An Economic Perspective from the Wide Ruins Community. (2015)
A re-occurring theme in current Cultural Resource Management activities involve the term "Public Benefit". A majority of the discussions using that term refer to archaeological contributions to our understanding of a shared cultural patrimony. A lesser known aspect of Public Benefit is the direct monetary gain a community sees as a result of CRM work. On a general level, archaeological projects contribute via payroll and sales taxes. On a local level, area businesses benefit from spending by...
Pueblo I/Pueblo II subsistence strategy in Klethla Valley: a view from a resource processing/storage site along Begashibito Wash (2015)
The Arizona Department of Transportation conducted a highway widening project on US 160 between Cow Springs and Tonalea which required archaeological excavations at site AZ-J-33-35 (NN) as mitigation. The site is along Begashibito Wash in the western reaches of the Klethla Valley in northern Arizona. The excavations at AZ-J-33-35 (NN) uncovered an architecturally unique resource processing/storage site where locally available plants and corn were harvested, processed, and stored. Evidence for...
Reducing Human Error and Identifying Unknowns: X-ray Fluorescence as a Tool for Identifying Paint Composition of Mesa Black-on-White Pottery (2015)
Although Mesa Verde Black-on-white pottery paste and temper have been well-studied, the composition of the decorative black paints and white background slips to identify available resources and the varying recipes used across time and space has received much less attention. Paints are typically categorized as either coal-based (organic) or iron-based (mineral), and archaeologists have long used visual differences to identify these two paint bases. While it has been shown that even novices can...
Reevaluating rock art panels in Northern New Mexico (2017)
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...
Renegotiating Identity in a Cultural Crossroads: Salado in the Safford Basin (2015)
Current perspectives on the origin and nature of the Salado phenomenon vary amongst Southwest archaeologists. Evidence from the Safford Basin in southeastern Arizona suggests that in this area, Salado came about as a response to multiple waves of migration of various sized groups from the Kayenta and Tusayan regions of northeastern Arizona. Following the arrival of these migrants, the archaeological record shows that both migrants and groups indigenous to the Safford Basin renegotiated their...
Ritual Modification in the Context of Social Unrest in the Northern San Juan (2016)
Among the Ancestral Pueblo peoples of the northern San Juan, outbreaks of warfare coincided with periods of environmental deterioration and subsistence stress. The archaeological record of this region contains abundant data that reflect a final period of heightened lethal interactions in the late A.D. 1200s. The data reveal a pattern of attacks that ended the occupations of several villages just before the northern San Juan was permanently depopulated by Pueblo peoples about A.D. 1280. Evidence...
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...
Shape Shifters, Spirit Guides, and Portals to Other Worlds in Puebloan Rock Images of the Southwest (2016)
Rock imagery in the puebloan region of the southwestern United States often combines elements from different animal, human, and plant sources. Blended elements may depict or refer to other-wordly states of being. Beings made from combined elements shift from shapes familiar in the present world and transport the frame of reference to the spirit world. Specific animal forms may be selected because they are spirit guides, have specific powers, or are guardians of cardinal directions from mythical...
Sight Communities in the American Southwest (2015)
Communities can be conceptualized along a number of dimensions – spatial, demographic, economic, ritual, among others. This study proposes that it may also be productive to consider communities organized around vision. It is well established that people construct mental representations or "cognitive maps" of their surroundings to organize spatial information and experiences and for spatial orientation and navigation. Populations who shared significant portions of their cognitive maps are...
A Spatial Analysis of San Juan Red Ware Using Least Cost Paths (2017)
A fundamental part of interaction is distance. Distance can be calculated in many ways. GIS applications allow the calculation of least cost paths between locations. Often the length of this path is used as the distance between points; however, the amount of time it takes to traverse a path may differ for paths with the same length that traverse different topography. In this poster, I use the distribution of San Juan Red Ware in a portion of the southwestern United States to examine the...
A Spatial and Predictive Model of Archaeological Sites on the Lincoln National Forest (2017)
The Lincoln National Forest has produced a wealth of GIS data on archaeological sites in Southeastern New Mexico. This data has not yet been analyzed. This poster presents a predictive spatial model of archaeological sites on the Lincoln National Forest to provide information on the interaction between people and the environment and the changing use of the landscape over time. In this project, I have developed a predictive model of archaeological sites based on a statistical analysis of...
Spatiotemporal Trends in Ceramics and Architecture in Domestic Paquime, Chihuahua, Mexico (2016)
A recent examination of domestic architecture at Paquime demonstrated support for structural differences present throughout the Medio period following Di Peso's phases. No known analysis, though, outside of Di Peso's publications has examined the ceramics data to assess whether differences exist between rooms or units. This paper examines the connection between differences in ceramic types and distributions and those present in structural elements of architecture. The broader implications of...
A Story Told Two Ways: Exploring the Intersectionality Between the Archaeological Record and Social Context of Undocumented Female Migrants (2015)
The number of undocumented women crossing from Mexico into the United States has been increasing since the 1980s, leading to a steady upsurge in studies focused on the experiences and strategies of this subpopulation of migrants. Much of the discourse thus far has been focused on the social contexts of female migrants, that is their interpersonal and informational networks which influence their experience and survival strategies while crossing. In this poster we investigate how these social...
Testing Methods for Ceramic Dating on Northern Black Mesa (2017)
The presence and proportions of well-dated ceramic wares and types are used to date the occupation of sites across the Southwest, often to general periods or phases that exceed a site's likely occupation span. Various methods have previously been used to refine the dating of archaeological sites using ceramic artifacts. Recently, Logan Simpson conducted a Class III cultural resources survey of Peabody Western Coal Company's leased lands on northern Black Mesa, Arizona. This study uses ceramic...
Tracing the Production of Fourteenth-century Red Ware in East-central Arizona (2016)
Ancestral Pueblo peoples in east-central Arizona crafted a unique type of representational-style pottery (Fourmile Polychrome) by the early AD 1300s. Questions remain about where the type was manufactured and how it circulated in the region. We present the results of a neutron activation analysis (NAA) of sherds from three villages where the type was likely produced. Building on earlier research, our analyses clarify issues of provenance and speak to the fourteenth-century social networks...
A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Subsistence Stress at Elden Pueblo: A Final Report (2016)
This paper discusses zooarchaeological analysis conducted at Elden Pueblo in Northern Arizona. As one of the last remaining Sinagua occupation sites in the San Francisco Peaks region, the site’s abandonment during a cool and dry period suggests that the occupants may have left the area because of resource shortages. I hypothesize that populations must change acquisition and processing strategies in order to adapt to these shortages. Evidence of subsistence stress over time appears in...
Zooarchaeology in the Southwest: Ritual Consumption and Faunal Resources at Ridge Ruin Pueblo (2015)
The greater Sinagua region spans a distinct convergent geographical and cultural setting which provides a range of resources. Ridge Ruin is a prominent Sinaguan site occupied during the transition from the Pueblo II to Pueblo III period. In 1941, John MacGregor published a bulletin summarizing the results of his Winona Village and Ridge Ruin excavations. In MacGregor’s report and in the few publications on Ridge Ruin since, the majority of research has concentrated on the famous burial of the...