Cedar Mesa (Other Keyword)
1-6 (6 Records)
Settlement pattern analyses published by Matson, Lipe, and Haase (1988) contributed basic understandings of the distribution of the many small dispersed sites in the Cedar Mesa area of SE Utah, and of the environmental factors that influenced these settlement behaviors. This project applies geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing techniques to supplement their settlement pattern study and gain additional insight into Ancestral Pueblo occupation of the region. Processing and...
Investigating Cedar Mesa (Utah) Settlement Pattern Behaviors Using Ideal-Free Distribution (2017)
Ideal-Free Distribution (IFD), a behavioral ecology theory, has been increasingly adopted by archaeologists to address questions about the relationship between settlement distribution, environment, and economy. In an anisotropic environment like Cedar Mesa, IFD theorizes that individuals would arrange themselves across the landscape according to habitat suitability and occupy the highest ranked regions first to maximize benefit to the individual. The Ancestral Pueblo of Cedar Mesa subsisted on a...
Oxygen Isotope Variability in Water Sources on the Colorado Plateau: Preliminaries to Stable Isotope Models of Prehistoric Irrigation (2015)
For aboriginal agriculturalists, subsistence strategies are tightly constrained by ecological conditions. The primary carbohydrate staple of prehistoric communities in the American Southwest (Zea mays) derives from low-altitude, subtropical conditions in Mesoamerica and is at its environmental limit on the cooler, more arid Colorado Plateau. In areas like Cedar Mesa in southeastern Utah, environmental limitations were addressed by either of two strategies. Dry farming with summer monsoonal...
Tribal Connections to the Monticello Field Office (2018)
The BLM Utah Monticello Field Office (MFO) selected Living Heritage Anthropology (LHA) to document tribes' connections to and ethnographic resources within their field office. The MFO is located in southeastern Utah and includes much of the greater Cedar Mesa area. In order to achieve this goal, LHA is currently conducting an ethnographic literature review of tribal perspectives of and connections to the MFO. As part of this process, with the field office, LHA has been initiating conversations...
Variability in Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Ratios in Banana Yucca (Yucca Baccata) from Cedar Mesa, Utah: Environmental, Inter-Organ and Processing-based Effects (2015)
Recent stable isotope and phytolith studies suggest that desert succulents (in particular Yucca sp. and Opuntia sp.) were a non-trivial component of Ancestral Puebloan diets. However, isotopic variability in such resources is poorly documented. We present 𝜹C13 and 𝜹N15 values for fruits and seeds of thirty modern Banana Yucca (Yucca baccata) specimens from Cedar Mesa, Utah. Experimental roasting and simulated mastication of yucca ‘crowns’ allow separate assays of whole tissue, fiber, and...
Woodrats Rule! Climbing and Coring in Southeast Utah Cliff Dwellings (2015)
For the past decade Tom Windes and his volunteer band of merry beamsters--the Woodrats-- have been collecting dendrochronological samples from cliff dwellings in the Natural Bridges and Cedar Mesa areas of southeastern Utah. As a result, the number of dated sites has increased dramatically, and it has become clear that in the AD 1200s, building in these canyons declined before the onset of the "great drought" of 1276-1299. The meticulous maps and records made by the Woodrats also enable...