Its About Time: Contributions in Honor of Thomas C. Windes

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stephen Lekson. Erin Baxter. Catherine Cameron.

The architecture of Chacoan kivas was markedly unlike far more numerous non-Chacoan kivas. While Chaco is famous for its stone masonry, we focus here on wood use, and specifically on radial beam pilasters and wainscoting. Both are enigmatic and, consequently, both have often been overlooked during excavation and sometimes even removed in modern stabilization. But when the kivas were in use these features would have been dominant, eye-level aspects of kiva interiors. Using examples from Chaco...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Bellorado.

For over a dozen years, Tom Windes and his Woodrat crew have been scampering in and out of the canyons of the Cedar Mesa area, mapping hard to reach cliff dwellings and taking tree-ring samples from archaeological wood in intact structures. Beyond just obtaining tree-ring dates during this work, Tom has developed new dendroarchaeological sampling methods, trained a new generation of researchers in these techniques, and pushed the limits of standard tree-ring analysis and interpretative...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nancy Akins. John Schelberg.

Part of the Chaco legacy includes early excavations that were under or unreported leaving large gaps in our knowledge of a considerable amount of work, especially during the University of New Mexico field school era. UNM constructed a research station with laboratory facilities and dormitories with the goal of training students and conducting long-term research on a concentration of small village sites opposite the great houses of Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl. One of these excavations was at Bc...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jacqueline Kocer.

The morphology of a ceramic vessel is directly related to intended use, and potters consider function during manufacture. Functional types such as cooking vessels, ollas, water jars, seed jars, bowls, and pitchers, are common in our ceramic lexicon. However, the relationship between morphology and function is not always intuitive, especially when considering secondary function and special use. The Gallina (A.D. 1050-1300) produced a wide variety of utility wares, but archaeologists have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ruth Van Dyke. R. Kyle Bocinsky. Tucker Robinson.

In the 1970s, Tom Windes began documenting shrines and stone circles around Chaco Canyon. Decades before landscape archaeologists spoke of viewsheds, Tom recognized the significance of visibility at Chaco. He observed that J-shaped Windes’ shrines create intervisible connections among great houses, and he pointed out that stone circles in Chaco are always within sight of one or more great kivas. Today, GIS is a useful tool for examining intervisibility across large areas. Inspired by Tom, and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Bagwell.

The wooden portions of prehistoric and historic architecture are not always well preserved. However, when they are present they provide a wealth of information about construction techniques, labor effort, and other aspects of the lives of these people related to building construction. Some key attributes of analysis include: tree species, when the tree died, felling methods, branch and bark removal methods, and surface treatment. This paper summarizes some of Windes’ contributions to this area...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Mattson.

Ornaments are generally considered to be items of wealth, luxury, and value, and are often used as one of several indicators of social inequality. However, the value and meaning of ornaments is often assumed rather than demonstrated. Aside from power and wealth, jewelry may also relate to various aspects of social identity. It has been proposed that ornaments, turquoise, and shell may have been important symbols of status and ritual (or socially valuable goods) in Chacoan society, as they form...

DOCUMENT Citation Only H. Toll.

Among Tom Windes’ huge list of accomplishments in archaeology, his work at Chaco Canyon and Pueblo Alto is especially noteworthy. The lasting nature of this contribution is clear in that Pueblo Alto and mounds at Greathouses continue to be discussed and interpreted. This paper further considers the Pueblo Alto mound stratigraphy and the use and occupation of the pueblo in the context of recent discussions of these data. The discussion ranges from the very specific to more general implications....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Dean. Ronald Towner.

Tom Windes is virtually unique among archaeologists for his appreciation of the range of dendrochronology’s contribution to archaeology and of the preservation crisis that afflicts the integrity of wooden elements in Southwestern archaeological sites of all ages. Tom’s interest in dendrochronology as more than dating led him to develop sampling tools, techniques, and protocols that maximize the behavioral and chronological information in dendroarchaeological wood. His recognition of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cory Breternitz.

Tom Windes has been a leader of innovative research on the Colorado Plateau for over four decades. His early work as the archaeologist on the Manti-LaSalle National Forest in southern Utah lead to one of the first pot hunting prosecutions under ARPA. His Forest Service career was followed by work with the Zuni Tribe and then nearly three decades of association with the National Park Service’s Chaco Center. Tom has become synonymous with all things Chaco, serving as Project Director for the Chaco...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Wilshusen. Mark Tobias.

The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966 and the conferring of Tom Windes’s M.A. in Anthropology in 1967 appear to be causally independent, but thereafter the arc of historic preservation and Windes’s archaeological career are intertwined. We distinguish three major stages in cultural resource management over the last 50 years, each of which tracks almost seamlessly with the changing focus of Windes’s work. The challenges of defining the intent of the act, enforcing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ronald Towner. Gaylen McCloskey. Benjamin Bellorado. Rebecca Renteria.

The 1970s were a period of intense activity in the Gallina heartland of north-central New Mexico. Excavations by James Mackey and Sally Holbrook and by Herb Dick documented dozens of Gallina sites and structures in the Llaves Valley alone. Unfortunately, analysis and publication did not always follow excavations, particularly in Herb Dick’s case. His untimely death in 1993 left much of his excavated material in disarray. Through the efforts of several individuals and institutions, however, his...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Vivian.

Chaco Matters because Windes Matters. There are few subjects in Chacoan prehistory for which Tom has not contributed thoughtful analysis - from ants to Zuni spotted chert. His insights regarding agriculture in the Chaco Core are basic to understanding the long history of farming in this area. Some of those insights are reviewed. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wendy Bustard. Dabney Ford.

Documenting field work has been standard archaeological practice for over a century. Long-term preservation and continuing use of those records has been less standard. Tom Windes’ documentary record of his work in Chaco Canyon is an example of what best practices can achieve. In particular, Windes developed a style of mapping archaeological sites that has proved invaluable in relocating, monitoring, and maintaining Chaco’s World Heritage resources. Standards for archaeological site documentation...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Lipe. RG Matson.

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...