Pueblos at the Passageway: A Reassessment of Burial Collections From Nuvakwewtaqa, Chavez Pass, Arizona

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

For several centuries (13th – 15th C AD) Nuvakwewtaqa was comprised of three large pueblos that harbored a large population of ancestral puebloan people. It has been argued that the location and size of the pueblos correspond with their position along a major trade route - a transitional zone between forest and desert ecotones on the Colorado Plateau. A recently completed Forest Service sponsored NAGPRA Documentation project presents reassessments of the burial assemblages excavated by ASU (Chavez Pass Project 1976-1982) in cooperation with the Coconino National Forest. The site had been subjected to decades of looting which made past analysis of the disturbed burial contexts and surface scatters challenging. New insights into the people and material culture of Nuvakwewtaqa are presented which demonstrate that extensive regional ties provided the necessary conditions for the establishment a center of population and trade during the dynamic regional changes of late prehistoric times.

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-6 of 6)

  • Documents (6)

Documents
  • Color and Technology: A Legacy of Painted Burial Objects at Nuvakwewtaqa (Chavez Pass, Northern Arizona) (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Donna Ruiz Y Costello. Sarah Striker.

    Known to the Hopi as Nuvakwewtaqa, the Chavez Pass pueblo complex (13th-15th CAD) was excavated in part by researchers from Arizona State University from 1976 through 1982. Before these excavations, the site had been subjected to decades of looting, especially in burial contexts. A recently completed Forest Service sponsored NAGPRA project provided the opportunity to photograph and analyze the exceptional artifacts found in burial contexts prior to repatriation. This poster discusses new...

  • Data Recording Strategies for Nuvakwewtaqa Repatriation (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nathan Wilson.

    This poster presents a discussion of the various data recording methods implemented in the NAGPRA Repatriation of materials from Nuvakwewtaqa, Chavez Pass, Arizona. A number of different artifact types were analyzed in processing this collection, and artifact analysis associated with this project used a multi-stage approach. As this analysis required data recording following each stage, a well-organized, comprehensive multi-stage data recording strategy was constructed. This strategy, including...

  • Past, Present, and Future of Archaeological Legacies: Reassessing the Chavez Pass Burial Collections for NAGPRA Repatriation (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Arleyn Simon. Darsita North.

    A recently completed NAGPRA documentation project for the Chavez Pass Burial Collections at Arizona State University facilitated a multi-faceted reassessment of the expansive collections of the site, originally recovered from 1976 through 1982 by ASU archaeologists. In the reassessment, teams of physical anthropologists and archaeologist used original site records, maps, specimen logs, museum catalogs, photographs and reports to reexamine contextual identification of burials and associated...

  • PLAIN AND INTERESTING: AN EVALUATION AND REDEFINING OF NON-DECORATED POTTERY FROM NUVAKWEWTAQA, CHAVEZ PASS, CENTRAL ARIZONA (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Chris Caseldine.

    Long ago, Southwestern archaeologists realized the value of non-decorated pottery as a source of cultural information. The fundamental work of Colton and others (e.g., Pilles and Wood) have established the examination of non-decorated pottery as a key aspect for understanding the Sinagua Culture of central Arizona. This poster represents a continuation of the work began by Henderson (1978, 1990) and later refined by Henss (1990) on the non-decorated pottery excavated from Chavez Pass Ruin (13th...

  • The Sinagua and the Western Pueblo Tradition: Perspectives from Bioarchaeology (2015)
    DOCUMENT Full-Text Peter J. Pilles. Kimberly Spurr.

    Genetic and cultural relationships among ancient and historic populations in the American Southwest have long been of interest to archaeologists, and more recently to descendant communities. Documentation of more than 1500 human remains and 4000 associated funerary objects from US Forest Service land in anticipation of repatriation under NAGPRA provides abundant new information to address this topic. This poster discusses research using metric and nonmetric skeletal data and discrete skeletal...

  • The Sinagua and the Western Pueblo Tradition: Perspectives from Material Culture and Burial Practices (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Pilles. Kimberly Spurr.

    The highland country of central Arizona has historically been interpreted as a region peripheral to the more dominant Hohokam, Kayenta, and Mogollon traditions that surrounded it. However, peripheries are defined by ones perception of where the center is located. Our case in point is the prehistoric Sinagua, which has been the subject of a five-year long study and documentation of more than1500 human remains and 4000 funerary objects that have been repatriated to the Hopi Tribe by the...