New Perspectives on Salado

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

The widespread Salado phenomenon, largely defined by distinctive polychrome pottery, has perplexed archaeologists in the US Southwest for decades. Many current views associate this pottery with an ideology that helped integrate culturally diverse communities during the tumultuous late pre-contact period (A.D. 1250-1450). This session focuses on recent excavations and preservation efforts in southwestern New Mexico while bringing together perspectives from other regions to examine the intriguing variability and shared elements that characterize Salado communities. Examinations of architecture, ceramics, and ground and chipped stone from new excavations and past projects enrich our understanding of Salado at different spatial and temporal scales. This large data set allows for detailed consideration and debate on Salado at a synthetic level.

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  • Documents (11)

Documents
  • Black and White and Shades of Gray: Projectile Points and Bifaces from the Dinwiddie Site, Southwestern New Mexico (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Stacy Ryan. Riley Duke.

    During Archaeology Southwest and University of Arizona’s 2013 and 2014 field school seasons, close to a hundred bifaces were recovered from the Dinwiddie site, a Cliff phase (A.D. 1300-1450) Salado site in southwestern New Mexico. These artifacts include Archaic and late Pueblo period projectile point styles and several bifaces interpreted as having been discarded during the manufacturing process. This poster presents the biface and projectile point analyses results, expanding on a study...

  • Experimental Archaeology: Insights from the Construction of an Adobe Room (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Aaron Trumbo. Allen Denoyer.

    Experimental archaeology is a useful tool for improving our understanding of prehistoric technologies and testing archaeological interpretations. The "Hands On Archaeology" project at the 2014 Archaeology Southwest / University of Arizona Upper Gila Preservation Archaeology Field School focused on the experimental construction of a single-story adobe pueblo room in the style of the Cliff phase (AD 1300-1450+). This project was done in conjunction with limited excavation in three Cliff phase...

  • Ground Stone as a Migration Marker: Using Finger-Grooved Manos and Fully Grooved Axe-Heads to Trace Kayenta Influence at Salado Sites. (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Maxwell Forton.

    The Salado phenomenon in southern New Mexico and Arizona includes a set of cultural traits that are believed to have been stimulated by the arrival of Kayenta migrants in the late 1200s from northern Arizona and southeastern Utah. Identifying the influence of these northern migrants at Salado sites has been one of the ongoing goals of Archaeology Southwest’s field excavations. In addition to perforated plates and certain architectural features, the presence of particular ground stone tools at...

  • A Local Expression of "Salado" in Tonto Basin (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Jacobs. Arleyn Simon. Owen Lindauer. Glen Rice.

    "Salado" refers to a series of local expressions developed when populations were faced with the challenges of increased population sizes, migrants, and complexity. Local populations incorporated ceramic styles, iconography, architecture, and community organization from new arrivals and surrounding populations in ways that were adaptive and fostered integration. This brought migrants into the fold, albeit keeping them at a safe distance with limited participation and membership. To have excluded...

  • Reading between the Lines: Salado Polychrome and (In)organic Paint Variability (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Zanotto. Will Russell. Jeffery Ferguson.

    During the late thirteenth century, the Salado Phenomenon swept across much of the U.S. Southwest, leaving its most indelible mark in the form of Salado Polychrome pottery. Chemical sourcing indicates that this pottery was produced in many of the areas in which it is found and many researchers now associate production areas with the settlement of Kayenta migrants. Archaeologists frequently use stylistic analyses to infer shared socio-cultural backgrounds. For example, some colleagues have noted...

  • Renegotiating Identity in a Cultural Crossroads: Salado in the Safford Basin (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Neuzil.

    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...

  • The Salado Preservation Initiative: Combining Research Investigations with Regional Preservation Planning (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andy Laurenzi. Matthew Peeples. William Doelle.

    Regional planning is an essential element of comprehensive archaeological management programs. The Salado Preservation Initiative at Archaeology Southwest is linked to our research agenda focused on Salado and related developments across the Southwest in the late precontact period. Working exclusively within a temporally defined period of record (1250-1450) and conscribed geographically by the distribution of Roosevelt redware, Archaeology Southwest conducted a series of expert workshops and...

  • Technology and Typology in the Upper Gila: Flaked Stone from the 3-Up and Fornholt Sites, Mule Creek, New Mexico (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Stacy Ryan.

    Several seasons of field school excavations at the late Pueblo period 3-Up and Fornholt sites in Mule Creek, New Mexico, have produced a substantial number of flaked stone artifacts. Because these sites are located adjacent to the extensive Mule Creek obsidian source, and occupied at a time when Mule Creek obsidian was widely distributed, the collections provide information about lithic technology at sites with immediate access to the material. Obsidian composes a large proportion of the...

  • Temporal and Spatial Variability in Roosevelt Red Ware Painted Decoration (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Lyons. Deborah Huntley.

    Recent research in the southern US Southwest has revealed patterns useful in refining ceramic chronology and investigating communities of practice among 14th and 15th century potters producing Roosevelt Red Ware (Salado polychromes). Analyses of whole and partially reconstructible vessels recovered from stratified contexts in the San Pedro Valley of southeastern Arizona confirm the Roosevelt Red Ware stylistic seriation presented by Patricia Crown in 1994. Combining these results with recent...

  • True Facts About the Dinwiddie Site: Surprising Results from Limited Testing in a Disturbed Site (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra Covert. Leslie Aragon.

    Archaeology Southwest and the University of Arizona’s 2014 Upper Gila Preservation Archaeology (UGPA) field school excavations at the Dinwiddie Site (LA106003) produced interesting and somewhat unexpected results. Dinwiddie is a Cliff Phase (A.D. 1300 – 1450) Salado site located along Duck Creek, a tributary of the Gila River, in southwestern New Mexico. It was partially excavated by avocational archaeologists in the 1960s and the remaining deposits have faced multiple sources of disturbance....

  • Twenty Years of Studying the Salado (2015)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffery Clark. William Doelle.

    Archaeology Southwest (formerly the Center for Desert Archaeology) has been heavily engaged in studying the Salado Phenomenon through the lens of migration for nearly twenty years. Our research has been both intensive and extensive in scope: gathering new data from sites on public and private lands, reanalyzing existing collections, and scrutinizing published and unpublished reports from nearly every valley and basin in southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Here we summarize this...