Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Now, as in the past, societies are not comprised solely by any one site or style of artifact. Instead, the interplay, among sites, artifacts, and natural features on a landscape, forms the social fabric from which human societies are woven. Southeastern Utah has been both at the center and on the edges of numerous cultural landscapes persistently for almost 13,000 years, yet relatively little synthetic research has occurred in this portion of the northern Southwest. Like now, the area appears to have been a contested landscape at several points in the past and a melting pot for societies from diverse backgrounds at other times. This session draws upon recent research in southeastern Utah to understand the social, ritual, subsistence, and political dimensions of ancient cultural landscapes in this crossroads region. Through innovative field-, collections-, archival-, and laboratory-based research, the authors in the session seek to understand landscape-scale patterns in subsistence, chronology, demography, and social identity. While recent political battles rage over the scale of federal protection across the area, the authors seek to move forward, beyond new or old political boundaries, to understand the ancient and historic peoples and the scale of the cultural landscapes in which they participated.

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-15 of 15)

  • Documents (15)

Documents
  • Archaeological Landscape Studies in Alkali Ridge and Montezuma Canyon during the Pueblo II and III Periods (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Fumi Arakawa. Braeden Dimitroff. Fred Neils.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Montezuma Canyon and Alkali Ridge areas occupy a cultural and ecological boundary between the Great Sage Plain of the central Mesa Verde region and the canyon lands of the western Mesa Verde region. However, physiological and ecological differences are apparent between the two...

  • The Basketmaker III and Pueblo I Periods in Southeastern Utah and the Mesa Verde Region: Did the Twain Ever Meet? (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Till.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most current archaeological narratives for Early Pueblo period occupation in southeastern Utah perpetuate the idea of in-situ cultural development across the span of the Basketmaker III and Pueblo I periods, often with the term "transitional Basketmaker III-Pueblo I." There is an implied,...

  • Characterizing Paleoindian Landscapes of Southeastern Utah (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Tune.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The earliest occupations of the greater Bears Ears area are represented by fluted, unfluted lanceolate, and stemmed projectile point technologies indicative of the Paleoindian period. Historically, this period has not been the focus of discussions pertaining to regional archaeological...

  • Cultural Landscapes, Past and Present: Cultural Resource Management Perspectives From Recent Work in Southeastern Utah (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jason Chuipka.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The spectacular prehistoric ruins and natural environment of southeastern Utah comprise elements of multiple, overlapping cultural landscapes. Archaeologists focus on past cultural landscapes and seek to understand broader cultural processes by studying the many well-preserved locations of...

  • Hard Times and Mobility in Thirteenth-Century SE Utah: A Chronometric Study (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Windes.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Large areas of the western Northern San Juan Region were repopulated in the early AD 1100s and mid AD 1200s, but the overall lack of systematic chronometric dating has complicated our understanding of events during these critical periods of settlement and abandonment. The Wood Project has...

  • Landscape and Agriculture in the Bears Ears Formative (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only R. E. Burrillo. Joan Brenner-Coltrain. Michael Lewis. William Lipe.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For non-industrial communities, subsistence strategies are tightly constrained by ecological factors. Prehistoric peoples in the Bears Ears area were entirely dependent upon maize—a cultivar adapted to low-altitude, subtropical conditions in Mesoamerica—by at least 400 BC. Given the...

  • Now You See It: Ethnohistoric Archaeology in the Bluff, Utah, Area (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Willian. Winston Hurst.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeology of protohistoric-historic native groups in the southeast Utah can be challenging. Surface evidence for Navajo, Ute, and Paiute camps, particularly earlier ones, are oftentimes minimal and go unrecognized, either literally or in terms of significance. Alliance and kinship...

  • Obsession with an Icon: Sandals, Sandal Imagery, and Social Identity Across Thirteenth Century Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin Bellorado.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancestral Pueblo people in southeastern Utah seem to have been obsessed with sandals and their depictions during the thirteenth century. Recent research has documented hundreds of sandal depictions on plaster and rock surfaces in the area dating to this period, but how should archaeologists...

  • Perishable Insights into the Cultural Boundaries of Basketmaker II: Collections Research from the Cedar Mesa Perishables Project (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Laurie Webster. Erin Gearty.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent research by the Cedar Mesa Perishables Project has documented more than 1500 textiles, baskets, wood, hide, and feather artifacts dating to the Basketmaker II period in southeastern Utah. Using data derived from sandals and other clothing articles, decorated baskets, human hair...

  • Photogrammetry and Virtual Reality Visualization of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Heller. Benjamin Bellorado.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent technological advances, including photogrammetric capture and virtual reality visualization, offer exciting new means to document, analyze, and reconceptualize archaeological landscapes. Minimally invasive, cost effective, and extremely precise, these methods and technologies provide...

  • Protecting Cultural Landscapes, Famous and Not, as the Threats Increase (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only William Doelle. Josh Ewing.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Far beyond the "Instagram ready" cliff dwellings of Bears Ears, southeastern Utah holds cultural landscapes of immense value for Native American tribes, scientific study, and heritage tourism. The sheer number of archaeological sites, combined with an incredible degree of preservation,...

  • Ruminations on Puebloan Ethnic Diversity and Ceramic Specialization in the Ancient Western San Juan (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Winston Hurst.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Though traditionally perceived as representing two distinct Puebloan subcultures, San Juan Red Ware and Tsegi Orange Ware are best understood as representing a single ceramic tradition whose production geography shifted several times between the eighth and fourteenth centuries,...

  • San Juan Red Ware Distribution Patterns and Social Networks in Southeastern Utah (2019)
    DOCUMENT Full-Text Robert Bischoff.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. San Juan Red Ware was produced primarily in southeastern Utah beginning around AD 750, and these vessels were traded throughout the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest. Its distribution in southeastern Utah demonstrates intriguing patterns of consumption, as some areas within the...

  • Setting the Stage: The Landscape Archaeology of the Cedar Mesa Basketmaker II (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only R.G. Matson. William Lipe.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Basketmaker II (BM II) many of the features that characterize succeeding Puebloan cultures were developed. There are two main BM II agricultural adaptations--the earlier canyon floodwater farming and the later mesa-top dry-farming. On Cedar Mesa, the earlier form is best known...

  • Ute Ethnographic Cultural Landscapes in Southeast Utah (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Terry Knight. Jessica Yaquinto. Nichol Shurack.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Nuche, or Ute people, have been in their homelands across Colorado and Utah since time immemorial. Southeast Utah formed part of the larger movements of the Ute bands with connections to the area, which in turn formed part of the overall Ute movements across the entire Ute homeland. The...