Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories

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 "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This is one of two related sessions on platform mounds commemorating the thirty years since the four research teams of the Roosevelt Archaeological Project, funded by the Bureau of Reclamation, documented the development of platform mound complexes in the landscape of the Tonto Basin in Central Arizona. Using surveys and the excavation of eight platform mounds and 147 associated sites, the projects documented the organization of platform mound community systems, the productive variability of the landscape, and the developmental history leading up to the platform mound era. Now members of the four original Roosevelt teams from Arizona State University, Desert Archaeology, Statistical Research and SWCA join with other colleagues and tribal representatives to examine the question, "Why Platform Mounds?" The papers are organized in two related sessions. The presenters in this session draw on histories of descendant peoples and archaeological comparisons to examine issues of human adaptation, social organization, beliefs, inter-regional interaction, emerging urbanism, selection, and cultural persistence.

Other Keywords
Hohokam • Architecture • Cultural Resources and Heritage Management • Social and Political Organization • Ethnography/Ethnoarchaeology • Zooarchaeology • Survey • Cultural Resource Management • Platform Mounds • Cultural Transmission

Geographic Keywords
United States of America (Country) • North America (Continent) • USA (Country) • New Mexico (State / Territory) • Oklahoma (State / Territory) • Arizona (State / Territory) • Texas (State / Territory) • Sonora (State / Territory) • Chihuahua (State / Territory) • Baja California (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-12 of 12)

  • Documents (12)
Documents
  • Akimel O’Odham Traditional Knowledge Regarding Platform Mounds (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Linda Morgan. Chris Loendorf. Barnaby Lewis.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Platform mounds play a prominent role in the Akimel O’Odham creation story, but few archaeologists have considered the implications of this knowledge. The story names each of the mound leaders along the middle Gila River, and provides specific descriptions of the special abilities they possessed. The story also...

  • Building Collapse: Hierarchy and an Anarchic Social Movement in the Hohokam Classic Period (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lewis Borck. Jeffery J. Clark.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists have offered multiple explanations for the dramatic architectural, subsistence, and political shifts that happened at the end of the Hohokam Classic period. Many of these explanations are good at exploring potential factors leading to these changes in regional contexts, like the Phoenix Basin where it...

  • The Central Arizona Project and Platform Mounds in Arizona (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Lincoln.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper will chronicle some of the history of the Federal investment in Big Archaeology for the Central Arizona Project. Specifically, the decisions to support a philosophy of Cultural Research Management, which facilitated a huge contribution to the archaeology of Arizona, and more broadly to the Southwest...

  • Elevating Animals: Exploring Ritual Fauna and Socially Integrative Architecture in the Tonto Basin (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Schwartz.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The frequent deposition of animals in public spaces suggests an essential role in public rituals in the pre-Hispanic U.S. Southwest. Using ethnographic evidence and large-scale analysis of faunal remains in the Tonto Basin area of central Arizona, I ask whether ritual fauna cluster in socially integrative spaces and...

  • From Hohokam Archaeology to Narratives of the Ancient Hawaiian ‘State’ (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Bayman.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Interpreting the political economies of early complex societies that lacked texts is a profoundly difficult challenge for anthropological archaeology. Such models compel archaeologists to examine material evidence of agricultural intensification, community organization, craft specialization, monumental construction,...

  • Hohokam Platform Mounds and Costly Signaling (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Glen Rice. Christopher Watkins.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Hohokam platform mounds (as well as ball courts and earthen "trash" mounds) are forms of monumental architecture requiring the expenditure of labor for purposes not related to shelter and subsistence. Selectionist theory predicts that economically unessential behavior (wasteful spending, superfluous activity) used...

  • Mounds, Mounding, and Polychrome Pottery in the Late Prehispanic Tonto Basin (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Katherine Dungan.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Both platform mounds and Roosevelt Red Ware (or Salado Polychrome) pottery have been interpreted as tied to religious practice in the late prehispanic southern Southwest, although the relationship between the two traditions is still debated. In the mid-14th-century (Gila phase) Tonto Basin, settlement included not...

  • A Path Forward: Casa Grande as Metaphor (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Brett Hill.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Two of the most iconic cultural symbols in the American Southwest are the O’odham Man in the Maze and Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. In this paper I illustrate a possible connection between them that might resolve some of their enduring mystery. From the merging of these symbols, a new perspective on the...

  • Platform Mound Communities along the Middle Gila River (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyle Woodson. Chris Loendorf.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Extensive archaeological evidence shows that major shifts in settlement patterns occurred over time within the Phoenix Basin, and it appears that population densities along the lower Salt and middle Gila Rivers fluctuated through time, such that periods of high density along one stream correspond with concurrent...

  • Platform Mounds and Ethnographic Analogy Revisited: Defining the Functional Universe (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mark Elson.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological data from Southwest U.S. platform mound sites will likely not satisfactorily resolve the question of platform mound function and social organization. This is due to the ambiguities inherent in our data base and in our limited opportunities to excavate these features. Because of this, explanations given...

  • Platform Mounds and Pueblos: A Focus on Diversity and Function (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Richard Ciolek-Torello.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A unique set of architectural forms, known as platform mounds, emerged in the Phoenix Basin during the early Classic period, presumably evolving from older Hohokam dance mounds. Usually surrounded by walls enclosing compounds, platform mounds initially served as the focal points of dispersed rancheria-style villages...

  • Portals to the Past: Public Architecture and Storytelling Traditions in Hohokam Society (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Jacobs. Douglas Craig.

    This is an abstract from the "Why Platform Mounds? Part 2: Regional Comparisons and Tribal Histories" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Culture is adaptive, and defined as a group's learned, shared set of beliefs and behavior patterns that are transmitted across generations. Research at Hohokam sites indicates the presence of long-term well-established residential groups who tend to reside next to public spaces, the location of platform mounds in the...