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.