Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands

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 Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The International Border between the United States and Mexico is a region fraught with political, economic, and social tensions—perhaps never more so than at our present point in history. In an effort to momentarily transcend those tensions (the byproduct of comparatively recent geopolitical boundaries), this symposium showcases recent explorations of the deep culture history of a portion of that border region, specifically that encompassing southwest Arizona and northern Sonora. For millennia this magnificent, yet austere, part of the Sonoran Desert has been a crossroads of numerous groups and cultural traditions—Hohokam, Patayan, Trincheras, O’odham, Apache, and others. Today, archaeologists and cultural preservationists on both sides of the Arizona-Sonora border continue to uncover and decipher facets of this deep and complex culture history, as this symposium demonstrates.

Other Keywords
Hohokam • Cultural Resources and Heritage Management • Survey • Cultural Resource Management • Intermediate Area • Frontiers and Borderlands • Mortuary Analysis • Landscape Archaeology • Archaic • Agricultural strategies

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

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-9 of 9)

  • Documents (9)
Documents
  • American Periphery, Sonoran Heartland: Recent Archaeological Explorations of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Veech.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (ORPI) is a vast, rugged, and remote unit of the U.S. National Park System situated in the heart of Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. Measuring 1,338.25 km² (517.7 mi²), the park encompasses an area half the size of the state of Rhode Island....

  • The Cocospera Valley in the Prehistoric, Protohistoric and Missión Period: A Corridor of Cultural Exchange? (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jupiter Martinez.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There is a western geographical gap between the Trincheras and Hohokam archaeological traditions in the State of Sonora, Mexico. This area is the Cocospera Valley where the prehistoric sites have artifacts from Trincheras, Hohokam and Casas Grandes traditions. In the...

  • Developing a Condition Monitoring Plan for Archeological Sites at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jared Renaud.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Cultural Resources Program at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (ORPI) manages multiple cultural resource types across the unit. As part of the National Park Service’s (NPS) overall mission to preserve and protect natural and cultural resources, regular condition...

  • Early Mortuary Traditions in the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Elisa Villalpando. James Watson.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The earliest settled villages in the Borderlands region of the Sonoran Desert are largely associated with the protracted transition from foraging to farming and the foundation of Formative period archaeological cultures in the region. Mortuary practices associated with...

  • Los que viven donde sopla el verdadero viento: Bahía Tepoca, Sonora, Archaeology of the Coast in the Gulf of California (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only César Villalobos.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeology of the middle coast of the Gulf of California offers an opportunity to document and investigate processes of human mobility that highlight a deep relationship between humans, sea and desert. The area defined as Bahía Tepoca confirms a cultural significance...

  • O’odham Travel in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: Identifying Travel Routes on Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Maren Hopkins. Michael Spears. T. J. Ferguson.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The land encompassing Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument has long been a travel corridor for O’odham groups journeying across the Sonoran Desert to destinations throughout the modern Mexican state of Sonora and the Sea of Cortez. The National Park Service sponsored...

  • Prehistoric and Historical Period Agricultural Strategies in the Western Papagueria: Archaeological and O'odham Perspectives (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Adrianne Rankin.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper investigates prehistoric and historical period agricultural strategies in the Western Papagueria, a vast area of southwest Arizona and Northwest Mexico. It is the hottest and driest portion of the Sonoran Desert with temperatures that exceed 110o and rainfall...

  • Resilience in an Arid Environment: Long-Term Climate Change and Human Adaptations in Sonora (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only John Carpenter. Guadalupe Sanchez Miranda.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent interdisciplinary investigations have revealed that the Sonoran Desert region is not only one of the earliest regions occupied in the Americas, but also demonstrates one of the longest continuous occupation records. The earliest Sonorans were proboscidean hunters...

  • Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Conservation Efforts on Public Lands near the Borderlands (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Cheryl Blanchard.

    This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages nearly a million acres of public lands near the Arizona-Sonora borderlands. Most of the area is remote back-country that has a long and interesting cultural history. Volunteers, cultural staff members, and researchers have all...