13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The La Playa archaeological site of northwest Sonora, Mexico, presents a well-preserved record of human land use from the Pleistocene to the historic period. The Early Agricultural period San Pedro and Cienega (1200 BCE–150 CE) phases are particularly well represented by burial, canal, and roasting pit features. These and other features have been the target of over two decades of research by transnational teams from the United States and Mexico. This session presents a cultural-historical account of the longue durée of human occupation at La Playa and the varied adaptations represented in the archaeological record. Issues of broad theoretical significance include human responses to climate change from the Pleistocene to Late Holocene, the emergence of sedentism and farming, the development of ritual and religious systems, the prevalence of violence, technological change, mobility and migration, and the formation of regional identities.

Other Keywords
Archaic • Formative • Early Agricultural period • Subsistence and Foodways: Domestication • Water Management and Irrigation • Lithic Analysis • Geoarchaeology • Chronology • Zooarchaeology • Paleoethnobotany

Geographic Keywords
North America (Continent) • United States of America (Country) • 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 1-9 of 9)

  • Documents (9)
Documents
  • The Agricultural Landscape at La Playa (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rachel Cajigas.

    This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The La Playa site is a compelling example of large-scale anthropogenic modification within a landscape of change through deep time. The development of irrigation technology and agricultural intensification in the Sonoran Desert was deeply entwined with changing climatic and geomorphic conditions. As the largest...

  • Assessing the La Playa Projectile Point Assemblage (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Guadalupe Sanchez Miranda. Alejandra Abrego. John Carpenter. Astrid Aviles. Elisa Villalpando.

    This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. More than 300 projectile points have been collected from the La Playa site. The vast majority were found on the surface without archaeological contexts. The site begins to be used continuously from the middle Holocene (ca. 7,000 years) by Archaic hunter-gatherer/forager groups as a locality included in their...

  • Faunal Remains at the La Playa Archaeological site: Subsistence, Bone Artifacts, Dog Burials, and Bird Bundles (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Patricia Martinez. Joaquín Arroyo-Cabrales.

    This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. La Playa archaeological site is located at Boquillas Valley, Sonora, northwestern Mexico. Animal remains studied pertain to the Late Archaic/Early Agriculture period (1500/800 BC–AD 200). Their identification revealed different uses for animals as subsistence, bone artifacts, dog burials, and bird bundles. Although...

  • La Playa and the San Pedro Phase in the Sonoran Desert (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Mabry.

    This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The origins of village lifeways foundational to more complex precontact societies in northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States can be traced back to the independent development of irrigation and associated social changes in early irrigation communities at La Playa and sites in the Sonoran Desert during the...

  • La Playa in the Broader Early Agricultural Period (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Pailes. John Carpenter. Guadalupe Sanchez Miranda.

    This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation will situate La Playa site within a broader narrative of the development of the Early Agricultural period (EAP). We review evidence for the obvious parallels of technological development that occurred at La Playa and other EAP sites in both Northwest Mexico and the US Southwest. These changes are then...

  • Revealing La Playa's Cultural Landscape during the Early Agriculture Period through Paleoethnobotanical Research (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Natalia Martínez-Tagüeña. Guadalupe Sanchez Miranda. Claudia León. John Carpenter.

    This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents a reconstruction of the cultural landscape of the La Playa Site in Sonora (SON F:10:3) during the Early Agriculture period (3450–1800 BP). We employ a paleoethnobotanical approach, analyzing 150 macrobotanical samples alongside ethnobotanical investigations, ethnographic data, and oral tradition...

  • Shall We Gather at the River: 13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa (SON F:10:3) (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only John Carpenter. Elisa Villalpando. James Watson.

    This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our research at the extraordinary La Playa Site (SON F:10:3) is now entering its twenty-third year. This site is located at the Boquillas Valley about 10 km north of Estación Trincheras and some 27 km west of Santa Ana, Sonora. The La Playa site presents an archaeological landscape revealing evidence of continuous...

  • A Spatial Analysis of Excavated Mortuary Features from La Playa, Sonora, Mexico (SON F:10:3) (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Paula Hertfelder.

    This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Covering an area of nearly 10 km2, La Playa (SON F:10:3) is one of the most important archaeological sites in northwest Mexico. Significantly, La Playa has one of the most extensive Early Agricultural period deposits in the Southwest United States/Northwest Mexico. It is also being impacted by severe sheet erosion that...

  • Understanding La Playa through 2,000 Years of Ceramic Production and Exchange (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Hunter Claypatch.

    This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramics blanket La Playa’s vast landscape and include some of the earliest pottery produced in the Southwest/Northwest. Despite its high frequency and value for reconstructing occupational histories, there has been no synthetic discussion of La Playa’s ceramics. This presentation chronologically frames the site’s...