Field Houses and Traditional Agricultural Landscapes of the Northern US Southwest

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Field Houses and Traditional Agricultural Landscapes of the Northern US Southwest" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Field houses, water and soil control features, and other horticultural features are often identified and recorded as isolated elements dotting expansive landscapes during archaeological surveys in the northern US Southwest. This suite of agricultural features typically receive far less investigative attention than civic-ceremonial or residential structures, as they exist in spaces perceived as “empty” and disconnected from loci of intensive occupation. Understanding the breadth of extensive landscape engineering and agricultural investment is further limited by subjective project and survey boundaries, exaggerating the perceived isolation of field houses and other horticultural features. Interpreting these features, however, within the context of larger lived landscapes is not only more aligned with Indigenous perspectives of space, but also yields valuable information on traditional cultural practices and values, ecological knowledge systems, stewardship, sustainability, and resilience. This symposium highlights recent research on agrarian landscapes in the Ancestral Pueblo southwest, including perspectives from archaeology, landscape architecture, and descendant communities.

Other Keywords
Landscape Archaeology • Settlement patterns • North America: Southwest United States

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)

  • Documents (8)
Documents
  • Early Agriculture and Community on the Southwestern Colorado Plateau (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only R. J. Sinensky.

    This is an abstract from the "Field Houses and Traditional Agricultural Landscapes of the Northern US Southwest" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To outsiders, the arid, sandy, and sparsely vegetated landscapes of the Hopi Mesas and the Petrified Forest–both located on the far southwestern portion of the Colorado Plateau–may seem like improbable settings for population-dense and long-lived farming communities. Yet, the traditional ecological...

  • Fieldhouses without Fields: Agropastoral Landscapes in the Sandia Mountains, NM (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandra Arazi-Coambs.

    This is an abstract from the "Field Houses and Traditional Agricultural Landscapes of the Northern US Southwest" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The western foothills of the Sandia Mountains outside of Albuquerque, NM offers a unique perspective to understand the diversity of land tenure patterns that involve periodic mobility from primary to semi-permanent residences. This paper explores the land tenure patterns of Hispanic communities that used...

  • Fieldhouses, Habitations, and Agricultural Landscapes on the Pajarito Plateau (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Samantha Linford.

    This is an abstract from the "Field Houses and Traditional Agricultural Landscapes of the Northern US Southwest" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancestral Pueblo “fieldhouse” features on the Pajarito Plateau are defined as 1-3 room structures associated with agricultural activity from the Late Developmental through Classic Periods (AD 1000-1600). Inconsistent field methods and recording practices over the past 70 years, however, have resulted in a...

  • How Contemporary Pueblo Farming Practices Can Inform Archaeological Approaches to Understanding Pas Farming Practices (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Joseph Aguilar.

    This is an abstract from the "Field Houses and Traditional Agricultural Landscapes of the Northern US Southwest" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pueblo Indian People have been farming in the North American Southwest for generations. Evidence of this exists across the landscape of the greater Southwest. More and more, archaeology is being informed by Indigenous knowledge and epistimologies that allow for a richer and more nuanced understanding of...

  • Mining the Database: How Can Shifting Units of Analysis Shift our Understanding of the Agricultural Landscape of the Southern Pajarito Plateau? (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jamie Civitello.

    This is an abstract from the "Field Houses and Traditional Agricultural Landscapes of the Northern US Southwest" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From 1987-1991, a National Park Service team of archeologists systematically surveyed over 45% of Bandelier National Monument. The research goal of the survey was to examine the process of community aggregation on the southern Pajarito Plateau during the late ancestral Pueblo periods. Toward that end,...

  • A Phenomenology of Field Houses (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Preucel.

    This is an abstract from the "Field Houses and Traditional Agricultural Landscapes of the Northern US Southwest" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Alfonso Ortiz once told me that as a child he looked forward with great anticipation to the growing season. This was the time when he and his family would move from their village homes to occupy their field house and tend their crops. He recalled it as a special time, one when he was "free from the...

  • Small Sites and Big Assumptions: Questioning the Uncritical Use of "Field House" to Classify Small Pre-contact Structures on South Cat Mesa of the Jemez Ranger District (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Rebecca Baisden.

    This is an abstract from the "Field Houses and Traditional Agricultural Landscapes of the Northern US Southwest" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Small pre-contact structures throughout the Southwest that lie on the periphery of large village sites are often classified as “field houses”, a term that carries with it the assumption that these structures were utilized seasonally, occupied for a short duration of time, and whose function is tied to...

  • The Tonque Agrarian Landscape Project: Small Structures, Field Houses, and the Organization of Rural Settlement in the Eastern Sandia Foothills (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Mattson.

    This is an abstract from the "Field Houses and Traditional Agricultural Landscapes of the Northern US Southwest" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Between 2012 and 2024, portions of a large parcel of private land near Placitas, New Mexico, were investigated as part of four seasons of the University of New Mexico field school and several CRM projects. This area, located south of Tonque Pueblo along the eastern Sandia foothills, was found to contain a...