Black and White and Shades of Gray: Projectile Points and Bifaces from the Dinwiddie Site, Southwestern New Mexico

Summary

During Archaeology Southwest and University of Arizona’s 2013 and 2014 field school seasons, close to a hundred bifaces were recovered from the Dinwiddie site, a Cliff phase (A.D. 1300-1450) Salado site in southwestern New Mexico. These artifacts include Archaic and late Pueblo period projectile point styles and several bifaces interpreted as having been discarded during the manufacturing process. This poster presents the biface and projectile point analyses results, expanding on a study initially conducted for the 2014 Upper Gila Preservation Archaeology field school public outreach project. The discussion focuses on the temporal and cultural associations of the recovered projectile point types and identifiable evidence for on-site point production. Differences and similarities among the three loci excavated at Dinwiddie are examined, and comparisons are made with previously excavated Cliff phase sites in the Upper Gila region. Located only 30 km from the Mule Creek obsidian source, obsidian bifaces are most common at Dinwiddie, followed closely by locally available chalcedony. Procurement strategies and possible social contacts are discussed using the results of obsidian XRF analysis.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Perspectives on Salado   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage