Bunny Or Bison: A Comparative Study of Faunal Material in the Casas Grandes World

Summary

Faunal material has been recovered throughout the Casas Grandes world, from the cultural center of Paquime to the borderlands sites of Joyce Wells and 76 Draw. This study aims to compare the faunal assemblages of several Casas Grandes related sites to examine patterns of faunal utilization through time and space. Our results demonstrate that sites closer to Paquime (including Paquime itself) tend to have a more diverse faunal assemblage as well as having a higher percentage of high-ranked mammals than sites located in the periphery. Birds are also more common in the Casas Grandes core zone, which may indicate a higher focus on aviculture, a key characteristic of Paquime. Outlying Animas phase sites, such as 76 Draw, show a faunal assemblage more characteristic of local resource acquisition. We discuss the implications of our results for Casas Grandes ecology, subsistence, and human-environmental interactions.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Moving Forward in Casas Grandes Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage