Who Goes There? Tracing San Pedro Phase Migration and Social Dynamics in the Borderlands with a Revised Projectile Point Typology

Summary

The projectile point assemblage from Las Capas (AZ AA:12:111 [ASM]) provides a case study for using a social dynamics model to explain shifts in point design during the San Pedro phase (1200-800 B.C.) in the Tucson Basin. Available evidence indicates that the population of Las Capas and the residents of a possibly related settlement directly across the Santa Cruz River maintained a separate projectile point design orientation from other settlements in the northern Tucson Basin during the early San Pedro phase, but produced points conforming to the local design canon during the late San Pedro phase. This poster presents an updated projectile point typology for the borderlands, and combines chronological point data with additional lines of material culture and biological evidence to argue that the earlier occupation of Las Capas represents a migrant population from northern Sonora, Mexico, who failed to achieve social equity with or assimilate into the existing social fabric of the Santa Cruz River floodplain; the later reflects a re-occupation of the site by an endemic group exhibiting typical San Pedro phase Tucson Basin technology.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Multidisciplinary Studies of Anthropogenic Change, Subsistence, Social Organization, Regional Interaction, and Technology at the Las Capas Site, BC 1200-400, Southern Arizona

Keywords

Spatial Coverage