Problems at the Peaks: A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Subsistence Stress at Elden Pueblo

Summary

When past populations experienced extended periods of resource shortages, acquisition and processing strategies changed to secure enough food. Understanding how faunal materials reflect those prehistoric reactions to subsistence stress remains a relatively unexplored topic in Southwest archaeology. Elden Pueblo, located in Northern Arizona, provides insight into this topic. As one of the final Sinagua occupation sites in the San Francisco Peaks region, the site’s abandonment during a cool and dry period suggests that the occupants may have left the area because of resource shortages. In this paper, I analyze a sample of the faunal materials from pit houses, kivas, and a satellite pueblo associated with the site to identify if the population struggled to cope with dramatic climate changes. Residents used the selected structures during separate, consecutive periods of the Elden Pueblo’s occupation, which may reveal increasing subsistence stress over time. Evidence of subsistence stress over time in the site’s faunal assemblage includes a decrease in larger taxa, an increase in limb elements, and an increase in fragmentary elements. This paper presents the preliminary results of this research.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Spatial Coverage