A Line in the Sand: Bioarchaeological interpretations of life along the borders of the Great Basin and Southwest.

Summary

Prior to A.D. 1300, several archaeologically defined cultures were identified at the intersection of the American Great Basin and Southwest. Human skeletal remains were analyzed from site that represent the borders and the heartlands of the Fremont, the Virgin Branch Puebloan, and the Northern San Juan Puebloan cultural areas. The goal was to examine how life in the crossroads of these regions affected the experiences of individuals and groups. The following indicators were used to reconstruct morbidity and mortality profiles: age-at-death and biological sex, markers of stress and pathological conditions, and scars of traumatic injury. In addition to these reconstructions, health and demography was contextualized using analyses of material culture from key sites in their respective regions. By considering both human remains and material culture, distinct and blended cultural traits were delineated in an attempt to better understand how borders structure inter-social relations. The value of an interdisciplinary approach is that it provides a more integrated understanding of each culture that considers not only how bodies record an individual’s experience in life, but the way that groups interacted with one another.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• The Bioarchaeology of Frontier and Borderlands

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