Not Just any Stones: Virgin Branch Puebloan Sandstone Artifact Distribution on the Southern Shivwits Plateau

Summary

Throughout the summer of 2015, graduate students at the University of Nevada Las Vegas began the data mining of over 20 years of archaeological site forms pertaining to the prehistoric occupation of the southern portion of the Shivwits Plateau in Northern Arizona. This data, as collected by the National Park Service, was organized and placed into a geodatabase, allowing for the first time a thorough spatial investigation of artifact distributions associated with the upland Virgin Branch Puebloan. During the preliminary exploration of this data, it was discovered that the distributions and concentrations of sandstone artifacts within this region were clustered in a spatially significant pattern. This research investigates what role such artifacts may have had in regards to the lifeways of the Virgin Branch Puebloan, and specifically it addresses the potential role sandstone played in resource processing.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Archaeology of the Virgin Branch Puebloan Culture

Keywords

Spatial Coverage