Tracking the Footprints of Early Agricultural Farmers in Tucson, Arizona

Summary

Located at the confluence of the Rillito and Santa Cruz Rivers in Tucson, Arizona, archaeological excavations discovered an ancient agricultural field and canal irrigation system that contained human footprints belonging to an estimated 7 adults and 2 children, and 1 set of canine prints. These fields and footprints date between 1,000 and 500 B.C. This exceptional discovery drew worldwide media attention and required an innovative and collaborative approach to data acquisition and interpretation. This paper provides information related to how the fields and footprints were discovered and the unique series of events that led to their remarkable preservation. We’ll discuss the collaboration of multiple institutions to document and interpret the footprints within their context of the agricultural and canal irrigation system, using silicone casts of individual footprints, gait analysis, ingress to egress tracking analysis, 3D modeling, soil geochemistry and micropaleontological samples, and the results of the implemented analyses.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16278