The Perkinsville Valley: The Fishes Enter the Uncharted Waters of the Upper Verde Valley

Summary

In the 1960s, a group of students at Arizona State University organized a multi-year program of archaeological survey and excavations in the Perkinsville Valley, an archaeologically unknown region briefly visited by Jesse Walter Fewkes in 1906. Starting with a wide-ranging reconnaissance, a survey identified 21 sites, indicating a long-term occupation throughout the entire cultural sequence of the Verde Valley, from the Early Archaic through the terminal A.D. 1300-1400 periods. A number of sites were excavated, identifying multi-cultural occupations by people of the Hohokam, Prescott, and Southern Sinagua traditions. This work was documented in a series of student papers but only a few publications, but the provided a tantalizing glimpse of the importance of the Upper Verde Valley to the prehistory of central Arizona. This paper will summarize the results of Arizona State University’s early work in the valley, and the significant contributions that Paul and Suzanne Fish have made to clarify the murky waters of Verde Valley prehistory.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Regional to International Collaborations in American Archaeology: The Legacy of Suzanne Fish and Paul Fish

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17654