Shrines, Dedication Practices, and Closure Activities at Lava Ridge Ruin

Summary

Lava Ridge Ruin, located on the Shivwits Plateau near the northern rim of the Grand Canyon, is a late Pueblo II period site associated with the Virgin Branch Puebloan culture. Excavations at the sixteen-room pueblo suggest that its inhabitants used natural and cultural objects to maintain historical connections with their ancestors and with previously occupied settlements, as well as to signify their connection to important places on the landscape. These connections are reflected in the very location of the pueblo, which encircles a shrine (or ritual cache) created more than a hundred years before the settlement was established. The connections are further reflected by dedicatory materials, often associated with the Grand Canyon, placed in the building’s architecture during construction; as well as by specific closing rituals that marked the pueblo’s abandonment. The implications of these behaviors for understanding the worldview of the people who lived on the Shivwits Plateau is discussed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20145