Ancestral Puebloan Settlement Patterns of Redwood Llama Ranch: Analysis of GIS and Fieldwalking Survey

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological survey of 800 acres at Redwood Llama Ranch in southwest Colorado documented over 50 previously unrecorded archaeological sites. A 2016 survey, completed as a settlement pattern study using a landscape archaeology framework, explored the extent of Ancestral Puebloan habitation and activity within this property situated in a canyon and on the above mesa. The results of this study, as determined through pedestrian survey and GIS analysis, revealed three main phases of occupation between the late Pueblo I and early Pueblo III periods. These three phases saw a general trend of expansion from habitation mainly surrounding the canyon rim to a final movement both outward onto the rolling mesa top and into the depths of the canyon before its abandonment in the AD mid-1200s. The evidence for these trends was provided through diagnostic ceramic and lithic material as well as architectural remains. This progression reflects regional tendencies and provides a basis for a dialogue on effects of climate, aggregation of communities, transfer of knowledge, and contact throughout the Four Corners region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23861