Na’nilkad béé na’niltin: The Early Navajo Pastoral Landscape Project (Phase 1) – Experimental Ethnoarchaeology on the Navajo Nation

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Nat’aah Nahane’ Bina’ji O’hoo’ah: Diné Archaeologists & Navajo Archaeology in the 21st Century" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The non-coerced adoption of sheep by Diné (Navajo) communities in northwest New Mexico during the 17th century and the subsequent rise of an intensely pastoral lifeway stand out as unique developments among Native societies in the American Southwest. By applying a three-phase research design that melds experimental ethnoarchaeology with geospatial modeling and site-focused geoarchaeology, "The Early Navajo Pastoral Landscape Project" (ENPLP) seeks to better understand the history of this shift and how early Diné groups responded to the various social and economic impacts associated with incipient pastoralism.

This paper discusses the ENPLP’s first phase of research – a six-month long program of participant-observation and archaeological reconnaissance at a sheep camp on Black Mesa, Arizona, Navajo Nation. The resulting dataset, which combines archaeological site data with ethnohistorical research, illustrates the complexity of late 19th/early 20th century Diné herding practices and will form the basis for a series of geospatial analyses and archaeological fieldwork investigating 17th century Diné pastoral land-use practices in the Dinétah region of northwest New Mexico.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Nat’aah Nahane’ Bina’ji O’hoo’ah: Diné Archaeologists & Navajo Archaeology in the 21st Century

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23472