Setting the Stage: The Landscape Archaeology of the Cedar Mesa Basketmaker II

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

During the Basketmaker II (BM II) many of the features that characterize succeeding Puebloan cultures were developed. There are two main BM II agricultural adaptations--the earlier canyon floodwater farming and the later mesa-top dry-farming. On Cedar Mesa, the earlier form is best known from the Turkey Pen site in Grand Gulch and the later adaptation from mesa-top surveys and excavations. The canyon adaptation (ca. 100 BC to ca. AD 150) is tentatively named the Turkey Pen Phase. The mesa-top form dates to AD 200-400 and has been named the Grand Gulch Phase. Some of the major cultural landscape features and basic settlement organization that characterize later Northern San Juan Pueblo cultures were first developed in the expansionary Grand Gulch Phase. We review aspects of the Cedar Mesa BM II and discuss how the cultural landscapes created in that period have implications for the later Puebloan cultures across the northern Colorado Plateau.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23079