Late Archaic (San Pedro Phase) Occupation in Niagara Canyon, Chiricahua National Monument: Results of the 2017 UNM/NPS Excavations

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Partners at Work: Promoting Archaeology and Collaboration in the Chiricahua Mountains" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the summer of 2017 a joint crew of UNM/NPS researchers undertook test excavations at two Late Archaic loci within Niagara Canyon, a small watershed in the northwestern corner of Chiricahua National Monument. Located 0.6 kilometers from one another, both sites (CHIR00032 and CHIR00040) have yielded an impressive array of San Pedro phase lithic artifacts. The San Pedro phase dated between 3200 and 2500 b.p. is associated with some of the earliest farming communities in Southern Arizona and has been the subject of several major CRM investigations within the greater Tucson area. While our sample of San Pedro village localities has grown substantially over the past two decades, our sample of smaller foraging and hunting camps utilized during this period remains small. Sitting along the margins of the Chiricahua uplands and lacking any evidence for maize agriculture, both CHIR00032 and CHIR00040 represent likely foraging/hunting camps, providing valuable new data on upland land-use and farmer - forager lifeways during this period. This poster provides a brief introduction to the site as well as a summary of the results of the 2017 investigations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Partners at Work: Promoting Archaeology and Collaboration in the Chiricahua Mountains   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25758