Prehistoric Land Use in the Upper San Simon Valley and Chiricahua Mountains: A View from the Finley and Sally Richards Projectile Point Collection

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Community Matters: Enhancing Student Learning Opportunities through the Development of Community Partnerships" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Finley and Sally Richards collection represents the largest and most complete collection of projectile points documented from the remote corners of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. The collection, donated to the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society in 2013, offers a rare overview of the prehistoric cultural history of the upper San Simon Valley and Chiricahua Mountains. Study of the collection, which spans the Holocene epoch, was made possible through a healthy partnership between not just archaeologists and a local ranching family, but the entire community of Portal, Arizona, who collectively invited us to generate the information provided here. Our analysis documents the attributes and variables of the projectile point collection, and summarizes the sequence of typological designs that are distinctive to the southern Plains, the Chihuahuan Desert, and the Sonoran Desert. Raw materials used to create the tools, including obsidian, demonstrate a fluid territory between what is today described as the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. The process of observing, measuring, describing, and interpreting such a group of textbook artifacts provides an ideal opportunity for student learning, while contributing to our understanding of the regional archaeological record.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Community Matters: Enhancing Student Learning Opportunities through the Development of Community Partnerships   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25145