Dating Changes in the Fashion of Fancy Footwear in the Ancient Southwest: New AMS and Relative Dating of Twined Sandals in the Chaco and Post-Chaco Eras

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For over a century archaeologists have marveled at the intricacy and complexity of the twined yucca sandals recovered from dry cave settings and trash deposits in the San Juan River drainage of the northern US Southwest. Since pioneering work by Alfred Kidder in the 1920s, scholars have recognized that twined sandals represent a pinnacle of ancestral Pueblo weaving traditions in terms of the complexity of their woven structures, labor expenditure required to produce, and ability to express complex aspects of identities. Until now, however, efforts directed at understanding how they were made, used, and their function in ancestral Pueblo society have received less attention, particular for the versions made during the Chaco and post-Chaco eras (AD 850—1300). Based on recent stylistic, technological, and contextual analyses of over 280 sandals from great houses and cliff dwellings across the region, and 30 new AMS dates, this research explores how twined sandal production and use changed over time. This presentation explores the roles that these sandals played in expressions of identity, social position, and group affiliation across the Chaco world and in the wake of its reorganization.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33516