Crafting in Oversized Ancestral O’odham Structures

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Large pit structures are present at several ancestral O'odham villages in the Salt and Gila River Valleys. Although morphologically similar, they are up to 5 or more times larger than contemporaneous Hohokam Preclassic domestic structures. Targeted excavation of several such structures and surrounding features suggests patterns in their locations within villages, their architectural plan, associated intramural and extramural activities, and closure processes. These appear to have functioned as loci of production for ritually important craft items likely traded with other communities during the Santa Cruz and Sacaton phases. Crafters associated with these structures organized production of a limited range of specialized goods that varied within and among villages. We propose that these structures and nearby features functioned as corporate-organized crafting guilds during the Preclassic period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36402.0