Salient Spaces in the Painted Desert: A Comparative Ceramic Study of the Lacey Point Petroglyph Site

Summary

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

Lacey Point is a distinctive landmark rising above the Painted Desert in Petrified Forest National Park. This prominent butte harbors a concentration of Ancestral Pueblo petroglyphs encompassing themes of fertility and hunting. Associated with these petroglyphs is a large and diverse artifact assemblage, including thousands of ceramic sherds. This is contrasted by the fugitive architectural remains of a small jacal structure on the butte’s summit. Archaeologists have interpreted Lacey Point as a significant shrine site for Ancestral Pueblo communities of the Petrified Forest region. This project assesses these interpretations by comparing the landscape context of Lacey Point to known shrine sites in the American Southwest. To determine if Lacey Point has an inordinately large and diverse ceramic assemblage for a site with minimal architecture, I conducted a ceramic sampling survey of Lacey Point and three neighboring sites on the edge of the Painted Desert. This assessment determined Lacey Point’s ceramic assemblage is disproportionately intensive and diverse for a site with a fieldhouse sized structure. This study also found the activities performed at Lacey Point are a mixture of domestic and devotional practices. Altogether, Lacey Point is a distinct site on the Petrified Forest landscape, defying conventional archaeological site categories.

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): 37140.0