Towers in the Northern Periphery

Summary

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

New research in the northern portion of Bears Ears National Monument reveals unique forms of late 12th century Ancestral Pueblo towers that vary from nearby Cedar Mesa and Hovenweep. This poster presents a study of towers in Beef Basin, a large valley north of the Abajo Mountain Range draining into the Colorado River, and examines the unique architecture, placement on the landscape, internal features, as well as their positioning in the ritual landscape that distinguishes them from Ancestral Pueblo towers farther south and east. This project implements the use of LIDAR, viewshed analysis in GIS, and pedestrian survey of previously unrecorded acreage in Bears Ears National Monument. The LIDAR, in particular, has revealed cultural landscape features including prehistoric roadways and field systems suggesting a robust occupation of the basin. These methods combined with an in-depth comparison to previous tower studies conducted in southeastern Utah provide more context for these unique towers as integral and defining features within the Beef Basin cultural landscape.

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): 37404.0