Cavates and Roomblock Pueblos: A Reexamination of Site Types on the Pajarito Plateau

Summary

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

Cavates and mesa top pueblo roomblock sites on the Pajarito Plateau have generally been studied as separate site types. This paper aims to explore what archaeologists can learn by studying mesa top pueblos and cavates as one community based on seasonal living. Ethnographic accounts have mentioned how communities would live in the cavates in the winter and live in the mesa top pueblos in the summer. Studying these sites as one community might be able to give archaeologists a more accurate population estimate of the Pajarito Plateau – specifically within the Los Alamos National Laboratory boundary.

This research aims to use Tsirege as a test site to understand the connection between cavates and mesa top pueblos in regard to room density and population size based on seasonal living. This paper is a brief case study to examine the potential for understanding cavates and mesa top roomblocks as one community rather than separate site types.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37627.0