Shall We Gather at the River: 13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa (SON F:10:3)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Our research at the extraordinary La Playa Site (SON F:10:3) is now entering its twenty-third year. This site is located at the Boquillas Valley about 10 km north of Estación Trincheras and some 27 km west of Santa Ana, Sonora. The La Playa site presents an archaeological landscape revealing evidence of continuous human use since the Paleoindian period (ca. 13,000 years ago). Its most intensive use was during the Early Agricultural period (3700–2050 cal BP or 2100–150 CE); after this period, the occupation of the Boquillas Valley greatly diminished, but the site was continuously occupied by the Trincheras tradition people, Piman groups, French goat herders, and even a hotel and restaurant was in operation there during the 1950s. Countless thousands of hornos (roasting features), several hundred human inhumation and cremation burials, numerous dog burials, shell ornament production and lithic reduction activity areas, caches of manos and tabular “lap stone” slabs, and a schist quarry are the predominant features associated with the Early Agricultural period. This lecture presents a cultural-historical account of the longue durée of these human occupations and their varied adaptations represented in the archaeological record.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 13,000 Years of Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert at La Playa, Sonora   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37802.0