Evidence for Land Tenure and the Creation of Commons among the Virgin Branch Ancestral Puebloans

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Cultural Resource Management Program of the Gila River Indian Community recently surveyed over 4,000 acres of Kaibab Paiute tribal lands in northern Arizona, recording over 85 archaeological sites. The survey examined broad basins and small hills, in areas of relatively low slope, but bordered by the Vermillion Cliffs. Most of the newly recorded archaeological sites are associated with the Virgin Branch Ancestral Puebloan culture and the Pueblo II period (900 – 1150 CE). This effort recorded a pattern of artifact deposition that suggests that habitations were culturally excluded from a portion of the landscape. I hypothesize that this exclusion was related to cultural ideas about the control of Commons, and that habitations represented a claim on surrounding land and/or resources. This hypothesis is supported by evidence for dispersed, seasonal, single-room habitations in other parts of the project area. These habitations are spaced along low ridges, suggesting that each denoted a "territory" or area of "control". I propose a model where a habitation structure represents a land claim, and where habitations are therefore barred in and around certain resources, such as lithic material sources and springs.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39044.0