New Dendrochronological and Radiocarbon Dates for Northwest Mexican Cliff Dwellings

Summary

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

Over the years, several thousand archaeological wood samples have been collected across Northwest Mexico, but dating them has proven problematic because of short tree ring sequences, poor sample quality, and complex growth patterns. A majority of these originated in cliff dwelling sites, which form a central part of an inter-regional network of relatively dated archaeological phases. An estimated 200 cliff-dwelling sites have been identified in Chihuahua (Gamboa and Baca 2013) and a smaller yet still significant number in Sonora. Only a handful of approximate dates for a subset of the sites have been published, and these are characterized by wide ranges of uncertainty. In this study, we present preliminary results of a new program of research combining tree-ring dating and high-resolution radiocarbon dating in an attempt to overcome these issues and present a comprehensive chronological framework for the region. This framework will assist in not only refining cultural chronologies but also prove useful in facilitating paleoclimatic reconstruction of seasonal precipitation and drought periods several centuries earlier than previously possible. Preliminary results indicate a pattern of occupation between approximately 1100 to 1250 A.D., corresponding to the Viejo and Early Medio periods per Whalen and Minnis (2009).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39262.0