Ritual Closure on the Fremont Frontier

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ritual Closure: A Global Perspective" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For roughly 1000 years, the far northern extent of the cultural North American Southwest reached into Utah, inhabited by peoples we refer to as the Fremont. During the Fremont Late Period (ca. A.D. 1000–1300), many structures across the vast region were intentionally burned and buried with specific ritual artifacts including figurines, gaming pieces, antlers, ochre, projectile points, and more. While this practice has been noted at many Fremont village sites it has never been systematically studied. The practice of ritually terminating structures has been observed across the western United States but has been most prominently discussed and documented in the American Southwest. This paper compares ritual closures of Fremont structures to those documented in surrounding regions to better understand the origins of the practice in the Fremont region. These data are used to better understand Fremont origins and social identity.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Ritual Closure: A Global Perspective

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51423