Artifact Distribution and Density Patterns in a Transitional Early Classic Period Hohokam Trash Mound at AZ U:9:319(ASM), Mesa, Arizona

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Multidisciplinary Investigations of a Transitional Early Classic Period Hohokam Trash Mound at AZ U:9:319(ASM), Mesa, Arizona" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This presentation will report the results of an analysis of artifact distribution and density patterns in a well preserved transitional early Classic Period Hohokam trash mound. The aforementioned trash mound is located at the small site of AZ U:9:319(ASM) in north-central Mesa, Arizona, along the northeastern margins of what was the ancient residential village associated with the Mesa Grande platform mound complex. The artifacts analyzed in this study were excavated as part of Mesa Community College’s archaeological field methods course during the 2020, 2022, and 2023 field seasons. Excavations in four test units encountered between ~40 and 70 cm of intact trash mound deposits, while excavations in four other test units encountered a deeply buried cultural layer that was not part of the trash mound feature. Distribution and density patterns for ceramic sherds, lithic debitage, and charcoal will be reported for both trash mound deposits and the non-trash mound cultural layers in order to compare these contexts. The goals of this analysis are to provide insights about refuse disposal behavior and other domestic actives in this context at the edge of a large Hohokam residential community. These results will be compared to previously investigated Hohokam trash mound contexts.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Multidisciplinary Investigations of a Transitional Early Classic Period Hohokam Trash Mound at AZ U:9:319(ASM), Mesa, Arizona   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51567