Cave 7 and the Causes of Basketmaker II Warfare

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Papers in Celebration of Bruce B. Huckell, Part 2" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Lethal intergroup conflict, or war, was a facet of life for the Basketmaker II farmers on the Colorado Plateau ca. 500 BCE – 500 CE. Massacre assemblages such as Wetherill’s Cave 7 provide the most conclusive evidence for warfare, but other indications include rock art depictions of violence and war trophies. Attempts at explanation look at various environmental and social causes. Social distance is one central aspect to be factored in: how closely related were the combatants? Do they come from distinct ethnolinguistic groups or are they part of a single society? The flaked stone assemblage from Cave 7 coupled with other information provides a means of making inferences about social scale. Lithic raw materials indicate potential area of residence and production technology provide a means to examine learning networks. Attackers likely lived only 40 km or so from Cave 7, perhaps to the Southeast. The evidence is strongly indicative of internal war at a rather local level.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Papers in Celebration of Bruce B. Huckell, Part 2

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52381