An Applied Ceramic Typology and Architectural Analysis that Refines the Occupation Sequence of the LA 8619 Point Great House Community in San Juan County, New Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Ancestral Puebloan researchers in the US Southwest have considered the Middle San Juan Region transitional to the Chaco-Cibola cultural tradition to the south and the Northern San Juan-Mesa Verde traditions to the north. Analyses of twenty-four years of ceramic artifacts from Middle San Juan River basin sites suggests that the region should be considered to be an independent cultural tradition within the Ancestral Puebloan sphere of influence. The Middle San Juan Basin exhibits a series of center places and associated satellite sites with dynamic web of interregional and intraregional trade and exchange webs from 750 to 1300 AD. The occupation sequence of the LA8619 Point Great House Community has been inferred from correlation studies between ceramic typology and site architecture supplemented by limited dendrochronology evidence. The frequency and distribution of well-defined ceramic temporal traditions, further refined by the use of the mean ceramic date tool, suggests that there were three distinct occupation periods at LA8619, that correspond to previous migration models. Starting with initial population aggregation in the eighth century, ceramic typology evidence suggests that Middle San Juan communities functioned as local adaptation centers for selected regional traditions within an underlying San Juan River Basin tradition ceramic style.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52343