Data Recovery Investigations at Chilili, New Mexico (LA 847), Northernmost of the Salinas Villages

Summary

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

Statistical Research, Inc. (SRI) completed data recovery excavations in the village of Chilili, New Mexico. The pre-Hispanic and Colonial period pueblo of Chilili and the later historical-period village were at the intersection of cultural and geographic areas of the Rio Grande region. Northernmost of the Salinas villages, Chilili bordered the Plains and Pueblo worlds. Occupied from the late 1200s or early 1300s to 1673, the pueblo witnessed population and settlement transformations and the 1598 establishment of Spain’s New Mexico colony. Approximately 150 years after the pueblo was depopulated in 1673, Vecino sheepherders and farmers from the Rio Grande Valley settled Chilili. A village on the resulting land grant persists as a self-governing community. SRI considered Chilili within the themes of landscapes and mobilities. The investigation included radiocarbon dating, and artifact, petrographic, X-ray fluorescence, pollen, and starch analyses. Interpretations focused on understanding the dramatic history of Chilili’s settlement at the intersection of geographic areas and cultural-historical traditions through time. The project was completed by SRI, in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration and the New Mexico Department of Transportation.

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): 52389