Pimería Alta Missions Fauna

Summary

This project consists of zooarchaeological data from two Spanish mission sites on the land of the O'odham people located in what is now southern Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico. This region was referred to by the Spanish as the Pimería Alta.

Dozens of Spanish colonial missions were established in the Pimería Alta region beginning in the 1690s by Jesuit missionary Father Eusebio Kino. Missions were established within existing Native American communities. While the ostensible motivation for Spanish missionization in the Americas was religious conversion, missions were also critical to the expansion of European economic institutions in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries.

Sites:

Mission Cocóspera

Excavations at Nuestra Señora del Pilar y Santiago de Cocóspera (Mission Cocóspera) were carried out from 2002 to 2004 by archaeologists from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (Mexico), lead by Arq. Júpiter Martínez. Cocóspera was named as a visita in the 1690s, in a valley that was home to a small O'odham farming community. Zooarchaeological remains from Mission Cocóspera were excavated from three loci, including the interior of the chapel ruin (Templo), a test unit located near the mission's southern wall (Locus E5), and a structure of unknown function located to the northwest of the mission church (Locus E2N). The Tempo remains consisted primarily of rodents, bats, birds, and other commensal species that were living within the ruins of the church. The zooarchaeological remains likely date to the mid to late eighteenth century.

Mission San Agustín

Mission San Agustín de Tucson was established in the 1690s among a small group of O'odham rancherías on the Santa Cruz River. Excavations at Mission San Agustín (AZ BB:13:6) were carried out in 2000 and 2001 by Desert Archaeology Inc as part of the City of Tucson's downtown revitalization project. The zooarchaeological remains from San Agustín were recovered from seven features dating between 1795 and 1820.

Personnel:

• Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman is the data creator and contact for this project. She created this tDAR project in 2012 with the Mission Cocóspera data as part of the tDAR Southwest Faunal Working Group. She also performed the zooarchaeological analysis on the Mission Cocóspera fauna.

• Andrew Webster, a graduate assistant at the University of Maryland, updated the tDAR project in 2019 by expanding the scope to include San Agustín, adding to the metadata, uploading additional resources, and editing the dataset for clarity and consistency.

• Madeline Laub, a graduate assistant at the University of Maryland, updated the tDAR project in 2019 by expanding the scope to include San Agustín, adding to the metadata, uploading additional resources, and editing the dataset for clarity and consistency.

• Vincent LaMotta performed the zooarchaeological analysis on the San Agustín fauna.

• Júpiter Martínez led the archaeological excavations at Mission Cocóspera from 2002 to 2004.

• Desert Archaeology Inc. conducted archaeological investigations at San Agustín in 2000 and 2001.

Data:

Data included on this tDAR project consist of excel files of the zooarchaeological data from Mission Cocóspera and Mission San Agustín, associated coding sheets, and scans of the original paper data entry cards where the data was originally recorded, when available.

Documents on tDAR:

• Pavao-Zuckerman 2011, "Rendering Economies" is an American Antiquity article which discusses Native animal processing for hide and tallow at both Mission Cocóspera and San Agustín.

• Pavao-Zuckerman 2010, "Animal Husbandry at Pimería Alta Missions" is a book chapter which discusses animal husbandry at both Mission Cocóspera and San Agustín.

• Martínez 2005, "Valle de Cocóspera Archaeological Project: Recent Finds" is a report on the Mission Cocóspera excavations. Maps and photos are included.

Other Relevant Documents:

• Martínez-Ramírez and Pavao-Zuckerman 2019, "Zooarchaeology of Mission Nuestra Señora del Pilar y Santiago de Cocóspera." International Journal of Historical Archaeology. This article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-019-00514-x

• Mathwich and Pavao-Zuckerman 2018, "Bureaucratic reforms on the frontier: Zooarchaeological and historical perspectives on the 1767 Jesuit Expulsion in the Pimería Alta." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 52:156-166. This article is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2018.07.002

• Pavao-Zuckerman 2017, "Missions, Livestock, and Economic Transformations in the Pimería Alta." In New Mexico and the Pimería Alta: The Colonial Period in the American Southwest, edited by Douglass and Graves, pp. 289-309. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, CO. This book is available at https://doi.org/10.5876/9781607325741.c011

• Grimstead and Pavao-Zuckerman 2016, "Historical continuity in Sonoran Desert free-range ranching practices: Carbon, oxygen, and strontium isotope evidence from two 18th-century missions" Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 7:37-47. This article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.03.009

• Pavao-Zuckerman 2011, "Landscape Use at San Agustín." In Contemporary Archaeologies of the Southwest, edited by Walker and Venzor, pp.227-244. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, CO. This book is available at https://muse.jhu.edu/book/12463

• Pavao-Zuckerman and LaMotta 2007, "Missionization and Economic Change in the Pimería Alta: The Zooarchaeology of San Agustín de Tucson." International Journal of Historical Archaeology 11(3):241-268. This article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-007-0030-x

• Thiel and Mabry (editors) 2006, "Rio Nuevo Archaeology Program, 2000–2003: Investigations at the San Agustín Mission and Mission Gardens, Tucson Presidio, Tucson Pressed Brick Company, and Clearwater Site." This contains the site report for San Agustín and related sites. This report is available at https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/final-report-rio-nuevo-archaeology-2000-2003/

• Farrell, Schneider, and Martínez 2002, "Rescuing Mission Cocóspera: A Progress Report." Southwest Mission Research Center Newsletter 36(130):1-18.

• Rasor 1998, "The Preservation of Mission Cocóspera: An International Volunteer Effort." Southwest Mission Research Center Newsletter 32(115):2-12.

Cite this Record

Pimería Alta Missions Fauna. ( tDAR id: 376363) ; doi:10.6067/XCV8376363

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

Spatial Coverage

min long: -112.948; min lat: 28.192 ; max long: -109.011; max lat: 33.119 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman

Contributor(s): Andrew Webster; Madeline E. Laub

Source Collections

Mission Cocóspera: Mission San Agustín: Arizona State Museum Collections Repository at the University of Arizona (Tucson).

Related Comparative Collections

Stanley J. Olsen Laboratory of Zooarchaeology, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona

Resources Inside this Project (Viewing 1-8 of 8)

Documents

  1. Animal Husbandry at Pimería Alta Missions: El Ganado en el Sudoeste de Norteamérica ​ (2010)
  2. Mission Cocóspera Faunal Data Paper Copy Scans (2005)
  3. Rendering Economies: Native American Labor and Secondary Animal Products in the Eighteenth-Century Pimería Alta (2011)
  4. San Agustín Faunal Data Paper Copy Scans (2004)
  5. Valle de Cocóspera Archaeological Project: Recent Finds (2005)

Datasets

  1. Mission Cocóspera Faunal Data (2012)
  2. Mission San Agustín Faunal Data (2019)

Coding Sheets

  1. Northern Sonora Taxon Codes: Arizona State Museum Faunal Codes (2012)