Southwestern United States (Archaeology in North America)

Whitley, Catrina B. (2012) "Evidence of Violent Conflict in Males from Pot Creek Pueblo," Landscapes of Violence: Vol. 2: No. 2, Article 10.

by Catrina Whitley

Skeletal evidence of violence in the American Southwest is well known and both healed and peri-mortem trauma has been... more Skeletal evidence of violence in the American Southwest is well known and both healed and peri-mortem trauma has been reported at many sites, including high rates of cranial injury supporting evidence of warfare. The present study examines the peri-mortem skeletal injuries in three young males from Pot Creek Pueblo (AD 1260-1320) located in the Taos Valley. Of the individuals analyzed from the Taos Valley, peri-mortem trauma only occurred in these three males, although healed ante-mortem injuries were present in several other individuals. CT scans of the skulls provided an additional method of analysis of the injuries and data necessary to differentiate peri-mortem trauma from post-mortem damage in one case. The pattern of peri-mortem blunt force and chopping force trauma to the skulls and post-cranial remains suggests hand-to hand combat occurred and these individuals died from chopping trauma to the skull, potentially from warfare related activities. Additionally, comparisons of the trauma patterns to rock art dating to the period suggests the type of weapon depicted may have been utilized to inflict the trauma to the skulls.

The Innovative Materiality of Revitalization Movements: Lessons from the Pueblo Revolt of 1680

by Matthew Liebmann

2008. American Anthropologist 110(3):360-372.

The Greater Southwest as a Periphery of Mesoamerica

by Randall McGuire

McGuire, Randall, H.
1989 The Greater Southwest as a Periphery of Mesoamerica.  In Centre and Periphery, ed. by T. C. Champion, pp. 40 61, Allen and Unwin, London.

Early Farming and Women: Subsistence and Sex-Differences in Dental Health

by Misty Fields

In "Writing in Anthropology: The Summary and The Critique Paper" by Dorothy Ukaegbu, pages 288-297, Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2011.

This article was written for an undergraduate readership. It examines women’s oral health as it relates to... more This article was written for an undergraduate readership. It examines women’s oral health as it relates to agricultural subsistence and associated dietary and physiological changes. The investigation focuses on the foraging-to-farming transition in the Desert Southwest (circa 1600 BC-AD 200) during a time of subsistence change and population increase. The study uses an osteological sample excavated from the archaeological site of La Playa in northwest Mexico. Analyses of dental data identify differential patterns in the occurrence of pathology in adult women and men. Results provides insights into the development of health trends specific to reproductive-age women. By considering the interaction that occurs between biological and cultural phenomena, study results provide a more dynamic picture of history and health in the ancient Southwest.

Critical thinking questions challenge the student to understand the application of bioarchaeological research to contemporary culture and people today.

Pueblo Religion and the Mesoamerican Connection

by Randall McGuire

McGuire, Randall H
*2011 Pueblo Religion and the Mesoamerican Connection. In Religious Transformation in the Late Pre-Hispanic Pueblo World. Ed. By D.M. Glowacki and S. Van Keuren, pp. 23-49, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

The late thirteenth century religious ideologies that transformed the Pueblo World sprang from far-ranging beliefs,... more The late thirteenth century religious ideologies that transformed the Pueblo World sprang from far-ranging beliefs, rituals, and social relations inextricably linked to Mesoamerica (Figure 2.1). Indigenous peoples living in the southwest of the United States and the northwest of México (the Southwest/Northwest) clearly share many aspects of cosmology, iconography, belief, and ritual with peoples living in Mesoamerica. But, Pueblo religion also differs from Mesoamerican religion in many ways. It did not diffuse north in neat packages of cosmology and ritual, nor did Mesoamerican missionaries, traders, or conquers impose a new religion on Pueblo Peoples. This chapter presents a more complex model of this relationship that considers the historical dynamics of similarity and difference between the Pueblos and Mesoamerica.

A Petrographic Approach to Sand-tempered Pottery Provenance Studies: Examples from Two Hohokam Local Systems

by James Heidke

Co-authored with Elizabeth J. Miksa and Henry D. Wallace

Cerro de Trincheras: A PreHispanic Terraced Town in Sonora, Mexico

by Randall McGuire

with Elisa Villalpando

In Archaeology in Tucson, 1998

The Meanings and Limits of the Southwest/Northwest: A Perspective From Northern Mexico

by Randall McGuire

Citation:

McGuire, Randall H.

2003 The Meanings and Limits of the Southwest/Northwest: A  Perspective from Northern Mexico. In Boundaries and Territories: The Archaeology of the Southwest Northwest. Anthropological Research Papers #54, ed. by E. Villalpando & J. Carpenter, pp. 173-183, Arizona State University, Tempe.

Although they have petty captains, they obey them badly: the dialectics of prehispanic Western Pueblo social organization

by Randall McGuire

With Dean Saitta

Dismembering the Trope: Imagining Cannibalism in the Ancient Pueblo World

by Randall McGuire

with Ruth Van Dyke

Game Resources, Social Interaction, and the Ecological Footprint in Southwest New Mexico

by Karen Gust Schollmeyer

2003 paper in Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory by M.C. Nelson and K.G. Schollmeyer

Dental Caries, Prehistoric Diet, and the Pithouse to Pueblo Transition in Southwestern Colorado

by Karen Gust Schollmeyer

2004 paper in American Antiquity coauthored with Christy G. Turner II

Prehispanic Environmental Impact in the Mimbres Region, Southwest New Mexico

by Karen Gust Schollmeyer

2005 paper in Kiva

Resource Stress and Settlement Pattern Change in the Eastern Mimbres Area, Southwest New Mexico

by Karen Gust Schollmeyer

2009 PhD dissertation; please download from UMI or my web page, http://www.public.asu.edu/~kgust/publications.html

Resource stress is often considered a cause of changes in human behavior, including changes in settlement patterns.... more Resource stress is often considered a cause of changes in human behavior, including changes in settlement patterns. This study examines the role of food stress in the dramatic depopulation of large, long-occupied villages in the Mimbres region of the U.S. Southwest. Current approaches to understanding this change suggest human impacts on wild resources, a period of decreased precipitation, and social pressures may all have contributed to decisions to move from aggregated villages to smaller, dispersed hamlets at the end of the Classic Mimbres period (A.D. 1000-1130). The degree to which potential sources of resource stress negatively affected prehistoric farmers, however, has been difficult to assess.

This study examines archaeological evidence and models of environmental conditions in the eastern Mimbres area of southwest New Mexico to assess the magnitude and periodicity of food stress from a combination of reduced precipitation and prolonged human farming and hunting activities on the landscape. Archaeological data on settlement patterns and faunal assemblages indicate the degree to which temporal changes in resource use suggest responses to food stress. A discrete time dynamic model of artiodactyl population change in response to human hunting pressure is used to estimate annual prehistoric resource availability. Finally, productive agricultural land availability is examined as a function of rainfall and human land use based on runoff catchment area, soil moisture characteristics, and considerations of human impact on soils.

Results indicate that levels and frequencies of food stress were unlikely to have been a major influence on decisions to change settlement and land use strategies. There were no changes in access to large game at the time of the settlement reorganization, although earlier human impacts on these species were probably severe. The availability of prime productive agricultural land in the areas closest to villages was somewhat reduced, but productive land was still widely available. Environmental explanations focused on long term population-resource imbalances may have been overemphasized in accounting for dramatic cultural changes in the area. Some changes around the time of transition to hamlets, however, suggest that farmers’ perceptions of increased risk may have influenced changes in demography and settlement patterns.

Anthropogenic Environments, Resource Stress, and Settlement Pattern Change in the Eastern Mimbres Area

by Karen Gust Schollmeyer

2009 book chapter coauthored with Joan Coltrain

Dramatic settlement pattern changes at the end of the Classic Mimbres period (A.D. 1000 to 1130) in southwest New... more Dramatic settlement pattern changes at the end of the Classic Mimbres period (A.D. 1000 to 1130) in southwest New Mexico have been attributed to a number of factors, including social stress, climatic variability, and human impacts on the environment.  Around A.D. 1130 large, long-occupied villages in the relatively fertile Mimbres Valley were depopulated.  Settlement in the more agriculturally marginal eastern Mimbres area shifted from villages to smaller, scattered hamlets without substantial reductions in the area’s population.  We examine the role of food stress in this settlement pattern change, particularly stresses related to human impacts on large game populations.  Archaeological faunal data and stable isotope analysis allow us to assess how human decisions to change settlement and land use strategies affected access to large mammals.  Although some aspects of the reorganization may have improved resource access for humans, it did not improve access to large game, and settlement dispersal may even have increased pressure on those animals.

Large Game, Agricultural Land, and Settlement Pattern Change in the Eastern Mimbres Area, Southwest New Mexico

by Karen Gust Schollmeyer

Preprint version of a paper accepted by the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, which requests that you please cite this article in press as: Schollmeyer, K.G. Large game, agricultural land, and settlement pattern change in the eastern Mimbres area, southwest
New Mexico. J. Anthropol. Archaeol. (2011), doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2011.04.004.

The twelfth-century depopulation of large villages in the Mimbres region of the US Southwest has been attributed to a... more The twelfth-century depopulation of large villages in the Mimbres region of the US Southwest has been attributed to a number of causes, including resource stress.  This study combines archaeological evidence and models of environmental conditions in the eastern Mimbres area of southwest New Mexico to assess the magnitude and timing of food stress from a combination of a period of reduced precipitation and the effects of prolonged hunting and farming activities on the landscape.  Results indicate that large game in the area was quite sensitive to hunting pressure, and was locally depleted long before settlement reorganization occurred.  Access to arable land was somewhat reduced around the time of settlement reorganization, but productive land remained locally plentiful.  Although the settlement reorganization did not improve access to large game or arable land, farmers’ perceptions of below-average conditions for agriculture relative to their expectations and past experience would have contributed to decisions to move.

The Origins of Pottery as a Practical Domestic Technology: Evidence from the Middle Queen Creek Area, Arizona

by Christopher Garraty

Garraty, Christopher P. (2011)

The site of Finch Camp in the middle Queen Creek area of Arizona, southeast of Phoenix, has produced some of the... more The site of Finch Camp in the middle Queen Creek area of Arizona, southeast of Phoenix, has produced some of the earliest evidence of utilitarian pottery use in the US Southwest. Using multiple lines of evidence from vessel morphology, surface alteration, and minute fatty acid residues in vessel walls, I evaluate the nascent function of the earliest vessels (mostly neckless jars, or tecomates) and infer a diachronic process of functional expansion from about 350 B.C.–A.D. 400. This evidence provides robust evidence for evaluating various theoretical models of pottery origins. I argue that utilitarian pottery was initially adopted in connection with the intensification of small particulate plant foods (e.g., seeds, grains) and increasing household-level control over resources. Further, vessel functions may have expanded during the early centuries A.D. in response to women’s task-scheduling conflicts stemming from increasing residential stability and growing reliance on low-level horticulture.

An Outside Perspective on Chaco Canyon (1992)

by Gary Feinman

(Gary M. Feinman, 1992)

Dual-Processual Theory and Social Formations in the Southwest (2000)

by Gary Feinman

(Gary M. Feinman, 2000)

Hohokam Archaeology in the Eighties: An Outside View (1991)

by Gary Feinman

(Gary M. Feinman, 1991)