The 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2018
Margaret Lyneis examined pottery recovered from two of southern Nevada's desert oases, the Desert... more Margaret Lyneis examined pottery recovered from two of southern Nevada's desert oases, the Desert National Wildlife Refuge and the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. People occupied these rich havens of springs and lush vegetation fairly continuously from the Early Archaic period, with farming practiced during the Formative and Post-Formative periods. Lyneis' investigations demonstrated for the first time that pottery was made in these locations during the later periods, with tempers for both gray and brown ware ceramics consisting of crushed rock obtained from adjacent mountains. This paper summarizes these studies and reflects on the implications of Lyneis' research for understanding Nevada's prehistory. Margaret Lyneis examinó cerámica recuperada de dos de los oasis del desierto del sur de Nevada, el Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre del Desierto y el Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Ash Meadows. La gente ocupaba estos refugios ricos de manatiales y exuberante vegetacion de manera bastante continua durante el periódo Arcaico Temperano, con la agricultura practicada durante los periódos Formativo y Postformativo. Las investigaciones de Lyneis demonstraron por la primera vez que cerámica fue producida en estas locaciones durante los periódos posteriores, con desgrasantes para cerámicas gris y marrón que consistía de rocas trituradas obtenidas de montañas adyacentes. Este artículo resume estos estudios y reflexiona sobre las implicaciones de la investigación de Lyneis para comprientendo las prehistoria de Nevada.
ABSTRACTThe archaeological record in southern Arizona indicates that there were dramatic cultural... more ABSTRACTThe archaeological record in southern Arizona indicates that there were dramatic cultural changes around the period of European arrival in the New World. Although these changes are generally thought to have taken place before A.D. 1492, this paper examines the possibility that the two occurrences are linked. The idea that European diseases contributed to the culture change is explored, and an in-depth look at one disease—malaria—is used to illustrate the potential of these diseases to bring about disruption and change.
Archaeological Testing at Skydive Arizona Near the Eloy Municipal Airport, Pinal County, Arizona
During the month of July, 1992, SWCA, Inc., Environmental Consultants, carried out an archaeologi... more During the month of July, 1992, SWCA, Inc., Environmental Consultants, carried out an archaeological testing program at Skydive Arizona. This area is approximately 15 miles due south of Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. The land is privately owned and located next to a landing strip. The testing was necessary to identify archaeological sites in an area where ground disturbance and construction activities had made surface examination for sites impossible. In the areas where artifacts had been located on the surface, five trenches (totaling 200 m) were placed to avoid existing buildings, utilities, and roads. The trenches were excavated by a backhoe to an average depth of 1.2 m (5 ft.). One feature, an irrigation canal, was identified during subsurface testing. A single Gila Plain sherd was found in the profile of this feature at the base of the feature fill. Although the Hohokam sherd is associated with this canal, a historic date for the feature can not be ruled out. Specific doc...
An Archaeological Survey of the Marsh Station Traffic Interchange on U.S. Interstate 10 East of Tucson, Pima County, Arizona
On June 3, 1993, archaeologists from SWCA, Inc., Environmental Consultants of Tucson, Arizona con... more On June 3, 1993, archaeologists from SWCA, Inc., Environmental Consultants of Tucson, Arizona conducted a cultural resource survey of land surrounding the Marsh Station interchange in Pima County, Arizona. The purpose of the survey was to locate and describe cultural resources within the project area that might be adversely affected by reconstruction of the Marsh Station interchange and the Cienega Creek bridge. The findings of this study will be incorporated into the Environmental Assessment and other planning documents for the proposed undertaking. The work was initiated at the request of Mr. Jeffrey P. Hartman of JHK & Associates and was completed under Arizona State Museum Permit No. 93-16. Fieldwork was directed by Heidi Roberts, and crew members were Bill Grimm and Ashley Rather.
the Virgin Anasazi, and the Kayenta Anasazi are examined. The objective of this study is to deter... more the Virgin Anasazi, and the Kayenta Anasazi are examined. The objective of this study is to determine the extent of differences in the skeletal remains and burial practices of the 125 individuals studied. Statistical comparisons of stature, robusticity, and cranial measurements show no significant differences in skeletal metric traits. The small size of the skeletal series precluded the use of statistical methods in the comparison of nonmetric traits, however, preliminary results show that Virgin Anasazi cranial nonmetric traits are more similar to an Anasazi series studied by Birkby (1973) than to the Parowan Fremont series. While most individuals in the three series were healthy, the prevalence of periostitis, osteitis, and linear enamel hypoplasia was found to be highest among Virgin Anasazi individuals. Two other pathological conditions frequently identified in prehistoric skeletal series, porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia, were most common among the Kayenta individuals and the least prevalent among Parowan Fremont individuals. These findings are in agreement with current settlement and subsistence reconstructions. The mortuary practices of the three cultures were also compared. A summary of burial practices described in the literature plus new data evaluated in this study, found a good deal of variability in the burial record. Unique mortuary practices such as red pigmentation on Parowan Fremont skeletons, roofed graves at the Coombs Site (Kayenta Anasazi), and the inclusion of shell ornaments in Virgin Anasazi burials were recognized. At this time it is not evident that the burial practices of the Coombs Site people were more like the Virgin Anasazi practices than the Parowan Fremont practices.
The Eastern Mining Area Transmission Line Survey: Archaeological Resources in the Salt-Gila Uplands of Central Arizona
SWCA, Inc., Environmental Consultants (SWCA), of Tucson, Arizona, conducted the Eastern Mining Ar... more SWCA, Inc., Environmental Consultants (SWCA), of Tucson, Arizona, conducted the Eastern Mining Area (EMA) survey project under contract to Salt River Project (SRP) between October, 1993, and February, 1994. One central purpose of the project was to create an inventory of archaeological resources to assist in the planning of future improvements and other modifications to existing SRP transmission lines. The project included 107 person-field days of Class III archaeological survey along approximately 257 linear miles of existing 115 kV transmission lines and 92 linear miles of existing and proposed access roads in Pinal and Gila counties, Arizona. The survey crossed lands owned and/or administered by the Mesa, Globe, and Tonto Basin ranger districts of the Tonto National Forest; the Bureau of Land Management; the Arizona State Land Department; the Bureau of Reclamation; the National Park Service; the Department of Defense; and the Gila River Indian Community. The field survey was cond...
The Eastern Mining Area 115 kV Transmission Line Survey: Archaeological Resources in the Salt-Gila Uplands of Central Arizona
SWCA Inc, Environmental Consultants of Tucson, Arizona, conducted Eastern Mining Area (EMA) surve... more SWCA Inc, Environmental Consultants of Tucson, Arizona, conducted Eastern Mining Area (EMA) survey project under contract to Salt River Project (SRP) between October 1993 and February 1994. One central purpose of the project was to create an inventory of archaeological resources to assist in the planning of future improvements and other modifications to existing SRP transmission lines. The project included 107 person-field days of Class III archaeological survey along approximately 257 linear miles of existing 115 kV transmission lines and 92 linear miles of existing and proposed access roads in Pinal and Gila counties, Arizona. The survey crossed lands owned and/or administered by the Mesa, Globe, and Tonto Basin Ranger Districts of the Tonto National Forest; the Bureau of Land Management; the Arizona State Land Department; the Bureau of Reclamation; the National Park Service; the Department of Defense; the Gila River Indian Community; and private land owners. The initial field sur...
Margaret Lyneis examined pottery recovered from two of southern Nevada's desert oases, the Desert... more Margaret Lyneis examined pottery recovered from two of southern Nevada's desert oases, the Desert National Wildlife Refuge and the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. People occupied these rich havens of springs and lush vegetation fairly continuously from the Early Archaic period, with farming practiced during the Formative and Post-Formative periods. Lyneis' investigations demonstrated for the first time that pottery was made in these locations during the later periods, with tempers for both gray and brown ware ceramics consisting of crushed rock obtained from adjacent mountains. This paper summarizes these studies and reflects on the implications of Lyneis' research for understanding Nevada's prehistory. Margaret Lyneis examinó cerámica recuperada de dos de los oasis del desierto del sur de Nevada, el Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre del Desierto y el Refugio Nacional de Vida Silvestre Ash Meadows. La gente ocupaba estos refugios ricos de manatiales y exuberante vegetacion de manera bastante continua durante el periódo Arcaico Temperano, con la agricultura practicada durante los periódos Formativo y Postformativo. Las investigaciones de Lyneis demonstraron por la primera vez que cerámica fue producida en estas locaciones durante los periódos posteriores, con desgrasantes para cerámicas gris y marrón que consistía de rocas trituradas obtenidas de montañas adyacentes. Este artículo resume estos estudios y reflexiona sobre las implicaciones de la investigación de Lyneis para comprientendo las prehistoria de Nevada.
From Mining Sites to Mining Data: Archaeology's Future
KIVA, 2015
Some 40 years after the field of cultural resource management was conceived, the most surprising ... more Some 40 years after the field of cultural resource management was conceived, the most surprising consequence may be that the sheer quantity of archaeological observations made by the field's practitioners has far outstripped our ability to synthesize information and make those synthetic studies available to key interests, including government archaeologists, cultural resource management professionals, and the academy. Here we revisit the key proposals put forward in Bill Lipe's Conservation Model for American Archaeology, published in Kiva in 1974, to provide context for understanding the present and the future of cultural resource management and archaeological research. We see today's “conservation crisis” as a crisis in data management and call for a fundamental transformation in how we think about archaeological data and how we educate and train archaeologists in order to secure a productive future for cultural resource management and for the field of archaeology as it is practiced in North America.
The interpretation of surface artifact scatters presents a challenge to all archaeologists, inclu... more The interpretation of surface artifact scatters presents a challenge to all archaeologists, including those •who work in the deserts of the American West. In some circumstances, a sufficiently dense and diverse artifact assemblage can indicate the presence of buried pit houses or other evidence of habitation (Czaplicki and Ravesloot 1989). At the opposite extreme, there are artifact scatters of lew density and diversity that are often assumed to be exclusively surface manifestations, unlikely to be accompanied by significant subsurface remains. This is especially true when the artifacts are scattered on top of, or are incorporated in, desert pavement. T~\esert pavement has been defined as "a thin surficial layer of stone fragments...overlying a soil X>/layer in which few fragments occur" (Williams and Zimbelman 1994:243) or again as "a onepebble-thick concentration of gravel that mantles a stable surface" (Waters 1992:204). Pavements typically overlie a layer of fine-grained sediment, often referred to as an Av horizon. Desert pavements occur in arid regions throughout the world (Gooke 1970:560; Symmons and Hemming 1968), including the deserts of southeastern Galifornia, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah, western Arizona, and northwestern Sonora. Throughout this region, desert pavements are associated with archaeological sites that may include surface artifact scatters, circular clearings in the pavement, rock rings intruded into the pavement, or some combination of artifacts, clearings, and rock rings
Turquoise trade of the Ancestral Puebloan: Chaco and beyond
Journal of Archaeological Science, 2014
ABSTRACT Thousands of turquoise artifacts have been recovered from archaeological sites in Chaco ... more ABSTRACT Thousands of turquoise artifacts have been recovered from archaeological sites in Chaco Canyon and other Ancestral Puebloan (formerly known as the Anasazi) sites across the San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico suggesting that turquoise was an important commodity in these ancient trade networks. Although the well documented group of turquoise deposits in the Cerrillos Hill have been the main contender for the geological source of Chacoan turquoise because they are the closest in proximity to the canyon, recent studies show that turquoise was obtained through long-distance trade networks that extended hundreds of kilometers to the west. To investigate Ancestral Puebloan turquoise procurement strategies and trade networks, we analyzed 74 turquoise artifacts from Puebloan sites in the San Juan Basin and the Virgin Puebloan area in southern Utah and the Moapa Valley in Nevada by a technique we developed that identifies the geological source of turquoise artifacts using the isotope ratios of hydrogen and copper and a comparative database that contains the isotope fingerprints of 22 turquoise resource areas. Here we present geochemical evidence of multiple turquoise trade routes into Chaco Canyon linking turquoise from the San Juan Basin with deposits along the Rio Grande Rift and resource areas in Nevada and the Mojave region of southeastern California. By linking Chacoan turquoise with the western turquoise resource areas, our data supports the proposal that the Virgin Puebloan may have played an important role in the movement of turquoise, shell, and salt to the San Juan Basin. Our turquoise sourcing technique establishes the foundation for future turquoise provenance studies in additional regions beyond the American Southwest including Mexico, South America, China, and Persia. The use of isotope ratios should be tested as unique discriminators for other exotic complex minerals.
Culture and Environment in the American Southwest: Essays in Honor of Robert C. Euler, 2002
The paper synthesizes settlement data from the southwestern Arizona portion of the Western Papagu... more The paper synthesizes settlement data from the southwestern Arizona portion of the Western Papaguería with specific reference to four interpretive themes: farmers as foragers, expansion of the farming frontier, shell trade, and interaction of hunter-gatherers and foragers.
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