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Articles 1 - 8 of 8
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Early Mimbres Households: Exploring The Late Pithouse Period (550–1000 Ad) At The Florida Mountain Site, Michael T. Searcy, Bernard Schriever, Matthew Taliaferro
Early Mimbres Households: Exploring The Late Pithouse Period (550–1000 Ad) At The Florida Mountain Site, Michael T. Searcy, Bernard Schriever, Matthew Taliaferro
Faculty Publications
Many studies have explored the household to understand social organization, production, and other dynamics of societies throughout the world. In this work, the approach outlined by Richard Wilk and colleagues is used to investigate households at the Florida Mountain Site, an intermittently occupied Late Pithouse period (550–1000 AD) residential site in the Mimbres Mogollon area of Southwestern New Mexico. Drawing on the similarities of this intermittent residential site to contemporaneous pitstructure sites in the Mimbres area, we suggest that one or more household units occupied the site. Our analysis also supports previous inferences that Mimbres households were integrated into more …
Rethinking Fremont Chronology, James R. Allison
Rethinking Fremont Chronology, James R. Allison
Faculty Publications
The dating of Fremont sites is based almost entirely on radiocarbon dates. A large number of dates exist from the region as a whole, but many of the largest Fremont sites are poorly dated. Most of the important sites excavated prior to the 1980s have at best a few dates, and many of the dates that do exist are on charcoal from structural wood. In some cases the only available dates are clearly centuries too early for the sites and structures they purport to date. In addition to problems with the data, some reports and publications about Fremont archaeology make …
Landscapes Of Interaction: Understanding Social Landscapes Through Quantitative Models Of Artifact Distributions, James R. Allison
Landscapes Of Interaction: Understanding Social Landscapes Through Quantitative Models Of Artifact Distributions, James R. Allison
Faculty Publications
Exchange of material goods is one of the most basic forms of human interactions. By tracing the distribution of ceramics, stone tools, and other materials archaeologists are often able to make inferences about the nature of interactions, and about the economic and social relationships of the people involved. These artefact distributions are a fundamental feature of social landscapes, with the potential to reveal much about the structure of social life. But artefact distributions are often complex and difficult to describe, especially at large spatial scales, and they often require some form of abstraction to make them comprehensible. Archaeologists have therefore …
Chronology, Climate, And Fremont Maize Farming In The Great Salt Lake Region, Christopher J. Allison, James R. Allison
Chronology, Climate, And Fremont Maize Farming In The Great Salt Lake Region, Christopher J. Allison, James R. Allison
Faculty Publications
Archaeologists usually say that Fremont maize farming in the Great Salt Lake region began at about AD 400, and that a mid-1100s drought caused the ancient inhabitants of the region to give up farming. But radiocarbon dates from the region do not support these dates. The earliest dated maize and the earliest dated human skeletal remains with bone chemistry suggesting maize consumption both suggest that maize was not grown in the region until after AD 600. Also, recently obtained dates on maize from Fremont villages indicate that farming in the region continued into the AD 1200s. If the end of …
The Viejo Period, Michael T. Searcy, Jane H. Kelley
The Viejo Period, Michael T. Searcy, Jane H. Kelley
Faculty Publications
Farming peoples thrived in the mountains, basins, and river valleys of northwestern Chihuahua for hundreds of years prior to the construction of platform mounds and ball courts at Paquime. Their small pithouse villages dotted the landscape near the rich floodplain of the Casas Grandes River, where they farmed maize, beans, and other goods. It was during this time (AD. 400-1200), known as the Viejo Period, that the foundations of the Chihuahuan culture were formed. While recognized as forming the roots of a more complex society, Viejo Period sites lack the monumental architecture and ornate pottery of the Medio Period (AD. …
Late Fremont Cultural Identities And Borderland Processes, Michael T. Searcy, Richard K. Talbot
Late Fremont Cultural Identities And Borderland Processes, Michael T. Searcy, Richard K. Talbot
Faculty Publications
he spread of maize farming across the American Southwest reached its northernmost extent west of the Rockies by the first or second centuries ad (James Allison, personal communication, 2014; Allison 2014), in the area encompassing the Colorado Plateau north of the Colorado River and the eastern portion of the Great Basin. he practitioners of farming in this area, the Fremont, generally resemble other Southwest farmers in material culture, social structure, settlement, and land use. hey are markedly different from contemporaneous hunter- gatherers to the west, north, and east in these same characteristics and in general economic strategy. Changing paradigms have …
Excavations At Vista Del Valle, A Viejo Period Site Of The Casas Grandes Cultural Tradition In Chihuahua, Mexico, Michael T. Searcy, Todd Pitezel
Excavations At Vista Del Valle, A Viejo Period Site Of The Casas Grandes Cultural Tradition In Chihuahua, Mexico, Michael T. Searcy, Todd Pitezel
Faculty Publications
In the summer of 2015 we conducted excavations at a site located along the Palanganas River, just south of the Casas Grandes River Valley in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico. This represents the first excavation of a Viejo Period site (A.D. 700–1200) in this vicinity since the 1960s. We discovered remnants of at least five structures, and fully excavated three. This paper reports our findings and compares them to previous work carried out in the region.
Dietary Patterns Of Paquimé: New Evidence From Dental Calculus And Microfossils, Daniel King, Michael T. Searcy, Kyle Waller
Dietary Patterns Of Paquimé: New Evidence From Dental Calculus And Microfossils, Daniel King, Michael T. Searcy, Kyle Waller
Faculty Publications
As part of a larger multinational project, we gathered and analyzed 112 samples of dental calculus (fossilized plaque) from human remains discovered at Paquimé and other sites in the Casas Grandes river valley to identify various microfossils still present in the silica matrix. Once identified, we used the prehistoric plant remains to reconstruct human/plant relationships present during the Viejo and Medio periods in and around Paquimé. Our data suggest that maize was used throughout both time periods, which supports current theories regarding Paquimean diet. Various types of grasses were also found, as were unspecified types of algae. Using our data, …