The Depopulation of Sand Canyon Pueblo, A Large Ancestral Pueblo Village in Southwestern Colorado

2010 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin A. Kuckelman
Keyword(s):  
Human Remains ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Ancestral Pueblo ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
Hunting And Gathering ◽  
Archaeobotanical Remains ◽  
The Village ◽  
Abundant Data ◽  
Mesa Verde Region

Archaeologists in the Mesa Verde region of the American Southwest have long sought the catalysts of the complete depopulation of the region by Pueblo farmers in the late thirteenth century. Ten years of excavations by the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center at Sand Canyon Pueblo, a large village that was occupied from approximately A.D. 1250 to 1280, yielded abundant data regarding the depopulation of the village and shed new light on causes of this intriguing regional emigration. Comparative analyses of faunal and archaeobotanical remains from middens vs. abandonment assemblages reveal a shift from farming to hunting and gathering that coincided with the onset of the Great Drought about A.D. 1276. Osteological and taphonomic analyses of human remains found in abandonment contexts reveal details of an attack during which many residents were killed and that ended the occupation of the village. These findings from Sand Canyon Pueblo suggest that climate-induced food stress and consequent violent conflict contributed to the depopulation of the Mesa Verde region in the late A.D. 1200s.

Cannibalism, Warfare, and Drought in the Mesa Verde Region during the Twelfth Century A.D.

2000 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian R. Billman ◽  
Patricia M. Lambert ◽  
Banks L. Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Heat Exposure ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Cut Marks ◽  
Broken Bones ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
Bone Fragments ◽  
Habitation Site ◽  
Mesa Verde Region

AbstractThe existence of cannibalism has emerged as one of the most controversial issues in the archaeology of the American Southwest. In this paper, we examine this issue by presenting the results of our investigation at 5MT10010, a small early Pueblo III habitation site in southwestern Colorado. Battered, broken bones from seven individuals were discovered in two adjacent pithouses at 5MT10010. Mixed and incomplete remains of four adults and an adolescent were recovered from the floor and ventilator shaft of one pithouse; the remains of two subadults were found on the floor and in various subfeatures of the second. Cut marks and percussion scars implicate humans in the disarticulation and reduction of these bodies. Evidence of heat exposure on some bone fragments and laboratory analyses of a human coprolite recovered from one of the pithouses support the interpretation that people prepared and consumed human body parts. The discovery of disarticulated human remains at 5MT10010 is one of a number of similar finds in the northern Southwest. Analysis of cases from the Mesa Verde region indicates a sharp increase in cannibalism around A.D. 1150, a time of drought and the collapse of the Chaco system. The causes, consequences, and nature of this apparent outbreak of cannibalism are examined in light of 5MT10010 and other recent finds.

Evaluation of Painted Pottery from the Mesa Verde Region Using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS)

2002 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Speakman ◽  
Hector Neff
Keyword(s):  
Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Laser Ablation ◽  
Inductively Coupled Plasma ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Inductively Coupled ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
Icp Ms ◽  
Plasma Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Mesa Verde Region

For decades archaeologists have struggled with the problem of accurately determining organic and mineral-based paints in pottery from the American Southwest. Using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), we have developed a simple and cost-effective method that permits classification of painted surfaces into mineral and organic-based categories. By applying this method to Mesa Verde and Mancos Black-on-white pottery from the Mesa Verde Region, we were able to distinguish easily between mineral and organic-based paints. Preliminary data also suggest that multiple sub-groups of mineral-based paints exist within these ceramic types, indicating that multiple recipes for manufacturing paint may have been employed by prehistoric potters from this region.

Interpreting a Multiple Burial in an Early Ancestral Pueblo Village

2020 ◽  
pp. 44-65
Author(s):  
Ann L. W. Stodder
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Body Position ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ancestral Pueblo ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Archaeological Interpretation ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
History Of ◽  
House Floor ◽  
Mesa Verde Region

This chapter describes a multiple burial on a house floor in an early Ancestral Pueblo Village in Southwestern Colorado. A survey of contemporary burials in Pueblo I (AD 700–900) villages reveals that house burials from this period are not common, but neither are they unique or uniform. Tracking thirty years of interpretation of this burial points to the importance of fine-grained contextual taphonomy, and suggests that we expand the scope of what is considered to be normative burial and body position. The changing archaeological interpretation of this Mesa Verde Region burial highlights the place of mortuary treatment in the evolving narrative of the political and social history of large early villages.

An Archaeological History of the Mesa Verde Region

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard H. Wilshusen ◽  
Donna Glowacki
Keyword(s):  
Biological Data ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Ancestral Pueblo ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Last Two Millennia ◽  
Mesa Verde Region

The Mesa Verde region—extending from southeastern Utah to southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico—is the heartland of the earliest pueblos and an ancestral home for at least three of the four Pueblo language groups. Over the last two millennia, there were three periods in which Ancestral Pueblo population peaked and declined, with the last abandonment of the late thirteenth century the most well known. The combination of excellent material preservation, detailed tree-ring and ceramic chronologies, and the ability to integrate extensive archaeological, linguistic, sociocultural, and biological data provides a unique opportunity to research the Neolithic demographic transition, the ethnogenesis of historically known groups, the formation and abandonment of villages, and the role of historical contingency in making sense of the past.

Prehistoric Reservoirs and Water Basins in the Mesa Verde Region: Intensification of Water Collection Strategies during the Great Pueblo Period

1997 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 664-681 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard H. Wilshusen ◽  
Melissa J. Churchill ◽  
James M. Potter
Keyword(s):  
Water Conservation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Domestic Water ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
Temporal Placement ◽  
Collection Strategies ◽  
Mesa Verde Region

More than 20 examples of probable prehistoric water basins with minimum storage capacities of 10,000–25,000 gallons of water are known in the Mesa Verde region of the American Southwest. The temporal placement of these artificially constructed basins, their exact uses, and their importance as public architecture have been poorly understood. We summarize the general literature on these features, give a detailed account of the excavation results of a dam and basin that we tested and dated, and then synthesize all available data from the gray literature on prehistoric water basins in our area. We argue that water basins and reservoirs in the northern Southwest typically stored domestic water for particular communities and that the first evidence of these public features is probably associated with Chaco-era communities. These features represent early experiments with large-scale water conservation and suggest a long-term commitment to locales by specific communities. Their locations along the canyon edges foreshadow shifts in settlement and increased water conservation strategies that become more pronounced in the later Great Pueblo-period villages-the last villages in this area before the migration of Puebloan people to the south after A.D. 1280.

Colour and Directional Symbolism in Ancestral Pueblo Radial Offerings from Chaco Canyon

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Hannah V. Mattson
Keyword(s):  
American Southwest ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Chaco Canyon ◽  
Assemblage Theory ◽  
Ancestral Pueblo ◽  
Landscape Features ◽  
Material Sources ◽  
Regional System ◽  
Roof Support

Dedicatory offerings of small colourful objects are often found in pre-Hispanic architectural contexts in the Ancestral Pueblo region of the American Southwest. These deposits are particularly numerous in the roof support pillars of circular ritual structures (kivas) at the site of Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, which served as the ceremonial hub of the Chacoan regional system between the tenth and twelfth centuries ce. Based on the importance of directionality and colour in traditional Pueblo worldviews, archaeologists speculate that the contents of these radial offerings may likewise reference significant Chacoan cosmographic elements. In this paper, I explore this idea by examining the distribution of colours and materials in kiva pilaster repositories in relation to directional quadrants, prominent landscape features, and raw material sources. I discuss the results in the context of Pueblo cosmology and assemblage theory, arguing that particular colours were polyvalent and relational, deriving their meanings from their positions within interacting and heterogenous assemblages.

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PROTO-TEWA SUBSISTENCE AGRICULTURE: MAKING THE CASE FOR FLOODPLAIN FARMING IN THE OHKAY OWINGEH HOMELAND, NEW MEXICO

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Sunday Eiselt ◽  
J. Andrew Darling ◽  
Samuel Duwe ◽  
Mark Willis ◽  
Chester Walker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Survey Methods ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Subsistence Agriculture ◽  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
Ancestral Pueblo ◽  
Rio Chama ◽  
Land Farming ◽  
Scholarly Discourse

Previous research on agriculture in the American Southwest focuses overwhelmingly on archaeological survey methods to discern surface agricultural features, which, in combination with climatological, geological, and geographical variables, are used to create models about agricultural productivity in the past. However, with few exceptions, the role of floodplain irrigation and floodwater farming in ancestral Pueblo agriculture is generally downplayed in scholarly discourse. Using a variety of methods, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), satellite imagery, pedestrian survey, and supervised classification of remotely sensed imagery, we examine this issue through a consideration of how ancestral Ohkay Owingeh (Tewa) people solved the challenges of arid land farming in the lower Rio Chama watershed of New Mexico during the Classic period (A.D. 1350–1598). Based on acreage estimates, our results indicate that runoff and rainwater fields in terrace environments would have been insufficient to supply the nutritional needs of an ancestral Tewa population exceeding 10,000 individuals. Based on these observations, we present a case for the substantial role of subsistence agriculture in the floodplain of the Rio Chama and its associated tributaries.

Notice of an Urn and other Sepulchral remains, &c., discovered in the Windy-Goul, on Arthur's Seat, in cutting the New Road from Edinburgh to the Village of Duddingstone

1859 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 420-422
Author(s):  
George Logan
Keyword(s):  
Human Remains ◽  
Underground Cavities ◽  
The Village

While digging a new road from Edinburgh to Duddingston through an area named Windy Gowl, several underground cavities were unearthed. One contained an urn and a further seven were found containing human remains. A small hatchet and some copper coins were also discovered nearby. The author notes that no weaponry was found near these graves and speculates that they may have been related to an area of execution nearby known as 'Hangman's Knowe'.

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