Mobility, Lineage, and Land Tenure: Interpreting House Groups at Early Agricultural Settlements in the Tucson Basin, Southern Arizona (original) (raw)
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A BIOARCHAEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN AN EARLY AGRICULTURAL PERIOD COMMUNITY
The Early Agricultural period (EAP) encompasses the protracted transformation from foraging to settled agricultural village life in the Sonoran Desert from approximately 2,100 B.C. to A.D. 50. Las Capas [AZ AA:12:111(ASM)] is one of the earliest, best preserved, and most intensively investigated EAP sites in the region; documenting the transition in social organization from community to household resulting from the adoption of, and increased investment in, agriculture. Underlying a regional uniformity in material culture and subsistence practices is evidence for significant social transformation that includes a shift from large houses and external storage to smaller houses and internal storage, the formation of house and burial groups, and the appearance of community structures and cremation burial. Here, we utilize the well-preserved (and dated) stratigraphy at Las Capas to consider patterns in biocultural signatures (mortuary and osteological) over the duration of the occupation at the site and how they fit into broader patterns of social development during the EAP.
Journal of Arizona Archaeology, 2021
Before the rapid commercial development of the Gila River floodplain in the Pueblo Viejo District of the San Carlos Safford Area, mid to late nineteenth century accounts describe the presence of at least ten large prehispanic villages referred to as “towns.” Leading two significant early archaeological expeditions, Fewkes and Hough tested several multi-story structures, which we term Big Unit Structures, at the Epley’s and Buena Vista ruins. Fewkes reported subtle differences between these multi-story buildings within the San Carlos Safford Area and platform mound compounds in the Phoenix Basin. We review excavation notes, maps, photos, and reports from excavations during the 1930s and 1970s to define the design of these structures. We develop a chronology for their construction, occupation, and abandonment and suggest construction started in the early to mid-thirteenth century. We assess their functionality and distribution to better understand the attributes of this geographically restricted phenomenon, as well as contextualize its occurrence within broader trends during the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. These data lead us to conclude the emergence of a multi-settlement system within the San Carlos Safford Area and suggest the emergence of elite individuals who conducted activities within and occasionally inhabited these Big Unit Structures.
Journal of Arizona Archaeology, 2019
A synthesis of previous archaeological investigations combined with archival research and GIS- (geographic information systems) based analysis of Ancestral Pueblo archaeological sites in the Hay Hollow Valley of east central Arizona reveal changes in settlement and land use over time. Apparent increases in population, presumably linked with the transition from hunting and foraging to farming maize, a phenomenon demonstrated across much of the Prehispanic Southwest, may have led to increasing competition for finite natural resources including perennial water and arable land. Previous research projects in the Hay Hollow Valley, primarily the Field Museum’s Southwest Archaeological Expedition, have produced a wealth of archaeological site data. In particular, the data reveal strong patterns of settlement and land use over time, shifts in settlement likely associated with changes in subsistence strategies, the development of technological innovations designed to control the flow of water, and evidence of complex systems of community integration that challenges previously held notions of small, autonomous farmers living in an area peripheral to other, more densely populated areas of the American Southwest. Rather than competition, the results of the analysis suggest that interdependence and adaptability may have been driving changes in Ancestral Pueblo social organization between about AD 100 and 1325 in the Hay Hollow Valley.
Journal of Field Archaeology, 2006
Settlement pattern data in the lower Salt River valley of central Arizona) near Phoenix) have led to different models of Hohokam political community or;ganization during the early Classic period (ca. A.D. 1150-1300). The "focal village" model posits political communities centered on a single large village with monumental architecture surrounded by smaller settlements. The "linear community" model envisions an elongated arrangement integrating populations distributed along the routes of irrigation canals. Each model has implications for the nature of cooperation within and between settlement clusters and the degree to which large-scale irrigation management influenced the development of Hohokam community organization. In this analysis, ceramic sourcing studies are used to outline networks of interaction to examine the different models. Our results provide some evidence for a crosscutting patchwork of geographically dispersed social groups which fits most comfortably within the linear community model.
The Tanque Verde Wash Site Revisited: Archaeological Investigations in the Northwest Locus, 2011
Elson, M.D., and P. Cook, 2011. Living in the Eastern Tucson Basin: The Prehistoric Settlement of the Tanque Verde Wash Site, AZ BB:13:68 (ASM). In The Tanque Verde Wash Site Revisited: Archaeological Investigations in the Northwest Locus, edited by M.D. Elson and P. Cook, pp. 267-281. Technical Report 2007-01. Desert Archaeology, Inc., Tucson. [this is the concluding chapter of the report]. The Tanque Verde Wash site, AZ BB:13:68 (ASM), is a small agricultural village located in the eastern Tucson Basin, approximately 25 km east of the large riverine settlements along the Santa Cruz River. The northwest locus of the site was investigated during the current project for the City of Tucson prior to residential development, complementing previous investigations in the southeast locus. Including all archaeological work at the site to date, 57 pithouses have now been sampled or completely excavated, in addition to 43 mortuary features and hundreds of extramural pits of varying function. The occupation likely began during the Rillito phase (A.D. 850-950) and continued into the transitional Late Rincon/Tanque Verde phase (A.D. 1100-1200). The most intensive occupation was during the Middle Rincon phase (A.D. 1000-1100), particularly during the Middle Rincon 2 (A.D. 1040-1080) and Middle Rincon 3 (A.D. 1080-1100) subphases. Archaeological investigations focused on the courtyard group or household, the basic economic and social unit of Hohokam settlement. Household estimates are the minimum number, because one-third to one-half of the site area has not been systematically investigated, although limited testing has shown that additional Middle Rincon structures are present. Occupation of the site grew from a minimum of one or two households during the Rillito/Early Rincon phase, to five households during Middle Rincon 2 and 3. The site was largely depopulated by the Late Rincon phase, which contained two households, while only a single household was occupied during the final Late Rincon/Tanque Verde phase. As noted, these are minimum numbers and the actual extent of the occupation was almost certainly larger. The Tanque Verde Wash site data strongly suggest that settlement and subsistence systems seen in the more intensively studied Santa Cruz River area also occurred in the eastern Tucson Basin, where Middle Rincon settlement consisted of dispersed “rancheria” sites that aggregated into fewer, but larger, sites during the Classic period. The apparent depopulation of the site sometime in the Late Rincon phase is similar to patterns seen throughout the Tucson Basin at this time and suggests that the "Classic period aggregation" actually began during the end of the preClassic period. The inhabitants of the Tanque Verde Wash site made very few artifacts, consisting primarily of expedient flaked and ground stone tools. The lack of pottery-production tools suggests that even ceramics compatible with the “local” petrofacies (defined as being within 3 km of the Tanque Verde Wash site) were not made at the site itself. Tanque Verde Wash households were therefore not craft producers, but rather, craft consumers, importing most of their pottery, shell jewelry, and ground stone tools. Petrographic research indicates the source for most of the decorated and approximately 40% of the plain ware ceramics was the Beehive Petrofacies along the Santa Cruz River, where large pottery-producing sites have been documented. Goods exchanged by Tanque Verde Wash inhabitants for these artifacts likely included higher elevation resources, above 4,000 ft, easily accessible in the nearby Santa Catalina and Rincon mountains. These resources included agave, acorns, and pieces of micaceous schist. Micaceous schist, found only in these mountains, was a highly desirable ceramic temper, and has been recovered in significant quantities from pottery-producing sites along the Santa Cruz River, where it is intrusive. The Tanque Verde Wash site inhabitants may have also engaged in limited craft specialization, specifically in the manufacture of mica ornaments and possibly other forms of mica-based jewelry. The Tanque Verde Wash data strongly suggest each household functioned in a relatively independent manner. This is based on differences in food resources and ceramics among contemporaneous households, including those in close proximity to each other. This further suggests that each household may have had specific trade-partner ties with households at other sites, possibly based on kinship. Craft specialization in mica ornament production was also household specific, involving two or three of the five Middle Rincon households. Perhaps most importantly, ethnobotanical and artifact data also suggest the Middle Rincon households in the southeast locus were wealthier, or better off, than contemporaneous households in the northwest locus. The presence of significant material differences between household-level assemblages suggests that status-based ranking or social stratification was present by this time in Tucson Basin Hohokam society.
Kiva, 2023
Archaeologists commonly interpret the Early Formative period through the lens of ceramic technology and as a significant break from Late Archaic or Early Agricultural period lifeways; however, the local changes underlying this pattern often remain obscure. In this paper, we evaluate the existing literature for the Early Formative period the San Carlos Safford Area of southeastern Arizona and discern the accuracy of the current understanding of the local chronology, material culture, and regional patterning. Through a systematic examination of chronological, ceramic, and architectural data, we advocate for several interpretive shifts in the Early Formative period and characterize regional patterning during this temporal interval. We relate the emergence of larger villages as an adaptive strategy against a significant climatic event in the early to mid-sixth century yet also demonstrate the incongruities present between the San Carlos Safford Area and far better studied areas within central and southern Arizona.