Baja California (Archaeology) Research Papers (original) (raw)

The Baja California Prehistory Project – San Fernando Velicatá Phase – of the National Museum of Anthropology and Baja California INAH Center, began in the year 2012 in order to conduct a series of archaeological, bioarchaeological, and... more

The Baja California Prehistory Project – San Fernando Velicatá Phase – of the National Museum of Anthropology and Baja California INAH Center, began in the year 2012 in order to conduct a series of archaeological, bioarchaeological, and interdisciplinary investigations on the only mission founded by Franciscan friars in the entire peninsula of Baja California (Figure 1, next page). There are several objectives behind the project, but the most important one has to do with the salvage of a cemetery affected by erosion caused by the San Fernando Creek. In addition, updated maps of the visible structure of the mission have been completed, and three seasons of excavations have been conducted providing archaeological evidence regarding its founding, its transference to Dominican hands, its re-use as a ranch, and finally, to its abandonment due to the lack of permanent residents.

El territorio bajacaliforniano con su gran riqueza natural es también un espacio donde aún se conserva una importante cantidad de sitios arqueológicos, huella del paso de diferentes oleadas migratorias de cazadores-recolectores-pescadores... more

El territorio bajacaliforniano con su gran riqueza natural es también un espacio donde aún se conserva una importante cantidad de sitios arqueológicos, huella del paso de diferentes oleadas migratorias de cazadores-recolectores-pescadores que recorrieron el norte de la península de Baja California. La abundancia de sitios registrados es relativa al número de investigaciones que se han llevado a cabo en cada región, por lo tanto, no refleja necesariamente el número de sitios existentes ya que todavía hay grandes extensiones de territorio por explorar. El presente trabajo, además de analizar el estado de la cuestión de estos estudios, pretende identificar las áreas que requieren mayor atención y el tipo de factores de destrucción que las aquejan.

Publicado en Reunión anual de la Sociedad de Arqueología de California, SCA Proceedings, vol. 28: 73-83.

El conjunto rupestre del Arcaico Gran Mural, situado en las sierras centrales de la península de Baja California (México), integra manifestaciones rupestres figurativas, de gran tamaño (figuras de animales y humanas), asociadas a diversos... more

El conjunto rupestre del Arcaico Gran Mural, situado en las sierras centrales de la península de Baja California (México), integra manifestaciones rupestres figurativas, de gran tamaño (figuras de animales y humanas), asociadas a diversos elementos abstractos, entre los que destacan las formas reticuladas, divulgadas como “estructuras rectangulares, cuadrículas, dameros y parrillas” las cuales adoptan formas elipsoidales, ovaladas y rectangulares. La vinculación de estos signos abstractos, con las grandes representaciones, muestran figurativas, ocupa un porcentaje muy bajo entre estos conjuntos rupestres, sin embargo, estas asociaciones desempeñan nos parece de un papel muy significativo y gran interés para el estudio de las expresiones simbólicas de América.

The information presented merges history and archaeology as a result of the identification of two bronze crucifixes found in this Franciscan mission. It is the result of three field seasons of the archaeological project “Baja California... more

The information presented merges history and archaeology as a result of the identification of two bronze crucifixes found in this Franciscan mission. It is the result of three field seasons of the archaeological project “Baja California Prehistory — San Fernando Velicatá Phase” funded by the National Museum of Anthropology and Baja California INAH Center (Rojas, García, Porcayo y Alfaro, 2013; Rojas, García y Porcayo, 2014; 2015). It reveals a very particular devotion of the Franciscans, who were mainly Mallorcan, to the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, which despite its relatively ignored historical relevance has left a distinctive mark on this type of archaeological crucifixes.

Laguna Macuata is a southwestern branch of the Colorado River's delta. It lies between the Peninsular Ranges' Sierra Juárez to the west and the lower-elevation Sierra Cucapá and Sierra Mayor to the east. Like the much larger Salton Basin... more

Laguna Macuata is a southwestern branch of the Colorado River's delta. It lies between the Peninsular Ranges' Sierra Juárez to the west and the lower-elevation Sierra Cucapá and Sierra Mayor to the east. Like the much larger Salton Basin immediately to its north, Laguna Macuata's floor extends below sea level, and it has been flooded at intervals with waters from the Colorado River and possibly also from the Gulf of California. The importance of Laguna Macuata in the prehistory of the Colorado Desert still remains largely unexplored. The modern characteristics of the basin, its early historic record, its ethnographic record, and the archaeological evidence available so far are reviewed here, and some research opportunities are suggested. Laguna Macu-ata's likely role in Colorado Desert prehistory is compared and contrasted with that of its neighbor to the north, Lake Cahuilla. Both lakes offer important research opportunities for case studies of aboriginal adaptations to productive but exceptionally unstable natural environments.

Members of what has been termed the Berkeley School of Geographers made important contributions to our understanding of Baja California’s prehistoric past through investigations that began in the 1920s and continued through the middle of... more

Members of what has been termed the Berkeley School of Geographers made important contributions to our understanding of Baja California’s prehistoric past through investigations that began in the 1920s and continued through the middle of twentieth century. Under the direction and stimulus of Carl O. Sauer, one of the twentieth century’s leading U.S. academic geographers, four University of California graduate students, Fred Kniffen, Peveril Meigs, Brigham Arnold, and Homer Aschmann, carried out field studies and research on the peninsula that addressed ethnographic and archaeological themes from a geographical perspective.

The Baja California Peninsula contains many different identifiable rock art traditions. Perhaps the most well known is the Great Mural area in the central portion of the península. This paper reports on significant Great Mural sites found... more

The Baja California Peninsula contains many different identifiable rock art traditions. Perhaps the most well known is the Great Mural area in the central portion of the península. This paper reports on significant Great Mural sites found 100 km north of the previous most northerly known site. The sites are situated on Rancho Codornices in an area also containing many abstract sites.

En este estudio se plantea una serie de interpretaciones en torno a uno de los conjuntos rupestres más enigmáticos y sugestivos del Gran Mural, situado en Baja California Sur, México. El sitio es conocido como Cueva de la Serpiente y se... more

En este estudio se plantea una serie de interpretaciones en torno a uno de los conjuntos rupestres más enigmáticos y sugestivos del Gran Mural, situado en Baja California Sur, México. El sitio es conocido como Cueva de la Serpiente y se ubica en el arroyo del Parral en la Sierra de San Francisco. Tanto la temática como la paleta de color y la orientación empleadas en el conjunto son indicadores esenciales en la búsqueda de sentido; sin embargo, nuestro énfasis se centra en el análisis de los elementos principales: dos ofidios con cabeza de venado. La propuesta parte de la analogía etnográfica y del análisis contextual de estas figuras, y establece, de una manera hipotética, sus posibles significados. A lo largo del trabajo se muestra que estos elementos se encuentran vinculados a mitos creacionistas de muerte y renovación de la vida, los hombres y las estaciones. Estos animales constituyen un símbolo casi panamericano que prevalece en la cosmovisión de distintos pueblos de América, y es a través de algunas narraciones míticas que proponemos acercarnos a su significado.
Arqueología (2009), No. 40
https://revistas.inah.gob.mx/index.php/arqueologia/article/view/3559

Archaeologists in southern California have attempted to identify and interpret the physical remains of the prehistoric travel routes that extended within and beyond the Colorado Desert. A review of some of the approaches that have been... more

Archaeologists in southern California have attempted to identify and interpret the physical remains of the prehistoric travel routes that extended within and beyond the Colorado Desert. A review of some of the approaches that have been used, the problems that have been encountered, and the results that have been obtained may be of interest to those who are dealing with similar landscape features on the Baja California peninsula, including those associated with the prospective UNESCO Cultural Route of El Camino Real de las Californias.

A key issue for interpreting the prehistory of Baja California concerns the degree to which the region was isolated from the remainder of North America or received only delayed influences from it. In the past, evidence bearing on this... more

A key issue for interpreting the prehistory of Baja California concerns the degree to which the region was isolated from the remainder of North America or received only delayed influences from it. In the past, evidence bearing on this question has been adduced from studies of physical anthropology, aboriginal technology, linguistic relationships, and various social and religious practices. Despite the fact that myths and other traditional narratives are only sporadically and imperfectly documented for most of the peninsula, they provide an additional index of outside links, particularly with respect to relatively shallow time depths. The evidence of the narratives suggests that northern Baja California as far south as San Vicente was closely integrated into a cultural region encompassing most of southern Alta California and western Arizona. The myths of central and southern Baja California were more distinctive, but they also showed evidence of the operation of relatively active processes of cultural diffusion and interaction with the north.

Scientific, professional, and sustained archaeological investigations of the prehistory of the Baja California peninsula began in earnest with the work of Malcolm J. Rogers in the 1920s and 1930s, and they reached an early florescence in... more

Scientific, professional, and sustained archaeological investigations of the prehistory of the Baja California peninsula began in earnest with the work of Malcolm J. Rogers in the 1920s and 1930s, and they reached an early florescence in the work of William C. Massey in the 1940s and 1950s. For nearly two centuries prior to Rogers’ time, however, inquiries by outsiders coming from a variety of nations and professions attempted to piece together information and to test speculations about the region’s distant past. Some previous publications have very briefly summarized those beginnings (García-Uranga 1987; Laylander 1992; Reygadas Dahl 2003). The aim here is to look a little more deeply into the methods, findings, and ideas from the early period, as providing a background to and perspective on the advances that have been made during the succeeding century.

La geografía histórica permite identificar las transformaciones del paisaje de la isla de Cedros mediante el análisis multitemporal de sus diferentes asentamientos y ocupaciones humanas. Un palimpsesto (en griego: “grabado de nuevo”) es... more

La geografía histórica permite identificar las transformaciones del paisaje de la isla de Cedros mediante el análisis multitemporal de sus diferentes asentamientos y ocupaciones humanas.
Un palimpsesto (en griego: “grabado de nuevo”) es una superficie (por ejemplo: una roca tallada, una tabla de arcilla, una piel de animal, una corteza vegetal o un papiro) sobre la cual algunas culturas sobrescribían con diferentes finalidades: sustituir lo obsoleto, usar la misma superficie a falta de otras donde acumular información u ocultar de manera intencional el mensaje anterior.
En el paisaje se reescriben diferentes sucesos, algunos hechos se modifican y otros continúan vigentes a largo plazo sobre la misma superficie, en ocasiones de manera metafórica se borra, se tacha y se pueden enmendar.
Se recurre al palimpsesto como analogía para el estudio de capas de la isla de Cedros considerando como cortes de tiempo las ocupaciones distintivas que han influido en los cambios del paisaje insular, evidentes de alguna manera en su toponimia y la estratigrafía histórica correspondiente: El Piedrón - Isla de Cedros (2020-1922), Isla de Cerros (1921-1768) e Isla de la Santísima Trinidad - Huamalguá (1767-1540).
La finalidad del análisis es la distinción de las características de la isla de Cedros en cada tiempo y en su conjunto, para comprender cómo la situación de insularidad ha marcado una trayectoria histórica particular y de qué manera el factor humano ha llevado a cabo su transformación gradual en este espacio de "raíces indígenas arrancadas" que los isleños contemporáneos pueden reivindicar.

Beginning in the 1970s and continuing into the twenty-first century, Eric W. Ritter has played a key role in the emergence of more intensive, systematic, sustained, collaborative, and scientific archaeological studies on the Baja... more

Beginning in the 1970s and continuing into the twenty-first century, Eric W. Ritter has played a key role in the emergence of more intensive, systematic, sustained, collaborative, and scientific archaeological studies on the Baja California peninsula. He organized and conducted multiseason fieldwork expeditions to several regions within the central part of the peninsula, including the Bahía Concepción area on the south-central Gulf of California coast, Laguna Seca Chapala and Laguna La Guija in the northern interior of the peninsula's central desert, Bahía de los Ángeles and Bahía las Ánimas on the north-central Gulf coast, and the Vizcaíno lagoons on the west coast. More limited studies took place at several other locations as well. Major foci of Ritter's investigations and innovations have included conducting statistical sample surveys; providing typological classifications of artifacts, features, site types, and cultural patterns; refining the peninsula's prehistoric chronology; analyzing archaeological settlement and subsistence systems; and describing and interpreting the peninsu-la's diverse rock art.

The marine invertebrate remains in innumerable shell middens along the coasts of the Baja California peninsula are one of the most conspicuous elements of the region's archaeological record. This overview, originally part of a symposium... more

The marine invertebrate remains in innumerable shell middens along the coasts of the Baja California peninsula are one of the most conspicuous elements of the region's archaeological record. This overview, originally part of a symposium on "Balances y Perspectivas from the Baja California Peninsula: Where We've Been, Where We're Going," takes a look at the current status of studies of these remains and the ways those studies are contributing to the rediscovery of the peninsula's prehistory. Actual and potential contributions are seen in elucidating such topics as chronology, technology, natural and human-induced environmental change, settlement and mobility systems, exchange, and perhaps ethnic identities and shifts.

Bernard Fontana, Homer Aschmann, and W. Michael Mathes were staunch advocates of interdisciplinary research. All recognized the importance of historic sites archaeology for the study of Baja California's recent past. Throughout their... more

Bernard Fontana, Homer Aschmann, and W. Michael Mathes were staunch advocates of interdisciplinary research. All recognized the importance of historic sites archaeology for the study of Baja California's recent past. Throughout their careers they encouraged colleagues to combine the fields of cultural geography, archival history, and archaeology for greater clarity and insight into the study of artifacts, sites, and cultures, and this is now standard practice in Baja California Sur. Most research, however, has been involved with prehistory, and historical archaeology has lagged behind. This paper describes historical site types and documentary evidence still awaiting intensive study. Historical archaeologists in Baja California Sur must now race to study our irreplaceable sites before they are lost to accelerating development and the inexorable forces of nature.

The prehistory of Baja California, Mexico, encompasses several millennia of the existence of small-scale hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies which were adapted to arid coastal and near-coastal environments before the arrival of... more

La prehistoria de Baja California, México, abarca varios milenios de existencia de sociedades cazadoras-recolectoras y agricultoras antes de la llegada de los europeos en el siglo XVI, adaptadas a ambientes tanto cercanos a la costa como... more

La prehistoria de Baja California, México, abarca varios milenios de existencia de sociedades cazadoras-recolectoras y agricultoras antes de la llegada de los europeos en el siglo XVI, adaptadas a ambientes tanto cercanos a la costa como el interior de la península. Los modos de vida de los nativos fueron descritos con cierto detalle en los informes de los primeros exploradores y misioneros. Durante los últimos 100 años, las investigaciones antropológicas han añadido detalles sustanciales al panorama de la prehistoria bajacaliforniana: contribuciones importantes han venido del registro y análisis lingüístico de las lenguas nativas sobrevivientes en el norte, del trabajo de campo etnográfico entre los grupos de la misma área, de los estudios de antropología física de restos óseos humanos y del reconocimiento y excavaciones arqueológicos en toda la península. De la misma manera, han sido editados y analizados documentos dejados por los primeros exploradores y misioneros. La presente tesis examina esos esfuerzos, analizando también la información y conclusiones sobre la prehistoria de Baja California a las cuales se ha llegado a partir de dichas investigaciones. Se evalúa del estado actual de una variedad de cuestiones interpretativas, sugiriéndose la revisión de algunos modelos o generalizaciones sobre prehistoria peninsular que son muy extendidos. Finalmente, se proponen varias direcciones prometedoras y prioridades para las futuras investigaciones sobre la prehistoria de Baja California.

The numerous islands located off both coasts of the Baja California peninsula offer unique and strikingly varied vantage points for viewing the region's prehistory. Among the themes that can be addressed by the islands' archaeology are... more

The numerous islands located off both coasts of the Baja California peninsula offer unique and strikingly varied vantage points for viewing the region's prehistory. Among the themes that can be addressed by the islands' archaeology are the Pleistocene origins of human settlement on the continent, subsequent interregional connections, the place of the islands within larger settlement systems, responses to the technological challenge of getting to the islands, the exploitation of specialized insular and maritime resources, sustainability in resource use, and the ideological significance attributed to islands.

William Clifford Massey (1917–1974) was a pivotal figure in the development of anthropology on the Baja California peninsula. His investigations were preceded by the observations and speculations of eighteenth-century Jesuit missionaries... more

William Clifford Massey (1917–1974) was a pivotal figure in the development of anthropology on the Baja California peninsula. His investigations were preceded by the observations and speculations of eighteenth-century Jesuit missionaries and nineteenth-century naturalists, as well as by the pioneering archaeological survey work of Malcolm J. Rogers in the early twentieth century. However, the range and depth of Massey's studies in the mid-twentieth century were unprecedented. His descriptions and interpretations, although they have not gone unchallenged, established the framework for most of the investigations that have followed during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. His contributions are reviewed here within their historical contexts, both in light of the work done by Massey's predecessors and by looking at some of the ways in which his conclusions have been adopted or modified by subsequent research.

Faint traces of the first San Pedro Martir mission site are described.

Archaeological reconnaissance and excavation in the sierra de la Laguna, Baja California Sur. In 1977 a team from Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas de Baja California Sur, A.C., start archeological explorations and research with the... more

Archaeological reconnaissance and excavation in the sierra de la Laguna, Baja California Sur. In 1977 a team from Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas de Baja California Sur, A.C., start archeological explorations and research with the object of correlate between prehistoric human settlement and the natural environment. Accompanied by Guillermo Velázquez Ramirez, Fermín Reygadas Dahl surveyed the La Zorra, San Dionisio and San Pablo canyons within the rugged Sierra de la Laguna, identifying and recording scores of archaeological sites, water sources, edible foodstuffs, and commodities. The unanticipated discovery of abandoned ranches, corrals, and three stone alignments expands the region's archaeological database, suggesting a continuity of cultural traditions from Prehispanic to historic tomes. the discussion presented herein marshals archaeological, ethnographic, and historical data assess the age and function of the three constructed stone alignments.

For more than a century, it has been recognized that an immense freshwater lake filled much of the Coachella and Imperial valleys very late in the region's prehistory. Archaeologists have attempted to define and interpret this phenomenon.... more

For more than a century, it has been recognized that an immense freshwater lake filled much of the Coachella and Imperial valleys very late in the region's prehistory. Archaeologists have attempted to define and interpret this phenomenon. When was the lake present, and when did it disappear? How had Native Americans adapted to the opportunities and challenges created by the presence of the lake? How had they responded to its disappearance? The following study looks at those questions, partly from the perspective of investigations at a single archaeological site-the Elmore Site-and partly from the gradually accumulated body of regional scholarship.

The X-ray fluorescence analysis of obsidian artifacts from four study areas in Baja California, Mexico, suggests regional and local patterning in the geological sources used by indigenous hunter-gatherers during the late prehistoric and... more

The X-ray fluorescence analysis of obsidian artifacts from four study areas in Baja California, Mexico, suggests regional and local patterning in the geological sources used by indigenous hunter-gatherers during the late prehistoric and colonial periods. Obsidian artifacts were typically made from materials from the closest geological source, creating a distinct north-south pattern of obsidian distribution. In the northern region of Baja California, this pattern appears to correspond to ethnographically-documented language boundaries. However, within each study area, particular sites exhibit higher degrees of obsidian source diversity than others—a pattern that may suggest chronological or social variation in access to particular obsidian sources. Unexpectedly, projectile points do not exhibit noticeably higher levels of source diversity when compared to an aggregate of all other obsidian artifacts. Together, these patterns offer a baseline of knowledge about regional obsidian distributions and point toward potential avenues for future research on obsidian availability and conveyance in Baja California.

Many of the discussions addressing the issue of the capabilities and significance of early watercraft forms or a regionally specific evolutionary sequence for craft such as the Southern California plank canoe have limited their range of... more

Many of the discussions addressing the issue of the capabilities and significance of early watercraft forms or a regionally specific evolutionary sequence for craft such as the Southern California plank canoe have limited their range of analogies to those forms present among the ethnohistorically documented groups of Southern California. However, this article attempts to demonstrate the existence of at least one additional form of watercraft present on the Pacific coast of Baja California, as well as call attention to the greatly underrepresented capabilities of some long-recognized forms of watercraft. Inference, historic documents, contemporary environmental conditions, and archaeological data are used in an attempt to reconstruct a meaningful picture oflsla Cedros watercraft and their place within the repertoire of indigenous maritime culture and society. It is suggested that modern political boundaries have resulted in the exclusion ofBaja California from discussions of North American archaeology. This discussion attempts to be a contribution to concepts of indigenous watercraft along the Pacific coast of North America and a vehicle to expand the research horizons of North American archaeology to include the underinvestigated regions of Baja California and northwestern Mexico.

Paul Kirchhoff’s 1942 essay, which is presented here for the first time in English, was a key landmark in the use of the peninsula’s rich ethnohistoric and ethnographic records to try to reconstruct the region’s complex cultural... more

Paul Kirchhoff’s 1942 essay, which is presented here for the first time in English, was a key landmark in the use of the peninsula’s rich ethnohistoric and ethnographic records to try to reconstruct the region’s complex cultural prehistory. Kirchhoff interpreted that past primarily in terms of inferred waves of migration and cultural diffusion from beyond and within the peninsula. However, he also considered environmental influences, local innovations, cultural conservatism, the effects of isolation, and cultural decay. His interpretation foreshadowed and perhaps surpassed in nuance and sophistication William Massey’s subsequent development of the “Layer Cake” model for Baja California prehistory.

Malcolm J. Rogers is best known for his pioneering archaeological work in the deserts and on the coast of the western United States. However, he also made important contributions to the early development of archaeology in the Baja... more

Malcolm J. Rogers is best known for his pioneering archaeological work in the deserts and on the coast of the western United States. However, he also made important contributions to the early development of archaeology in the Baja California peninsula. Two aspects of those contributions are considered here: the nature and scope of Rogers' investigations and the later and ongoing uses of his observations, collections, and ideas about Baja California's prehistory.

Study focusing on the yumans ceramics of the Lower Colorado River Delta and adjacent areas during Late Prehistory.

Father Miguel Venegas’ 1739 Obras californianas is the most extensive and detailed document covering the first forty years of the Jesuit period in Baja California. In addition to providing discussions of historical events, Venegas wrote... more

Father Miguel Venegas’ 1739 Obras californianas is the most extensive and detailed document covering the first forty years of the Jesuit period in Baja California. In addition to providing discussions of historical events, Venegas wrote extensively on the natural world and on indigenous cosmology, social networks, and lifeways. The section translated and annotated here includes the bulk of Venegas’ writing on Isla Cedros and its native people. The island, located on the Pacific Coast of central Baja California, was home to a large, maritime-adapted indigenous society. The period of time (1728-1732) covered in this section of the much larger Venegas manuscript details the tragic end of Cedros Island’s indigenous society, but preserves an account of their culture that is of inestimable value. The annotations included provide not only clarifications of meaning, but critical evaluations of the text and of the significance of particular passages within the larger context of Baja California indigenous and colonial history.

Highly developed prehistoric maritime adaptations are documented for the ethnographic Chumash and Gabrielino areas along the Santa Barbara Channel coastline and on southern California's Channel Islands, as well as for the Cochimí area on... more

Highly developed prehistoric maritime adaptations are documented for the ethnographic Chumash and Gabrielino areas along the Santa Barbara Channel coastline and on southern California's Channel Islands, as well as for the Cochimí area on Baja California's Isla Cedros. In the intervening Western Yuman region, between Batiquitos Lagoon in Carlsbad, California and Bahía de San Quintín in northwestern Baja California, the maritime focus was less strongly developed. However, ethnohistoric and archaeological evidence indicates that exploitation of maritime resources did play a role in this region's prehistoric lifeways as well. Future archaeological investigations will help to test and deepen our understanding of that role.

The early surveys and excavations, publications, manuscripts, and collections of Malcolm J. Rogers were a critical starting point for scientific archaeology in southern California, as well as the southern Great Basin, western Arizona, and... more

The early surveys and excavations, publications, manuscripts, and collections of Malcolm J. Rogers were a critical starting point for scientific archaeology in southern California, as well as the southern Great Basin, western Arizona, and Baja California. Some of his interpretations were controversial at the time when they were proposed and have since been superseded. However, they did much to open the discussion of regional prehistory, and they still frequently define the terms in which it is analyzed. The articles in this issue explore various aspects of Rogers’ contributions and his influence.

Valid links between prehistoric material residues and the languages that were spoken by their creators are notoriously difficult to establish. Nonetheless, linguistic evidence does set limits on the scenarios that are tenable concerning... more

Valid links between prehistoric material residues and the languages that were spoken by their creators are notoriously difficult to establish. Nonetheless, linguistic evidence does set limits on the scenarios that are tenable concerning prehistoric ethnic stability, displacements, and interactions. In the Colorado Desert, several of the synchronically observed linguistic patterns can plausibly be connected to events that fell within a broadly defined Archaic-Late transition period (ca. 1000 B.C.-A.D. 1000). There are at least a few hints concerning the geographical directions in which linguistic expansions occurred, but these do not necessarily match the directions of diffusion for other cultural traits during that period.

For more than a century, it has been recognized that an immense freshwater lake filled much of the Coachella and Imperial valleys very late in the region's prehistory. Archaeologists have attempted to define and interpret this phenomenon.... more

For more than a century, it has been recognized that an immense freshwater lake filled much of the Coachella and Imperial valleys very late in the region's prehistory. Archaeologists have attempted to define and interpret this phenomenon. When was the lake present, and when did it disappear? How had Native Americans adapted to the opportunities and challenges created by the presence of the lake? How had they responded to its disappearance? The following study looks at those questions, partly from the perspective of investigations at a single archaeological site-the Elmore Site-and partly from the gradually accumulated body of regional scholarship.

According to most analysts, the Pai branch of the Yuman linguistic family consists of two languages: Paipai, which is spoken in northern Baja California, and Upland Yuman, spoken by the Yavapai, Walapai, and Havasupai of northwestern... more

According to most analysts, the Pai branch of the Yuman linguistic family consists of two languages: Paipai, which is spoken in northern Baja California, and Upland Yuman, spoken by the Yavapai, Walapai, and Havasupai of northwestern Arizona. Historically, the territories of the two groups were separated by a gap of about 200 km, occupied by Yumans who belonged to other branches of the family. When, how, and why did the Pai separation arise? Did the ancestors of the Paipai migrate south into Baja California from Arizona? Did Upland Yumans move in the opposite direction, from Baja California to Arizona, or did both groups arrive at their historic homes from an intermediate location in the Colorado River delta or in the Salton Basin? Culture history cannot yet offer definitive answers. However, several lines of investigation, including archaeology, linguistics, history, oral traditions, comparative ethnography, physical anthropology, and paleoenvironmental studies may provide evidence bearing on the relative probabilities of the competing hypotheses.

"In this paper we offer several interpretations of a Great Mural rock art panel in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Known as Cueva de la Serpiente, the painted rock shelter is found in Arroyo del Parral, within the San Francisco Sierra. The... more

"In this paper we offer several interpretations of a Great Mural rock art panel in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Known as Cueva de la Serpiente, the painted rock shelter is found in Arroyo del Parral, within the San Francisco Sierra. The panel composition, thematic, color pallet, and site orientation are all important indicators when attempting interpretation; however, our emphasis lies on the site’s content analysis. Based on ethnographical analogy and the contextual examination of the pictographs, we hypothesize some possible meanings. Throughout our study, we indicate that the motifs shown on the site’s rock art are associated with concepts that refer to creation myths; death and the cyclical renewal of life and the seasons. The central figure of the horned serpent is present nearly all over the American continent and prevails in the worldview of several native cultures, whose myths allow us to approach the meaning of the panel."