Southwestern archaeology

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Southwestern archaeology is a branch of archaeology concerned with the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico. This region was first occupied by hunter-gatherers, and thousands of years later by advanced civilizations, such as the Ancestral Puebloans, the Hohokam, and the Mogollon.

This area, identified with the current states of

American Southwest, North Mexico, and Oasisamerica, while its southern neighboring cultural region is known as Aridoamerica or Chichimeca.[1]

Many contemporary cultural traditions exist within the Greater Southwest, including

Athabaskan-speaking peoples in eastern Alaska
and western Canada, entered the Southwest prior to European contact.

Paleo-Indian tradition

Main article: Paleo-Indians

According to most

game animals, fish, and a wide variety of plants.[3] These people were likely characterized by highly mobile bands of 20 or 50 members of an extended family that moved from place to place as resources were depleted and additional supplies needed.[4] Paleoindian groups were efficient hunters and created and carried a variety of tools, some highly specialized, for hunting, butchering and hide processing. The earliest habitation of Paleo-Indians in the American Southwest dates to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, and evidence from this tradition ranges from 10,500 BCE to 7500 BCE. These paleolithic people used habitat near water sources, including rivers, swamps and marshes, which had abundant fish, and drew birds and game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, were also attracted to these water sources. At the latest by 9500 BCE, bands of hunters wandered as far south as Arizona, where they found a desert grassland and hunted mule deer, antelope
and other small mammals.

As populations of larger game began to diminish, possibly as a result of intense hunting and rapid environmental changes, Late Paleoindian groups would come to rely more on other facets of their subsistence pattern, including increased hunting of

ducks
, small animals and antelope. Hunting was especially important in winter and spring when plant food was scarce.

Archaic tradition

Main article: Archaic Southwest

The Archaic time frame is defined culturally as a transition from a hunting/gathering lifestyle to one involving agriculture and permanent, if only seasonally occupied, settlements. In the Southwest, the Archaic is generally dated from 8000 years ago to approximately 1800 to 2000 years ago.

pine nuts
and annually establishing camps at collection points.

Late in the Archaic Period,

squash
.

About 3,500 years ago, climate change led to changing patterns in water sources, leading to dramatically decreased populations. However, family-based groups took shelter in south facing caves and rock overhangs within canyon walls. Occasionally, these people lived in small semi-sedentary hamlets in open areas. Evidence of significant occupation has been found in the northern part of the Southwest range, from Utah to Colorado, especially in the vicinity of modern Durango, Colorado.

Archaic cultural traditions include:

Post-Archaic cultures and civilizations

Main article: Oasisamerica
A map showing the extent of three major cultures within the American Southwest and Northern Mexico

The

American Southwest and Northern Mexico. These cultures, sometimes referred to as Oasisamerica
, are characterized by dependence on agriculture, formal social stratification, population clusters and major architecture.

In addition, three distinct minor cultures inhabited the eastern, western, and northern extremes of the area. From 1200 CE into the historic era a people collectively known as the

Fremont culture inhabited sites in what is now Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from c.1 CE to c.1300 CE.[9]

Cultural distinctions

Examples of Pueblo pottery, American Folk Art Series

Ancestral Pueblo peoples, Patayan, or Hohokam
to denote cultural traditions within the prehistoric American Southwest. It is important to understand that culture names and divisions are assigned by individuals separated from the actual cultures by both time and space. This means that cultural divisions are by nature arbitrary, and are based solely on data available at the time of each analysis and publication. They are subject to change, not only on the basis of newly discovered information, but also as attitudes and perspectives change within the scientific community. It cannot be assumed that an archaeological division corresponds to a particular language group or to any social or political entity, such as a tribe.

When making use of modern

archaeological
definitions of cultural divisions, in the Southwest or other areas, it is important to understand three specific limitations in the current conventions.

  • Artifact based: Archaeological research focuses on enduring evidence, items left behind during people's activities. Scientists are able to examine fragments of pottery vessels, human remains, stone tools or evidence left from the construction of buildings and shelters. However, other aspects of the culture of prehistoric peoples, such as language, beliefs and behavior patterns, are not tangible.
  • Cultural divisions: cultural identifiers are tools of the modern scientist, and so should not be considered similar to divisions or any social relationships the ancient residents may have recognized. Modern cultures in this region, many of whom claim some of these ancient people as ancestors, display a striking range of diversity in lifestyles, language and religious beliefs. This suggests the ancient people were also more diverse than their material remains may suggest.
  • Cultural variants: The modern term “style” has a bearing on how material items such as pottery or architecture should be interpreted. Subsets of a larger group can adopt different means to accomplish the same end. For example, in modern Western cultures, there are alternative styles of clothing that characterized older and younger generations, and subgroups within a given generation. Some cultural differences may be based on linear traditions, on teaching from one generation or “school” to another. Other variants in style may distinguish arbitrary groups within a culture, perhaps defining social status, gender, clan or guild affiliation, religious belief or cultural alliances. Variations may also simply reflect the available resources in given time or area.

Sharply defining cultural groups tends to create an image of group territories separated by clear-cut boundaries, similar to modern nation states. These simply did not exist. Prehistoric people traded, worshiped and collaborated most often with other nearby groups. Cultural differences should therefore be understood as "clinal", "increasing gradually as the distance separating groups also increases."[10] Departures from the expected pattern may occur because of unidentified social or political situations or because of geographic barriers. In the Southwest, mountain ranges, rivers and, most obviously, the Grand Canyon, can be significant barriers for human communities, likely reducing the frequency of contact with other groups. Current opinion holds that the closer cultural similarity between the Mogollon and Ancestral Pueblo peoples and their greater differences from the Hohokam and Patayan is due to both the geography and the variety of climate zones in the American Southwest.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Cordell, Linda S. and Maxine E. McBrinn 2012 Archaeology of the Southwest, 3rd edition. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek
  2. ^ Breitburg, Emanual; John B. Broster; Arthur L. Reesman; Richard G. Strearns (1996). "Coats-Hines Site: Tennessee's First Paleoindian Mastodon Association". Current Research in the Pleistocene. 13: 6–8.
  3. ^ "Kincaid Shelter". Retrieved 2009-01-15.
  4. S2CID 161058784
    .
  5. ISBN 0-89599-038-5
    .
  6. S2CID 129704711
    .
  7. ^ Clark, Jeffery; Lyons, Patrick (2012). Migrants and Mounds: Classic Period Archaeology of the Lower San Pedro Valley. Tucson, Arizona: Archaeology Southwest.
  8. ^ Miller, Myles R. and Kenmotsu, Nancy A. "Prehistory of the Mogollon and Eastern Trans-Pecos Regions of West Texas." in Perttula, Timothy K. The Prehistory of Texas. College Station: TX A & M Press, 2004, pp. 205–265
  9. ^ Janetski and Talbot 2014 in Archaeology in the Great Basin and Southwest p. 118.
  10. ^ Plog, Stephen (1997) Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest, p. 72. Thames and Hudson, London, England

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Southwestern_archaeology&oldid=1174868028"