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By Katherine A. Dungan, Research Assistant
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The Society for American Archaeology held its 77th Annual Meeting last week, and several of Archaeology Southwest’s staff, research associates, and friends traveled to Memphis to talk about archaeology, see old friends, and enjoy some barbeque and blues.
Archaeology Southwest’s research was highlighted in two sessions. On Saturday afternoon, we presented a poster session on our work in Mule Creek and the Upper Gila region—view the posters from that session at the links below—and on Sunday morning, several papers highlighted work being done as part of the University of Arizona School of Anthropology and Archaeology Southwest’s Southwest Social Networks project. One of those papers was presented by Hannah Jane Carmack, who was a student and later a volunteer in Mule Creek.
The Mule Creek poster session included posters by two of our students from the 2011 field school. Christopher Caseldine (now in the graduate program at Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change) presented Go Fish: An Analysis of Fish Consumption among Tularosa Phase Sites, in which he discusses the presence of fish bone at sites in Mule Creek. Colleen Kennedy (about to graduate from the anthropology program at Texas A&M) presented Corn and Culture, which compares maize recovered from sites in Mule Creek.
Michael Diehl of Desert Archaeology Inc. contributed Late Prehistoric Farming and Food Harvesting along Mule Creek, New Mexico, a macrobotanical comparison between the Fornholt and 3-Up sites. Deb Huntley presented Ceramic Production and the Development of Salado Identity in the Upper Gila Region of the American Southwest, the results of the compositional analysis of Salado polychrome and Maverick Mountain series sherds in the region. My poster, Mule Creek and the Great Kiva Tradition of the Mogollon Highlands, compares what we currently know about the Fornholt great kiva to other great kivas in the eastern Mogollon Highlands.
Thanks again to everyone who presented as part of the session and to everyone who stopped by. We had lots of interesting conversations, got some good feedback, and had a great time in Memphis. It’s hard to believe that in only a few short weeks we’ll be back in the field with new students and new questions to answer about the Fornholt site…stay tuned for field preparations and the start of the new field season!