When you envision the Southwest in the distant past, what do you see? Hunters stealthily approaching a mammoth at a lush spring? Women chatting over their chores in a cliff dwelling high above a canyon? Perhaps a group of farmers setting out to make repairs on an extensive canal system fed by a red-brown desert river?
You probably do not imagine modest clusters of mud and wood structures among juniper-dotted grasslands. Yet, understanding life in these small settlements is essential to a more complete understanding of early village life around the world, not to mention subsequent developments in the northern and central Southwest. In this issue of Archaeology Southwest Magazine, we explore the transition to village life on the southern Colorado Plateau prior to about A.D. 900. How did the mobile foragers of the Archaic period (7000–1500 B.C.) ultimately become the village farmers we recognize as the ancestors of today’s Pueblo people?
Issue editor: Sarah A. Herr, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
When you envision the Southwest in the distant past, what do you see? Hunters stealthily approaching a mammoth at a lush spring? Women chatting over their chores in a cliff dwelling high above a canyon? Perhaps a group of farmers setting out to make repairs on an extensive canal system fed by a red-brown desert river?
You probably do not imagine modest clusters of mud and wood structures among juniper-dotted grasslands. Yet, understanding life in these small settlements is essential to a more complete understanding of early village life around the world, not to mention subsequent developments in the northern and central Southwest. In this issue of Archaeology Southwest Magazine, we explore the transition to village life on the southern Colorado Plateau prior to about A.D. 900. How did the mobile foragers of the Archaic period (7000–1500 B.C.) ultimately become the village farmers we recognize as the ancestors of today’s Pueblo people?
A New Way of Living: Early Settlements on the Southern Colorado Plateau — Sarah A. Herr
Additional information about objects illustrated in the timeline graphic on page 3:
Petroglyph: Photo by Henry D. Wallace, enhanced for visibility by Catherine Gilman.
Jar recovered from the Connie site: Photo by A. E. Rogge.
Arrow point from the Connie site: Scan by R. Jane Sliva.
Large point from the Beethoven site: Scan by R. Jane Sliva.
Paired mano and trough metate recovered from the Beethoven site: Photo by Robert B. Ciaccio. Metate: Feature 78.03, Field Number 3301, Arizona State Museum (ASM) no. 2009-06-53. Mano: Feature 78.03, Field Number 3302, ASM no. 2009-06-54.
1949 The 1948 Southwestern Archaeological Conference. American Antiquity 14:254–256.
“On Thursday, August 26, at 9:00 a.m. there was a panel discussion on the Mogollon culture, with Paul S. Martin and E. B. Sayles as Co-Chairmen. This discussion, lively and informative at times, obtuse at other times, did at least bring certain problems into the open and showed the great need for a more energetic wielding of the shovel,” (pages 255–256).
1937 Review of The Mogollon Culture of Southwestern New Mexico, by Emil W. Haury. American Antiquity 2:233–234.
“Haury’s report is brief and reflects careful work and an orderly mind,” (page 234).
Wheat, Joe Ben
1955 Mogollon Culture Prior to A.D. 1000. Memoir 82, American Anthropological Association (Menasha, WI); Memoir 10, Society for American Archaeology (Salt Lake City).
Paul Sidney Martin’s Research at Early Settlements in Arizona, 1956–1972 — Stephen E. Nash
**This just in: A reader let us know that the gentleman identified by the Field Museum as Jeff Brown in the group photo on page 10 is actually her mentor, E. Craig Morris (1939–2006). Morris received his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1967. Affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History, he was a preeminent scholar of Inca archaeology and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.**
Read Steve Nash’s Preservation Archaeology blog post about growing up among several of the archaeologists mentioned in this issue, becoming an archaeologist himself, and ultimately organizing and cataloging the Paul S Martin Collections at the Field Museum.
James Ballard’s photo essay on the Vernon Field Station and work at the Hay Hollow site appeared in the Field Museum’s monthly outreach publication, Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 10. Steve Nash’s father, Edward G. Nash, was managing editor of the publication at that time.
Martin’s report on work at the Hay Hollow site followed a year later in Bulletin Vol. 38, No. 5, also edited by E. Nash.
For further reading:
Nash, Stephen E.
2003 Paul Sidney Martin. In Curators, Collections, and Contexts: Anthropology at the Field Museum, 1893–2003, Stephen E. Nash and Gary M. Feinman, eds. Fieldiana (new series) No. 36. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.
An Early Village in the Hay Hollow Valley — A. E. Rogge
For further reading:
Plog, Fred
1974 The Study of Prehistoric Change. Academic Press, New York.
Learning from the Beethoven Site — Sarah A. Herr, Maren Hopkins, and T. J. Ferguson
Aerial photo of the Beethoven site excavations in progress.
Plan of the LA 61955 site adapted from Figures 4.5 (site plan) and 4.6 (great pit structure) in:
Damp, Jonathan E., and Elizabeth J. Skinner, eds.
1996 The N30-N31 Project: Investigations at 22 Sites between Mexican Springs and Navajo, McKinley County, New Mexico (Vols. I-IV). Zuni Archaeology Report No. 466. Zuni Archaeology Program Research Series No. 10. Pueblo of Zuni, New Mexico.
In Brief: William Longacre and Beethoven — Sarah A. Herr
Read an online essay by Lauren O’Brien on social learning frameworks and ceramic sociology.
For further reading:
Longacre, William A.
1964 A Synthesis of Upper Little Colorado Prehistory, Eastern Arizona. In Chapters in the Prehistory of Eastern Arizona, Vol. 2, ed. Paul S. Martin, John B. Rinaldo, W. A. Longacre, L. G. Freeman Jr., James A. Brown, R. H. Hevly, and M. E. Cooley, pp. 201–215. Fieldiana No. 55. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago.
In Brief: How Do We Know People Used a Vessel for Cooking? — Eric Blinman and C. Dean Wilson
The pots illustrated on page 27 are exhibited in column 3, shelf 5 of the Arizona State Museum’s “Wall of Pots.” Click here to view larger images and learn more, including catalog numbers.
