Pataya (pah-tah-yáh) is a word of the Pai branch (Hualapai, Havasupai, Yavapai, and Paipai) of the Yuman-Cochimí language family that translates loosely as “old people.”
As used by archaeologists, Pataya refers to a specific material culture spread throughout western Arizona, southern California, southern Nevada, and Baja California. What makes Patayan material culture a unique archaeological pattern is a series of distinctive pottery forms and wares, specific motifs and embellishments in petroglyphs and pictographs, the creation and use of intaglios and geoglyphs, and a geographic focus on the lower Colorado River.
Interestingly, the spatial extent of Patayan material culture does map onto the historic distribution of the Yuman languages, which is why many believe this archaeological tradition is ancestral to historic and contemporary Yuman-speaking tribes. Nevertheless, archaeologists have long recognized regional variation, or “branches,” within the Patayan tradition based on differences in settlement patterns, ways of making a living (subsistence practices), and nuances in material culture (what people made and built). This has led to considerable debate and confusion—what archaeologist Harold Colton called “the Patayan problem” 75 years ago.
Pataya remains one of the least-studied late pre-contact (contact with Europeans) cultural traditions in the American Southwest. One reason for this is the lack of research carried out in this rather remote frontier of western Arizona and southeastern California. Another is the ephemeral nature of many remaining Patayan archaeological sites.
Patayan Lifeways
In upland settings, Patayan communities were highly mobile and probably followed seasonal rounds, much like historical Pai groups. Encampments were small and impermanent, and people did not accumulate much nonperishable material, on account of their mobile lifestyle.
For Patayan communities along major waterways such as the Gila and Colorado Rivers, settlements were quite stable and long-lived. Floodwater farming supported permanent villages of dozens to hundreds of people, as was witnessed among the Delta-Californian and River-Yuman speaking Kohuana, Halyikwamai, Xalychidom, Cocopah, Quechan, Mojave, and Piipaash at the time of contact with Europeans.
With residences tied so close to the floodplain, however, many of these ancestral villages have been eradicated by massive floods. Moreover, at least as far as we know, and unlike most other late pre-contact Southwestern cultural traditions, these lowland Patayan farming communities did not create enduring works of public architecture. This has left surviving Patayan village sites overlooked and underappreciated.
The Patayan tradition is often divided into three phases. Patayan I (AD 700–1050) witnessed the arrival of pottery-using agricultural communities along the Colorado River. During Patayan II (1050–1500), this material culture spread outward to southern Nevada, western Arizona, and to the Salton Sea. Patayan III (1500–1900) saw the coalescence of large populations near the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers and the continued movement of people up the lower Gila River.
Continuity and Change
Recent research is beginning to revise our understanding of the nature of Pataya and the timing of significant cultural changes. For instance, Patayan communities settled along the lower Gila River, as far upstream as the Painted Rock Mountains, as early as Patayan I. This placed them in close proximity to contemporaneous Colonial period (AD 750–950) Hohokam communities around present-day Gila Bend. Regular and extensive social and economic connections are apparent in pottery distributions and in stunning similarities in petroglyph iconography around Patayan and Hohokam settlements.
Patayan presence along the lower Gila River persisted until the 1830s, and even intensified over time. By AD 1000, Patayan groups had begun to reside next to or even integrate into existing Hohokam communities in the Gila Bend and Phoenix Basins. At contact, the lower Gila was a multicultural landscape in which riverside villages were inhabited by Cocomaricopa and Opa (historic Patayan groups) and O’odham (descendent Hohokam). This intercultural collaboration between O’odham and Piipaash (Opa and Cocomaricopa) continues today at the Salt River Pima-Maricopa and Gila River Indian Communities east and south of Phoenix.
Want to learn more? Explore the major concepts, places, cultures, and themes that Southwestern archaeologists are exploring today in our Introduction to Southwestern Archaeology.
