Before the Great Departure (ASW 27-3)

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Issue editors: Jeffrey S. Dean, University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and Jeffery J. Clark, Archaeology Southwest

Considering the two decades Archaeology Southwest and its partners have spent studying the Salado phenomenon (A.D. 1275–1450) in the southern U.S. Southwest, we know quite a bit about “the end”—what happened to a group of northern immigrants known as the Kayenta after they left their homeland in the late 1200s. But what preceded that chapter in their story? Contributors to this issue help us take a closer look at the Kayenta in the three centuries before their emigration. What insights into Kayenta history might help us understand Kayenta persistence?

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In this issue:

Before the Great Departure: The Kayenta in Their Homeland — Jeffery J. Clark and Jeffrey S. Dean

In Brief: The Multiple Meanings of Ancestral Pueblo — Barbara J. Mills

In Brief: Ancestral Pueblo across Space and Time — Jeffrey S. Dean

A Short History of Kayenta Archaeology — Andrew L. Christenson

Pottery Traditions in and beyond the Homeland — Patrick D. Lyons

Kayenta Iconography: Earth and Sky, Women’s and Men’s Work, Corn and Water — Kelley Hays-Gilpin

Architecture and Settlement in the Homeland — Jeffrey S. Dean

Mortuary Practices in the Homeland — Kimberly Spurr

Relations with Neighbors to the South: Tusayan — E. Charles Adams

Relations with Neighbors to the East: Mesa Verde — Donna M. Glowacki

Flower Power — Jeffery J. Clark

Understanding the Kayenta, from Beginning to End — Jeffrey S. Dean and Jeffery J. Clark

In Brief: The Kayenta before and after Migration: A Southwest Social Networks Perspective — Lewis Borck

Back Sight — William H. Doelle

Archaeology Southwest Magazine Vol. 27, No. 3
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Issue editors: Jeffrey S. Dean, University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, and Jeffery J. Clark, Archaeology Southwest.

To download information about the ceramic vessels pictured on pages 9–10 (PDF), click here.

An old African proverb states, “If you want to know the end, look at the beginning.”

Considering the two decades Archaeology Southwest and its partners have spent studying the Salado phenomenon (A.D. 1275–1450) in the southern U.S. Southwest, we know quite a bit about “the end”—what happened to a group of northern immigrants known as the Kayenta after they left their homeland in the late 1200s. But what preceded that chapter in their story? Contributors to this issue help us take a closer look at the Kayenta in the three centuries before their emigration. What insights into Kayenta history might help us understand Kayenta persistence?

Before the Great Departure: The Kayenta in Their Homeland — Jeffery J. Clark and Jeffrey S. Dean

Historic American Buildings Survey image of Mummy Cave at the Library of Congress

Learn more about the Historic American Buildings Survey here and here.

Official website of Canyon de Chelly National Monument

Archaeology Southwest Magazine Vol. 27, No. 2 — Social Networks in the Distant Past

Archaeology Southwest Magazine Vol. 26, Nos. 3 and 4 — A Complicated Pattern

Archaeology Southwest Magazine Vol. 24, No. 4 — Following the Kayenta and Salado Up the Gila

Archaeology Southwest Magazine Vol. 22, No. 4 — Immigrants and Population Collapse in the Southern Southwest

In Brief: The Multiple Meanings of Ancestral Pueblo — Barbara J. Mills

In Brief: Ancestral Pueblo across Space and TimeJeffrey S. Dean

A Short History of Kayenta Archaeology — Andrew L. Christenson

Images of Kayenta cliff dwellings in Navajo National Monument (Betatakin, Kiet Siel, Inscription House) and other Kayenta sites and artifacts may be viewed at the American Southwest Virtual Museum.

The Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley Expedition Archives at UCLA (click on the link “online items available” to view a selection of digitized images and other materials)

The Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley Expedition Archives at the Museum of Northern Arizona

“Wanted: Volunteers to join in exploration and scientific field work in the northern Navajo county.” Click to enlarge.
“Wanted: Volunteers to join in exploration and scientific field work in the northern Navajo county.” Click to enlarge.

For further reading (a few highlights from projects noted in this article—not an exhaustive bibliography of the history of Kayenta archaeology):

Axtell, R. L., J. M. Epstein, J. S. Dean, G. J. Gumerman, A. C. Swedlund, J. Harburger, S. Chakravarty, R. Hammond, J. Parker, and M. Parker

2002 Population Growth and Collapse in a Multi-Agent Model of the Kayenta Anasazi in Long House Valley. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99(3): 7275–7279.

Beals, Ralph L., George W. Brainerd, and Watson Smith

1945 Archaeological Studies in Northeast Arizona. University of California Publications in Archaeology and Ethnology 44(1). University of California Press, Los Angeles.

Christenson, Andrew L.

1987 The Last of the Great Expeditions: The Rainbow Bridge/Monument Valley Expedition 1933–1938. Plateau 58(4). Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff.

Crotty, Helen K.

1983 Honoring the Dead: Anasazi Ceramics from the Rainbow Bridge Monument Valley Expedition. Museum of Cultural History Monograph Series 22. University of California, Los Angeles.

Dean, Jeffrey S.

1969 Chronological Analysis of Tsegi Phase Sites in Northeastern Arizona. Papers of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research No. 3. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Dean, Jeffrey S., Alexander J. Lindsay Jr., and William J. Robinson

1978 Prehistoric Settlement in Long House Valley, Northeastern Arizona. In Investigations of the Southwestern Archaeological Research Group: An Experiment in Archaeological Cooperation: The Proceedings of the 1976 Conference, edited by Robert C. Euler and George J. Gumerman, pp 25–44. Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff AZ.

Dean, J. S., G. J. Gumerman, J. M. Epstein, R. L. Axtell, A. C. Swedlund, M. T. Parker, and S. McCarroll

2000 Understanding Anasazi Culture Change Through Agent Based Modeling. In Dynamics in Human and Primate Societies: Agent Based Modeling of Social and Spatial Processes, edited by Timothy A. Kohler and George J. Gumerman, pp. 179–205. Oxford University Press.

Elliott, Melinda

1995 “Awatovi: J. O. Brew Excavates in the Realm of Hopi Legend,” pp. 163–187, and “The Rainbow Bridge–Monument Valley Expedition: The End of the Great Romance,” pp. 189–211, in Great Excavations: Tales of Early Southwestern Archaeology, 1888–1939. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.

Hall, Ansel F.

1934 General Report on the Rainbow Bridge-Monument Valley Expedition of 1933. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Jennings, Jesse D.

1998 Glen Canyon: An Archaeological Summary. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Judd, Neil M.

1930 The Excavation and Repair of Betatakin. Proceedings of the United States National Museum No. 2828. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Kidder, Alfred V.

1927 Southwestern Archaeological Conference. Science 66:489–491.

Kidder, Alfred Vincent, and Samuel J. Guernsey

1919 Archaeological Explorations in Northeastern Arizona. Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology 65. Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.

Lindsay, Alexander J., Jr.

1969 The Tsegi Phase of the Kayenta Cultural Tradition in Northeastern Arizona. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson. UMI, Ann Arbor.

Lyons, Patrick D.

2003 Ancestral Hopi Migrations. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona No. 68. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Powell, Shirley, and Francis E. Smiley, eds.

2002 Prehistoric Culture Change on the Colorado Plateau: Ten Thousand Years on Black Mesa. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Pottery Traditions in and beyond the Homeland — Patrick D. Lyons

To download information about the ceramic vessels pictured on pages 9–10 (PDF), click here.

To read Lyons’ online essay on the origins of Maverick Mountain Series and Roosevelt Red Ware (Salado polychrome) pottery, click here.

To read Lyons’ online essay on perforated plates, and specifically one in the collections of the Arizona State Museum, click here.

Perforated plate from the northern San Pedro River valley. Photo by Janine Hernbrode.
Perforated plate from the northern San Pedro River valley. Photo by Janine Hernbrode.

For further reading:

Beals, Ralph L., George W. Brainerd, and Watson Smith

1945 “Painted Pottery of the Kayenta Area,” pp. 87–137, and “Pottery Shapes and Forming,” pp. 138–148, in Archaeological Studies in Northeast Arizona. University of California Publications in Archaeology and Ethnology 44(1). University of California Press, Los Angeles.

Christenson, Andrew L.

1991 Identifying Pukis or Potters’ Turntables at Anasazi Sites. Pottery Southwest 18(1):1–6.

1994 Perforated and Unperforated Plates as Tools for Pottery Manufacture. In Function and Technology of Anasazi Ceramics from Black Mesa, Arizona, edited by Marion F. Smith Jr., pp. 55–65. Center for Archaeological Investigations Occasional Paper 15. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

Crotty, Helen K.

1983 Honoring the Dead: Anasazi Ceramics from the Rainbow Bridge Monument Valley Expedition. Museum of Cultural History Monograph Series 22. University of California, Los Angeles.

Lyons, Patrick D., and Alexander J. Lindsay Jr.

2006 Perforated Plates and the Salado Phenomenon. Kiva 72(1):5–54.

Kayenta Iconography: Earth and Sky, Women’s and Men’s Work, Corn and WaterKelley Hays-Gilpin

Learn more about the 2008 Pecos Conference logo here.

The bowl with white and orange ware design fields is discussed and illustrated in the following:

Beals, Ralph L., George W. Brainerd, and Watson Smith

1945 Archaeological Studies in Northeast Arizona. University of California Publications in Archaeology and Ethnology 44(1). University of California Press, Los Angeles. See pages 131–133 and page 136: Figure 70 G (RB 568-462).

Crotty, Helen K.

1983 Honoring the Dead: Anasazi Ceramics from the Rainbow Bridge Monument Valley Expedition. Museum of Cultural History Monograph Series 22. University of California, Los Angeles. See pages 49–50 and Figure 43.

Architecture and Settlement in the Homeland — Jeffrey S. Dean

The illustration of a typical Kayenta entrybox on page 12 was adapted from a figure published in:

Lindsay, Alexander J., Jr.

1969 The Tsegi Phase of the Kayenta Cultural Tradition in Northeastern Arizona. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson. UMI, Ann Arbor.

A jacal wall within Kiet Siel, 1972. Photo by William C. Stoughton, courtesy of the American Southwest Virtual Museum and the National Park Service.
A jacal wall within Kiet Siel, 1972. Photo by William C. Stoughton, courtesy of the American Southwest Virtual Museum and the National Park Service.

For further reading:

Dean, Jeffrey S.

1970 Aspects of Tsegi Phase Social Organization: A Trial Reconstruction. In Reconstructing Prehistoric Pueblo Societies, edited by William A. Longacre, pp. 140–174. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

Mortuary Practices in the Homeland — Kimberly Spurr

Artist Robert Ciaccio’s visualization of villagers at a burial.
Artist Robert Ciaccio’s visualization of villagers at a burial.

For further reading:

Beals, Ralph L., George W. Brainerd, and Watson Smith

1945 Archaeological Studies in Northeast Arizona. University of California Publications in Archaeology and Ethnology 44(1). University of California Press, Los Angeles.

Crotty, Helen K.

1983 Honoring the Dead: Anasazi Ceramics from the Rainbow Bridge Monument Valley Expedition. Museum of Cultural History Monograph Series 22. University of California, Los Angeles.

Guernsey, Samuel J., and Alfred V. Kidder

1921 Basket-Maker Caves of Northeastern Arizona. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology 8(2). Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Relations with Neighbors to the South: TusayanE. Charles Adams

Acknowledgements:

Bernardini, Wesley

2013 Unpublished summary of HCPO survey data created for this article.

Hopi Cultural Preservation Office

For further reading:

Brew, J. O.

1941 Preliminary Report of the Peabody Museum Awatovi Expedition of 1939. Plateau 13(3):37–48.

Colton, Harold S.

1974 Hopi History and Ethnobotany. Indian Claims Commission Docket 196. Published as Hopi Indians, edited by David A. Horr, pp. 279–386. Garland Publishing, New York.

Courlander, Harold

1971 The Fourth World of the Hopis. Crown Publishers, N.Y.

Daifuku, Hiroshi

1961 Jeddito 264: a Report on the Excavation of a Basket Maker III- Pueblo I Site in Northeastern Arizona with a Review of Some Current Theories in Southwest Archaeology. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 33, No. 1, Harvard University, Cambridge.

Relations with Neighbors to the East: Mesa VerdeDonna M. Glowacki

Official website of Mesa Verde National Park

Crow Canyon Archaeological Center

The illustrated bowl may be viewed at the online archives of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

Flower Power — Jeffery J. Clark

More about the Sunflower Cave cache:

The image of some of the artifacts from the Sunflower Cave cache is reproduced from Plate 61 in:

Kidder, Alfred Vincent, and Samuel J. Guernsey

1919 Archaeological Explorations on Northeastern Arizona. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 65. Smithsonian Institution, Government Printing Office, Washington DC. See pages 92–96 for discussion of Sunflower Cave, plates 60 and 62 for additional items from the cache, and pages 145–151 for discussion of the objects in the cache.

Plate 61 from Kidder and Guernsey (1919). Full citation above.
Plate 61 from Kidder and Guernsey (1919). Full citation above.

The online archives of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University has many images of Sunflower Cave and its setting, the cache in situ, the cache artifacts, and other objects found in the cave; to view those, go here and do a “quick search” on “sunflower cave” from the search box at the upper left.

More about the Bonita Creek cache:

Wasley, William W.

1962 A Ceremonial Cave on Bonita Creek, Arizona. American Antiquity 27(3):380–394.

This article includes discussion of the circumstances of the cache’s finding and location, the objects themselves, and their likely associations. Specifically, Wasley writes (page 393):

“The materials which comprise the Bonita Creek cache in many respects parallel and call to mind those included in the famous Sunflower Cache…

“The inclusion of like objects in both caches—flowers, bird representations, and cones—argues for the view that they represent items from the same ceremonial complex…

“…One is lead to the conclusion that the Bonita Creek cache of ceremonial paraphernalia belonged to a Kayenta group of people.”

On the imagery found in both caches:

Some of the representations seem to evoke the Flower World, an ideological complex of great antiquity in Mesoamerica and the Southwest. See, for example:

Hays-Gilpin, Kelley, and Jane H. Hill

2000 The Flower World in Prehistoric Southwest Material Culture, in Archaeology of Regional Interaction: Religion, Warfare, and Exchange across the American Southwest and Beyond, edited by Michele Hegmon, pp. 411–428. University of Colorado Press, Boulder.

1999 The Flower World in Material Culture: An Iconographic Complex in the Southwest and Mesoamerica. Journal of Anthropological Research 55:1–37.

Webster, Laurie

2009 Mogollon and Zuni Perishable Traditions and the Question of Zuni Origins, in Zuni Origins: Toward a New Synthesis of Southwestern Archaeology, edited by David A. Gregory and David R. Wilcox, pp. 270–317; 311. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

You can view a video of Dr. Hays-Gilpin discussing the Flower World at Archaeology Café here.

Understanding the Kayenta, from Beginning to End — Jeffrey S. Dean and Jeffery J. Clark

To follow Jeff Clark and content editor Kate Gann’s conversation about emigration, identity, and assimilation, click here.

For further reading:

Clark, Jeffery J., and Patrick D. Lyons (editors)

2012 Migrants and Mounds: Classic Period Archaeology of the San Pedro Valley. Anthropological Papers No. 45. Archaeology Southwest, Tucson.

Dean, Jeffrey S.

2002 Late Pueblo II-Pueblo III in Kayenta-Branch Prehistory. In Prehistoric Culture Change on the Colorado Plateau: Ten Thousand Years on Black Mesa, edited by Shirley Powell and Francis E. Smiley, pp. 121–157. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

2010 The Environmental, Demographic, and Behavioral Context of the Thirteenth-Century Depopulation of the Northern Southwest. In Leaving Mesa Verde: Peril and Change in the Thirteenth-Century Southwest, edited by Timothy A. Kohler, Mark D. Varien, and Aaron M. Wright, pp. 324–345. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Di Peso, Charles C.

1958 The Reeve Ruin of Southeastern Arizona: A Study of a Prehistoric Western Pueblo Migration into the Middle San Pedro Valley. The Amerind Foundation No. 8. The Amerind Foundation, Inc., Dragoon, Arizona.

Lindsay, Alexander J., Jr.

1987 Anasazi Population Movements to Southeastern Arizona. American Archaeology 6(3):190–198.

Neuzil, Anna A.

2008 In the Aftermath of Migration: Renegotiating Ancient Identity in Southeastern Arizona. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona No. 73. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Woodson, M. Kyle

1999 Migrations in Late Anasazi Prehistory: The Evidence from the Goat Hill Site. Kiva 65(1):63–84.

In Brief: The Kayenta before and after Migration: A Southwest Social Networks PerspectiveLewis Borck

Archaeology Southwest Magazine Vol. 27, No. 2 — Social Networks in the Distant Past

Back Sight — William H. Doelle
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