Temporal Variation in Obsidian Procurement in the Northern Rio Grande and Its Implications for Obsidian Movement into the San Juan Area

2019 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Moore ◽  
Eric Blinman ◽  
M. Steven Shackley
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Migration Stream ◽  
North Central ◽  
Reverse Migration ◽  
Pajarito Plateau ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
Northern Rio Grande ◽  
Mesa Verde Region

Arakawa and colleagues (2011) use temporal changes in obsidian source patterns to link the late thirteenth-century abandonment of the Mesa Verde region to Ortman's (2010, 2012) model of Tewa migration to the northern Rio Grande. They employ Anthony's (1990) concept of reverse migration, inferring that an increase in Mesa Verde–region obsidian from a specific Jemez Mountain source reflects the scouting of an eventual migration path. Weaknesses of this inference are that only obsidian data from the Mesa Verde region were used in its development and that the model does not consider the complexities of previously documented patterns of settlement and stone raw material use in the northern Rio Grande. By examining source data from parts of northwestern and north-central New Mexico, we find that the patterning seen in the Mesa Verde obsidian data is widespread both geographically and temporally. The patterns are more indicative of a change in acquisition within a down-the-line exchange system than a reverse migration stream. Population trends on the southern Pajarito Plateau, the probable source of the acquisition change, suggest ancestral Keres rather than Tewa involvement in thirteenth-century obsidian distribution.

Obsidian Evidence of Interaction and Migration from the Mesa Verde Region, Southwest Colorado

2011 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-795 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fumiyasu Arakawa ◽  
Scott G. Ortman ◽  
M. Steven Shackley ◽  
Andrew I. Duff
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Population Decline ◽  
Population Expansion ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Migration Stream ◽  
Pajarito Plateau ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Mesa Verde Region

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that ancestral Pueblo people living in the central Mesa Verde region of the U.S. Southwest maintained long-distance contacts with other Pueblo peoples. Questions of Pueblo interactions through time and across space have traditionally been addressed using ceramic sourcing data. This research uses obsidian source data to argue that, from A.D. 600 to 920, residents of the central Mesa Verde region obtained obsidian from throughout the U.S. northern Southwest, but that from A.D. 1060 to 1280 they acquired obsidian almost exclusively from the Jemez Mountains area of north-central New Mexico. In addition, importation of obsidian from the Pajarito Plateau increased during the period of population decline in the Mesa Verde region, and population expansion on the Pajarito. Characteristics of the obsidian assemblage from central Mesa Verde region sites also suggest that Jemez obsidian entered the region primarily in the form of finished arrows, arrow points, and arrow-point preforms. We argue that these patterns reflect return migration by early immigrants from the Mesa Verde region to the northern Rio Grande, an early stage in the development of a migration stream between the two regions.

Environmental and Chronological Factors in the Mesa Verde-Northern Rio Grande Migration

1995 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard V.N. Ahlstrom ◽  
Carla R. Van West ◽  
Jeffrey S. Dean
Keyword(s):  
Rio Grande ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
Northern Rio Grande

The Better Angels of their Nature: Declining Violence through Time Among Prehispanic Farmers of the Pueblo Southwest

2014 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 444-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy A. Kohler ◽  
Scott G. Ortman ◽  
Katie E. Grundtisch ◽  
Carly M. Fitzpatrick ◽  
Sarah M. Cole
Keyword(s):  
Rio Grande ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Human Bone ◽  
The North ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
Historical Factors ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Northern Rio Grande ◽  
North American Southwest

The central Mesa Verde and the northern Rio Grande regions housed two of the densest populations of prehispanic Pueblo peoples in the North American Southwest. We plot incidence of violent trauma on human bone through time in each region. Such violence peaked in the mid-A.D. 1100s in the central Mesa Verde, and in general was higher through time there than in the northern Rio Grande region. In the central Mesa Verde, but not in the northern Rio Grande, there is a tendency for violence to be greater in periods of low potential maize produccción per capita and high variance in maize produccción, though these structural tendencies were on occasion overridden by historical factors such as the expansion and demise of the Chacoan polity and the regional depopulation. Violence generally declined through time in the northern Rio Grande until the arrival of the Spanish, even as populations increased. We propose that this decline was due to the combination of increased social span of polities, the importance of inter-Pueblo sodalities, the nature of religious practice, “gentle commerce,“ and increased adherence to a set of nonviolent norms.

Progressive opening of the northern Rio Grande rift based on fault structure and kinematics of the Tusas-Abiquiu segment in north-central New Mexico, U.S.

2019 ◽  
Vol 753 ◽  
pp. 15-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiduo A. Liu ◽  
Michael A. Murphy ◽  
Jolante van Wijk ◽  
Daniel J. Koning ◽  
Tyson Smith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
Rio Grande Rift ◽  
North Central ◽  
Fault Structure ◽  
Northern Rio Grande

The Bioarchaeology and Taphonomy of Violence at Castle Rock and Sand Canyon Pueblos, Southwestern Colorado

2002 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 486-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin A. Kuckelman ◽  
Ricky R. Lightfoot ◽  
Debra L. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Time Of Death ◽  
Lethal Violence ◽  
Mesa Verde ◽  
Human Flesh ◽  
Critical Link ◽  
Mesa Verde Region ◽  
Violent Events

Violence and the role of violence have emerged recently as topics important to understanding the prehistory of the northern Southwest. Recent excavations at Castle Rock and Sand Canyon pueblos, two thirteenth-century sites in the Mesa Verde region of southwestern Colorado, bring new data to bear on these subjects. Field contexts and the results of bone and myoglobin analyses indicate that nonlethal and lethal violence occurred in both of these villages and that additional modifications to bodies and bones occurred near the time of death. Around A.D. 1280, at least eight individuals at Sand Canyon Pueblo died violently, and at least 41 individuals died at Castle Rock. During or after the warfare event that ended the occupation of Castle Rock, some bodies were dismembered, bones were broken, crushed, and heat altered; a few bones were reamed, and the end of one bone was polished. Several incidents of violence and probable anthropophagy (the consumption of human flesh) have been documented in the Mesa Verde region for the mid-A.D. 1100s; however, this analysis of violent events in the late A.D. 1200s establishes a critical link between probable anthropophagy and warfare, and links both with the depopulation of the region.

GEOMORPHIC AND INCISION HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN RIO GRANDE RIVER GORGE NEAR QUESTA, NEW MEXICO

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis W. Clow ◽  
◽  
Whitney M. Behr ◽  
Mark Helper ◽  
Peter Gold ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Mexico ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
History Of ◽  
Rio Grande River ◽  
Northern Rio Grande
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