Tag: Spatial Analysis

This is an early pre-review version of a article published in American Antiquity and available here 

  Time and Population from the Surface at San Marcos Pueblo (LA98), North Central New Mexico

Ann F. Ramenofsky

University of New Mexico

Christopher Pierce

Web Data Works

Unpublished manuscript

DRAFT: Do not cite without permission of the authors 

Understanding the effects of European contact on the organization, size, and mobility of Pueblo populations in the Southwest requires detailed knowledge of the occupational histories of the large, aggregated settlements that typify the late prehistoric and early historic record. Unfortunately, such understanding is generally lacking because the methods used to document occupational histories of settlements tend to either obscure fine-grained temporal distinctions or necessitate costly and politically objectionable large-scale excavations. To overcome these difficulties, we analyze the surface record at San Marcos Pueblo (LA98), a large, late site in the Galisteo Basin of New Mexico, in an attempt to reconstruct the occupational and population history of the settlement. Using detailed mapping, systematic surface collections, and multiple seriations of midden deposits, we document several alternating periods of occupation and abandonment of the pueblo with population size varying from one occupation to the next. This reconstruction challenges conventional wisdom regarding the occupational history of these late, large settlements as representing deep sedentism with population decline and abandonment occurring only after Spanish contact.

Measuring Community Interaction: Pueblo III Pottery Production and Distribution in the Central Mesa Verde Region

Christopher Pierce, Donna M. Glowacki and Margaret M. Thurs

The scale, intensity, and character of interaction among Pueblo people during the 13th century A.D. likely played an important role in the processes and events leading to the abandonment of the Northern San Juan region in the 1280s. Characteristics of pottery production and distribution in the Sand Canyon locality provide one means of investigating these interactions. Variation among Pueblo III settlements in the use of temper and available raw clay sources, and the distribution of pottery production tools demonstrate the existence of at least two production areas within the locality. The nature of the boundary between these production areas indicates a complex pattern of settlement and community interaction that challenges models based on settlement proximity. Further, an almost complete lack of extra-regional pottery at Pueblo III settlements suggests that the Northern San Juan region may have been economically isolated from other regions inhabited by Pueblo people.

An edited version of this paper was publiahsed as:

Pierce, C., D. M. Glowacki, and M. M. Thurs
2002 Measuring Community Interaction: Pueblo III Pottery Production and Distribution in the Central Mesa Verde Region. In Seeking the Center Place: Archaeology and Community in the Mesa Verde Region, edited by M.D. Varien and R. Wilshusen, pp. 185-202. The University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

 Instructions for Running the Pocket Gopher Disturbance Simulation

This program simulates the effects that burrowing by pocket gophers have on the vertical distribution of artifacts and sediments and the disruption of sedimentary structures (stratification) within archaeological deposits. It relies on a model of pocket gopher disturbance I developed intermittently between 1981 and 1986. Details of this model are presented in an article I published in the journal Geoarchaeology (vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 185-208) in 1992 titled Effects of Pocket Gopher Burrowing on Archaeological Deposits: A Simulation Approach. Click here to read about the history of my development of the model.

The Spread of Corrugation Technology in the American Southwest

Christopher Pierce

Documenting the spread of corrugation technology on the basis of published information is a formidable undertaking. Given that one must rely, for the most part, on pottery type data from diverse regions of the Southwest, two hurdles present themselves. The first has to do with dating. Ideally, one reconstructs the spread of corrugation based on independent, absolute dates of the earliest appearance of a particular corrugation type, or technique, in different areas of the Southwest. However, many areas of the Southwest lack adequately dated pottery assemblages that span the entire sequence of changes. Consequently, the beginning and ending dates for many pottery types are based on cross dating with other regions. While often useful for general chronological purposes, cross dating can introduce problems when one is trying to determine if a particular kind of pottery is slightly earlier or later in one region than another. The second hurdle involves the use of numerous different typological schemes across the Southwest. Pottery type names and descriptions can vary considerable from one region to another making it difficult, in some cases, to be sure that one is dealing with the same technology. Utility wares have not generally been accorded the kind of intense scrutiny often given to painted pottery in the Southwest. This lack of attention means that many dating and typological discrepancies and subtleties have gone unexamined or undocumented. As a result of these issues, the reconstruction of the spread of corrugation across the Southwest I present here should be considered tentative, and subject to alteration as new data come to light and more thorough evaluations of existing data are conducted.

Will the Real San Marcos Pueblo Please Stand Up: An Examination of Bias and Error in Site Maps

 Shawn L. Penman, Ann F. Ramenofsky, Christopher Pierce, David Vaughan, and Eden A. Welker

Poster presented at the 63^rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, March 25-29, 1998, Seattle, Wa.

Maps make up an essential element of information about the archaeological record. Although archaeologists construct a wide variety of maps at different spatial scales, site maps are most fundamental. Site maps depict the locations and arrangements of architecture, features, and artifacts at ancient settlements. We routinely use site maps to carry out important resource management and research activities such as delineating site boundaries, estimating past populations, and reconstructing the internal organization of settlements. These uses of site maps are so common, in fact, that we tend to forget that the maps are two-dimensional abstractions and interpretations of a complex three-dimensional surface, and treat them instead as objective, accurate, and reliable descriptions.

In this poster, we take advantage of the existence of three, independently produced maps of one site, San Marcos Pueblo (LA 98) located in Galisteo Basin of north central New Mexico. We use these maps, produced over a period of 82 years, to examine similarities and differences in the ways the maps depict this large, complex settlement. Further, we evaluate how different goals, methods, conditions, and perceptions affect the accuracy and precision of site maps.