Indigenous Rock Imagery of the Sonoran Desert
Petroglyphs and pictographs are integral to the cultural traditions of Indigenous communities the world over. This is especially so in the Sonoran Desert, where they abound on the countless chocolate- and charcoal-colored rocks. It is natural to ask what they may mean, but perhaps a more appropriate question is what do they do? These images move us in remarkable ways, and that gets to the heart of some of their significance. This presentation reviews the diversity of rock imagery across the Sonoran Desert with one eye on common threads and the other on unique regional qualities.
The Western Range of the Red-on-buff Culture, Revisited
Southwestern Arizona is the interface between Patayan and Hohokam material culture and settlement patterns, and presumably the ways-of-life that were tied to each of those traditions. Still, the western frontier of the Hohokam World remains little studied and therefore poorly defined. This presentation reviews the history of research on this topic and revisits the development and eventual demise of primary Hohokam villages along the lower Gila River. In contemporary perspective, this historical trajectory raises important questions about ethnic diversity, co-residence, and conflict.
Don’t Trust the Tread! Lessons in Trail Archaeology from Southwest Arizona
The extremely xeric conditions of the lower elevations of the Sonoran Desert foster geomorphological settings that witness relatively low rates of sediment deposition and experience minimal vegetational growth. These settings provide ground surfaces on which expressions and impressions of ephemeral human activities created hundreds, or even thousands, of years ago can be recognized to this day. Trails are one class of human construction that is well-represented in such settings—and that are otherwise unrecognizable in other contexts. As a result, archaeologists have been mapping and studying ancient Indigenous trails across southern Arizona and southeast California for nearly a century. This presentation reviews the history of this research along with a series of cautionary tales and lessons learned in the process.