Between 2002 and 2005, SWCA Environmental Consultants excaved 73 prehistoric archaeological sites in Ridges Basin and on Blue Mesa near Durango, Colorado. This volume reports the analysis of ceramic artifacts recoverd during these excavations, which yielded almost 100,000 potsherds and more than 200 whole or reconstructible vessels. These ceramics, cumulatively weighing nearly a ton, were recovered from 66 of the sites, nearly all of which were associated with the extensive early Pueblo I occupation in the late AD 700s and early AD 800s. Plain gray were composes approximately 85 percent of the assemblage. Another 11 percent of the assemblage consists of white ware sherds. The remaining Pueblo I ceramics are red ware and small quantities of brown ware and mud ware.
This volume of the Animas-La Plata series (SWCA Anthropological Research Paper No. 10) describes the results of excavations at the largest and most complex site in the Animas-La Plata project area, the Sacred Ridge site (5lp245). Located in Ridges Basin approximately 8 km (4.8 miles) southwest of Durango, Colorado, Sacred Ridge was a multiple habitation site containing 22 pit structures and dating to the early Pueblo I period (A.D. 750-850). The volume concludes with a discussion of chronology, architecture, material culture, population, subsistence, and settlement at the site and in comparison with nearby sites.
This report compiles evidence concerning cultural affiliation with NAGPRA items recovered from the Animas-La Plata (ALP) project area near Durango, Colorado, for 25 modern tribal groups residing in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. Though a small percentage of the cultural resources in the ALP project area represent earlier and later cultures, most identified archaeological remains, including NAGPRA items, date to the Pueblo I period (ca. A.D. 700-900). A preponderance of geographic, biological, oral tradition, linguistic, and archaeological evidence reasonably leads to the conclusion that the modern Keresan Pueblos of Acoma, Laguna, and Zia are the closest cultural affiliates to the Pueblo I period sites in the ALP project area.
This volume of the Animas-La Plata series (SWCA Anthropological Research Paper No. 10) contains three sections: geomorphological studies, archaeobotanical studies, and vertebrate faunal studies. The first section comprises studies of landscape change and stability, soil fertility, and paleoclimate in Ridges Basin. The second section comprises six chapters describing and interpreting modern environmental, macrobotanical, and pollen analyses conducted as part of the project. The final section describes and interprets the vertebrate faunal data recovered during project excavations.
The ancient birthplace of some of the world's major religions and now a modern nuclear power, India is experiencing spectacular economic growth. In twenty-five years its population will overtake that of China, making it one of the most populous and rapidly-developing countries in the world. We all need to know more about this intriguing country. John Farndon explores the changing face of modern-day India and its fundamental contradictions. The country is leading the world in cutting edge technology and research, but it is also home to 40 per cent of the world's malnourished children. It is a liberal democracy, yet its political processes are influenced by some of the most conservative religious ideas in the world. The booming economy is at times both global and archaic. Getting to the heart of these inconsistencies, Farndon gives a fascinating insight into the country as it is now and as it will be in the future, and reveals how the changes in India will affect us all.
Volume XV of the Animas-La Plata series (SWCA Anthropological Research Paper No. 10) contains thirteen chapters and multiple appendixes by a multitude of authors. The introductory chapter presents the broad archaeological context of the ALP project, explains some of the terminology used in writing about the ALP skeletal remains, and briefly characterizes the nature of the assemblage with respect to basic demographics such as the age and sex distribution of the human remains recovered from the different ALP sites. The NAGPRA process through the several stages of this long-term project is described, as is its influence on data collection. The remainder of the volume presents the results of bioarchaeological data collection and analysis conducted by different analysts who address mortuary practice, paleodemography, skeletal and dental morphology, health indicators in adults and children, biological variation, and ethnicity of the basin's Pueblo I residents. The final two chapters document the methods employed in the processed human remains (PHR) analysis from Sacred Ridge, and present the results of a first analysis of these data.
Using case studies from around the globe—including Mesoamerica, North and South America, Africa, China, and the Greco-Roman world—and across multiple time periods, the authors in this volume make the case that abundance provides an essential explanatory perspective on ancient peoples’ choices and activities. Economists frequently focus on scarcity as a driving principle in the development of social and economic hierarchies, yet focusing on plenitude enables the understanding of a range of cohesive behaviors that were equally important for the development of social complexity. Our earliest human ancestors were highly mobile hunter-gatherers who sought out places that provided ample food, water, and raw materials. Over time, humans accumulated and displayed an increasing quantity and variety of goods. In households, shrines, tombs, caches, and dumps, archaeologists have discovered large masses of materials that were deliberately gathered, curated, distributed, and discarded by ancient peoples. The volume’s authors draw upon new economic theories to consider the social, ideological, and political implications of human engagement with abundant quantities of resources and physical objects and consider how individual and household engagements with material culture were conditioned by the quest for abundance. Abundance shows that the human propensity for mass consumption is not just the result of modern production capacities but fulfills a longstanding focus on plenitude as both the assurance of well-being and a buffer against uncertainty. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students in economics, anthropology, and cultural studies. Contributors: Traci Ardren, Amy Bogaard, Elizabeth Klarich, Abigail Levine, Christopher R. Moore, Tito E. Naranjo, Stacey Pierson, James M. Potter, François G. Richard, Christopher W. Schmidt, Carol Schultze, Payson Sheets, Monica L. Smith, Katheryn C. Twiss, Mark D. Varien, Justin St. P. Walsh, María Nieves Zedeño
