This edited volume integrates a remarkable body of new data representing current issues and methodologies in the archaeology of hilltop sites, known as cerros de trincheras, in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico.

The intriguing hilltop archaeological sites known as cerros de trincheras span almost three millennia, from 1250 BC to AD 1450. Archaeologists have long viewed them as a unitary phenomenon because they all have masonry architecture and occur mostly on low volcanic peaks. Scattered across the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, these sites received little comprehensive research until the 1980s. This first volume in the Amerind Studies in Archaeology series from the Amerind Foundation documents considerable variability among trincheras sites with respect to age, geographic location, and cultural affiliation. This multi-author volume integrates a remarkable body of new data representing a textbook-like array of current research issues and methodologies in the archaeology of the region. Scholars from the United States and Mexico offer original research on trincheras sites in Chihuahua, Sonora, Arizona, and New Mexico. Scales of focus range from intensive intrasite sampling to the largest contiguous survey in the region. Authors incorporate spatial analyses, artifact studies, environmental and subsistence data, ethnographic analogs, ethnohistorical records, cross-cultural comparisons, archaeology, and archival resources. The volume’s discussions contribute innovative approaches to worldwide interpretations of landscapes marked by hilltop sites. Contributors present meticulous research arguing that many trincheras sites were primarily used for habitation and ceremonial rites, in addition to previously predominant views of them as defensive refuges. Because trincheras occupations date from the late preceramic era to shortly before Spanish contact, authors relate them to early forms of agriculture, the emergence of village life, the appearance of differentiated settlement systems, and tendencies toward political and ritual centralization. Detailed maps and figures illustrate the text, and close-up aerial photographs capture the visual essence of the sites, highlighted by a section that includes color photographs and an essay by renowned photographer Adriel Heisey. Contributors: Christian E. Downum Paul R. Fish Suzanne K. Fish Robert J. Hard Adriel Heisey Stephen A. Kowalewski Randall H. McGuire Ben A. Nelson John R. Roney Judith Taylor M. Elisa Villalpando Joseph Vogel Henry Wallace David R. Wilcox J. Scott Wood

Religion mattered to the prehistoric Southwestern people, just as it matters to their descendents today. Examining the role of religion can help to explain architecture, pottery, agriculture, even commerce. But archaeologists have only recently developed the theoretical and methodological tools with which to study this topic. Religion in the Prehispanic Southwest marks the first book-length study of prehistoric religion in the region. Drawing on a rich array of empirical approaches, the contributors show the importance of understanding beliefs and ritual for a range of time periods and southwestern societies. For professional and avocational archaeologists, for religion scholars and students, Religion in the Prehispanic Southwest represents an important contribution.

The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology reviews the continent's first and last foragers, farmers, and great pre-Columbian civic and ceremonial centers, from Chaco Canyon to Moundville and beyond.

The Analysis of Burned Human Remains, Second Edition, provides a primary source for osteologists and the medical/legal community for the understanding of burned bone remains in forensic or archaeological contexts. It describes in detail the changes in human bone and soft tissues as a body burns at both the chemical and gross levels and provides an overview of the current procedures in burned bone study. Case studies in forensic and archaeological settings aid those interested in the analysis of burned human bodies, from death scene investigators to biological anthropologists. - A timely state-of-the-art analyses of burned bone studies for bioarchaeologists and forensic anthropologists - Covers the diagnostic patterning of color changes, the positioning of the body, and presence (or absence of soft tissues during the burning event - Chapters on bones and teeth give step-by-step recommendations for hot to study and recognize burned hard tissues - New chapters include improved analyses of thermally induced impacts on bone microstructure, development, and appearance; they also cover sites from a greater geographic range adding Alaska, Italy, Jordan, Mexico, and Southeast Asia

This approachable book in the SAA Press Current Perspectives Series is a comprehensive synthesis of Northwest Mexico from the US border to the Mesoamerican frontier. Filling a vital gap in the regional literature, it serves as an essential reference not only for those interested in the specific history of this area of Mexico but western North America writ large. A period-by-period review of approximately 14,000 years reveals the dynamic connections that knitted together societies inhabiting the Sea of Cortez coast, the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts, and the Sierra Madre Occidental. Networks of interaction spanned these diverse ecological, topographical, and cultural terrains in the millennia following the demise of the megafauna. The authors provide a fresh perspective that refutes depictions of the Northwest as a simple filter or conduit of happenings to the north or south, and they highlight the role local motivations and dynamics played in facilitating continental-scale processes.

Paquimé (also known as Casas Grandes) and its antecedents are important and interesting parts of the prehispanic history in northwestern Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. Not only is there a long history of human occupation, but Paquimé is one of the better examples of centralized influence. Unfortunately, it is also an understudied region compared to the U.S. Southwest and other places in Mesoamerica. This volume is the first large-scale investigation of the prehispanic ethnobotany of this important ancient site and its neighbors. The authors examine ethnobotanical relationships during Medio Period, AD 1200–1450, when Paquimé was at its most influential. Based on two decades of archaeological research, this book examines uses of plants for food, farming strategies, wood use, and anthropogenic ecology. The authors show that the relationships between plants and people are complex, interdependent, and reciprocal. This volume documents ethnobotanical relationships and shows their importance to the development of the Paquimé polity. How ancient farmers made a living in an arid to semi-arid region and the effects their livelihood had on the local biota, their relations with plants, and their connection with other peoples is worthy of serious study. The story of the Casas Grandes tradition holds valuable lessons for humanity.

Two common questions asked in archaeological investigations are: where did a particular culture come from, and which living cultures is it related to? In this book, Robert A. Cook brings a theoretically and methodologically holistic perspective to his study on the origins and continuity of Native American villages in the North American Midcontinent. He shows that to affiliate archaeological remains with descendant communities fully we need to unaffiliate some of our well-established archaeological constructs. Cook demonstrates how and why Native American villages formed and responded to events such as migration, environment and agricultural developments. He focuses on the big picture of cultural relatedness over broad regions and the amount of social detail that can be gleaned from archaeological and biological data, as well as oral histories.

In this new volume, the results of Rex E. Gerald’s 1957 excavations at the Davis Ranch Site in southeastern Arizona’s San Pedro River Valley are reported in their entirety for the first time. Annotations to Gerald’s original manuscript in the archives of the Amerind Museum and newly written material place Gerald’s work in the context of what is currently known regarding the late thirteenth-century Kayenta diaspora and the relationship between Kayenta immigrants and the Salado phenomenon. Data presented by Gerald and other contributors identify the site as having been inhabited by people from the Kayenta region of northeastern Arizona and southeastern Utah. The results of Gerald’s excavations and Archaeology Southwest’s San Pedro Preservation Project (1990–2001) indicate that the people of the Davis Ranch Site were part of a network of dispersed immigrant enclaves responsible for the origin and spread of Roosevelt Red Ware pottery, the key material marker of the Salado phenomenon. A companion volume to Charles Di Peso’s 1958 publication on the nearby Reeve Ruin, archaeologists working in the U.S. Southwest and other researchers interested in ancient population movements and their consequences will consider this work an essential case study.

The long awaited third edition of this well-known textbook continues to be the go-to text and reference for anyone interested in Southwest archaeology, including the latest in current research, debates, and topical syntheses as well as increased coverage of Paleoindian and Archaic periods and the Casas Grandes phenomenon.