The Mesa Site

The Mesa Site PDF Author: U.S. Department of the Interior
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781496015532
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
Between 1978 and 1999, excavations in arctic and western Alaska have revealed the presence of Paleoindians during terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene times, ca. 12,000 to 9500 years BP (Before Present). The Type Site for this cultural manifestation, the Mesa Site, is located on the northern flank of the central Brooks Range at N68° 24.72 W155° 48.02, amid rolling foothills that extend northward 40 miles to the Colville River. The site lies atop a mesa-like ridge that rises 180 feet above the floor of the Iteriak Creek valley, offering an unobstructed 360° view of the surrounding treeless countryside. Excavation at the site has produced the remains of more than 450 formal flaked stone tools and over 120,000 pieces of lithic debitage, which comprise an assemblage typical of the “classic” Paleoindian cultures of the North American High Plains. More than 150 of the artifacts are the complete or fragmentary remains of lanceolate projectile points, many of which have been recovered from within the charcoal/soil matrix of discrete hearths which are the central features of numerous activity areas. The age of the occupation is constrained by 44 uncalibrated AMS radiocarbon dates covering the interval 11,700 to 9700 years BP. The site lacks evidence of any widespread postdepositional disturbance and, except for a small, discrete manifestation in Locality A, contains no remains of more recent cultures. The composition of the Mesa artifact assemblage and its obvious technological relationship with the Paleoindian cultures of mid-continent North America mark it as distinctly different from other ancient arctic cultures. The presence of the Mesa Complex demonstrates a previously undocumented cultural diversity in Eastern Beringia at the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. This is an interim report. The amount of data generated by the Mesa project is immense. Although we engaged in some analysis and compilation of data as we progressed through the field work, we are not in a position to present this information in its totality. Therefore, limits have necessarily been placed upon the scope of this report so that it can be completed in a reasonable amount of time. While some primary analysis has not been completed, we have enough information to present a report that is more descriptive and introspective than a raw data monograph. In this report, we address the scope of research, order and describe the data analyzed so far, and interpret and summarize the findings to date. This will be accomplished by discussing the following subjects: the culture history of the region and the place of the Mesa Complex within that culture history framework; the natural setting of the site region; the excavation and data collection methods; the description of the site including the natural and cultural stratigraphy, cultural features, localities and activity areas; the flaked stone industry including artifact typology, tool-stone variety, and tool use; the regional Pleistocene faunal assemblage; the regional Pleistocene climate and ecology; and site use.

The Mesa Site

The Mesa Site PDF Author: U.S. Department of the Interior
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781496015532
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
Between 1978 and 1999, excavations in arctic and western Alaska have revealed the presence of Paleoindians during terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene times, ca. 12,000 to 9500 years BP (Before Present). The Type Site for this cultural manifestation, the Mesa Site, is located on the northern flank of the central Brooks Range at N68° 24.72 W155° 48.02, amid rolling foothills that extend northward 40 miles to the Colville River. The site lies atop a mesa-like ridge that rises 180 feet above the floor of the Iteriak Creek valley, offering an unobstructed 360° view of the surrounding treeless countryside. Excavation at the site has produced the remains of more than 450 formal flaked stone tools and over 120,000 pieces of lithic debitage, which comprise an assemblage typical of the “classic” Paleoindian cultures of the North American High Plains. More than 150 of the artifacts are the complete or fragmentary remains of lanceolate projectile points, many of which have been recovered from within the charcoal/soil matrix of discrete hearths which are the central features of numerous activity areas. The age of the occupation is constrained by 44 uncalibrated AMS radiocarbon dates covering the interval 11,700 to 9700 years BP. The site lacks evidence of any widespread postdepositional disturbance and, except for a small, discrete manifestation in Locality A, contains no remains of more recent cultures. The composition of the Mesa artifact assemblage and its obvious technological relationship with the Paleoindian cultures of mid-continent North America mark it as distinctly different from other ancient arctic cultures. The presence of the Mesa Complex demonstrates a previously undocumented cultural diversity in Eastern Beringia at the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. This is an interim report. The amount of data generated by the Mesa project is immense. Although we engaged in some analysis and compilation of data as we progressed through the field work, we are not in a position to present this information in its totality. Therefore, limits have necessarily been placed upon the scope of this report so that it can be completed in a reasonable amount of time. While some primary analysis has not been completed, we have enough information to present a report that is more descriptive and introspective than a raw data monograph. In this report, we address the scope of research, order and describe the data analyzed so far, and interpret and summarize the findings to date. This will be accomplished by discussing the following subjects: the culture history of the region and the place of the Mesa Complex within that culture history framework; the natural setting of the site region; the excavation and data collection methods; the description of the site including the natural and cultural stratigraphy, cultural features, localities and activity areas; the flaked stone industry including artifact typology, tool-stone variety, and tool use; the regional Pleistocene faunal assemblage; the regional Pleistocene climate and ecology; and site use.

Leaving Mesa Verde

Leaving Mesa Verde PDF Author: Timothy A. Kohler
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816599688
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
It is one of the great mysteries in the archaeology of the Americas: the depopulation of the northern Southwest in the late thirteenth-century AD. Considering the numbers of people affected, the distances moved, the permanence of the departures, the severity of the surrounding conditions, and the human suffering and culture change that accompanied them, the abrupt conclusion to the farming way of life in this region is one of the greatest disruptions in recorded history. Much new paleoenvironmental data, and a great deal of archaeological survey and excavation, permit the fifteen scientists represented here much greater precision in determining the timing of the depopulation, the number of people affected, and the ways in which northern Pueblo peoples coped—and failed to cope—with the rapidly changing environmental and demographic conditions they encountered throughout the 1200s. In addition, some of the scientists in this volume use models to provide insights into the processes behind the patterns they find, helping to narrow the range of plausible explanations. What emerges from these investigations is a highly pertinent story of conflict and disruption as a result of climate change, environmental degradation, social rigidity, and conflict. Taken as a whole, these contributions recognize this era as having witnessed a competition between differing social and economic organizations, in which selective migration was considerably hastened by severe climatic, environmental, and social upheaval. Moreover, the chapters show that it is at least as true that emigration led to the collapse of the northern Southwest as it is that collapse led to emigration.

People of the Mesa

People of the Mesa PDF Author: Shirley Powell
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Black Mesa, Arizona, has sheltered human beings for over 8000 years. For two decades, with the support and assistance of the Peabody Coal Company, archaeologists and other scientists have sought an understanding of how and why those ancient peoples lived as they did. Powell and Gumerman, the principal researchers of one of the largest and longest-running projects in the history of North American archaeology, recognize that only parts of past cultures survive to be discovered and analyzed, but they stress that the material items archaeologists do recover can tell us a great deal about the nonmaterial aspects of the culture in which they were used. In four cultural historical chapters Powell and Gumerman focus in turn on each of the major occupations of Black Mesa: the Archaic (6000 B.C.), Basketmaker II (ca. the time of Christ), Puebloan (A.D. 800-1150), and the Navajo (A.D. 1825 to the present). The 125 photographs, 41 line drawings by Thomas W. Gatlin, and 20 pages of full-color illustrations communicate the fascination of archaeological discovery and add an extra dimension to the authors' stories of ancient and modern life on Black Mesa.

CLIFF DWELLERS OF THE MESA VERDE, SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO

CLIFF DWELLERS OF THE MESA VERDE, SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO PDF Author: GUSTAF. NORDENSKIOLD
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781033115282
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Excavation of Two Anasazi Sites in Southern Utah

Excavation of Two Anasazi Sites in Southern Utah PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Excavations (Archaeology)
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
"The two reports published here contain elements which contribute substantially to this broader spectrum of Southwestern cultural change. While primarily descriptive in nature, these two site reports, one from the western Kayenta area and one from the margin of the Mesa Verde area and the eastern Kayenta, suggest that the changes which occurred in the more centralized portions of these regions were directly related to what happened on the margins. That, while the site densities and population aggregates may not have been as high, the same factors affected these marginal areas. That conclusion could be expected, but what may not be expected is the differential response which appears to have occurred. After reading these two reports, it appears that it may be possible to discern elements of change in these fringe areas that, once defined, will provide new insight into what happened and why and in what are presently the better known areas of the Southwest. These two papers are important, in sum, not only because they are reports of work in poorly known areas, but because they do provide analyses of fringe areas, they help us to understand the Southwest generally"--From preliminary introduction.

Defensive Architecture and the Depopulation of the Mesa Verde Region, Utah-Colorado in the Thirteenth Century A.D.

Defensive Architecture and the Depopulation of the Mesa Verde Region, Utah-Colorado in the Thirteenth Century A.D. PDF Author: Radosław Palonka
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788323331841
Category : Architecture and society
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The thirteenth century A.D. was a time of many changes and reorganization in the ancient Pueblo world in the Mesa Verde region. Still unresolved are the causes of the migration of Pueblo people from the Mesa Verde region to the south and southeast in the end of the century. The theories most cited and most supported by scientific data include environmental changes, increasing conflict and violence, social changes, and the attraction of a new cult or ideologies from the south. However, it seems that none of these theories can fully explain the total depopulation of the region. One reason often cited for the depopulation of the area is increasing conflict and violence. Evidence of conflict is clearly visible archaeologically: sites located in places difficult to access; defensive buildings, and settlement layouts; human remains with evidence of a violent death; and rock art depicting violent interactions. During the thirteenth century A.D. many types of defensive architecture including towers, underground tunnels connecting structures in a settlement, loopholes, and massive stone walls that partly or fully enclosed villages were constructed in the central Mesa Verde region. These architectural changes were associated with population aggregation and relocation; during the thirteenth century, most people probably lived in large settlements situated such that they were difficult to access and easy to defend. In many villages, water sources were secured within the boundary of the settlement or were at least nearby. However, it is difficult to determine whether the defensive architecture and defensible locations were not enough of an obstacle against possible attackers as Pueblo Indians emigrated from the Mesa Verde region near the end of the thirteenth century A.D. into what are now northern and central Arizona and New Mexico.

Life on the Rocks

Life on the Rocks PDF Author: Katherine Wells
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Artist Katherine Wells's life story starts with an early interest in Native art and the petroglyphs of the Southwest that drew her to New Mexico and led to a major effort to preserve the iconic images she found on her own land.

Cliff Dwellers of Cedar Mesa

Cliff Dwellers of Cedar Mesa PDF Author: Donald Rommes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cedar Mesa (San Juan County, Utah)
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description


The Haunted Mesa

The Haunted Mesa PDF Author: Louis L'Amour
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553899198
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
The Navajo called them the Anasazi, the “ancient enemy,” and their abandoned cities haunt the canyons and plateaus of the Southwest. For centuries the sudden disappearance of these people baffled historians. Summoned to a dark desert plateau by a desperate letter from an old friend, renowned investigator Mike Raglan is drawn into a world of mystery, violence, and explosive revelations. Crossing a border beyond the laws of man and nature, he will learn of the astonishing world of the Anasazi and discover the most extraordinary frontier ever encountered.

The Ancient Cliff Dwellers of Mesa Verde

The Ancient Cliff Dwellers of Mesa Verde PDF Author: Caroline Arnold
Publisher: StarWalk Kids Media
ISBN: 1630834203
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
Discusses the Native Americans known as the Anasazi, who migrated to southwestern Colorado in the first century A.D.