Ethnobotany of point of pines ruin Arizona W:10:50

Abstract

In the 13th Century a group of emigrants from northern Arizona settled among an indigenous people in east central Arizona. The immigrants occupied a block of rooms that later burned as a unit. The carbonized vegetal material in the rooms provides evidence concerning ethnobotany, the study of the inter-relationship between plants and man (Jones, 1941: 220). The significance of the plant material derives from integrating information on topography and plant ecology with traditional Southwestern Indian plant uses and archaeological data. The Point of Pines Ruin, Arizona W:10:50, is in east-central Arizona, 65 miles east of Globe and 40 miles north of Safford. The ruin was excavated between 1946 and 1960, when the University of Arizona maintained an archaeological field school at Point of Pines. Both the field school facilities and the ruin lie at the edge of Circle Prairie (elev. 6000 ft) where the gentler, northeastern slopes of the Nantack Ridge finger toward Circle Prairie as spurs (Fig. 1). The main ridge is about 51/2 miles southwest of Point of Pines, and extends from northwest to southeast. It has an average elevation of 6,500 feet, but reaches a maximum height of 7,600 feet (Woodbury, 1961). The southwest escarpment descends from approximately 6,500 feet to 5,000 feet at Ash Flat. Arizona W:10:50 began around A.D. 1200 as a cluster of pit houses and a contemporary adjacent masonry structure. Between 1280 and 1285 newrooms