The Las Playas Project

Abstract

Nearly as many questions remain about the prehistory of the Western Papaguería as there were forty years ago despite several recent archaeological projects. It is still unresolved who occupied the area prehistorically, and what, if any, roles they played in the movement of resources such as salt, shell, and obsidian from their origins to Hohokam communities in the Salt, Gila, and Santa Cruz River Valleys. Their subsistence practices are still poorly understood, as well. The goal of the Las Playas Project was to attempt to answer some of these questions by conducting an archaeological survey around the three playas that constitute Las Playas. This paper will endeavor to reconstruct how individuals eked out a living in such a harsh environment, identify those individuals, and determine how and if they participated in the transfer of the valuable materials mentioned above. Aside from the archaeological evidence obtained from the survey, it is possible to examine ethnographic accounts to support our reconstruction of the events that formed the Las Playas sites.