Mimbres Area Research Articles

The Classic Mimbres Period in the Eastern Mimbres Area: Evidence from Ceramics, Architecture, and Settlement

Classic Mimbres (ca. AD 1010-mid 1100s) archaeology from the eastern Mimbres area is summarized in comparison to the Mimbres Valley. Focus is on material from sites excavated by the Eastern Mimbres Archaeological Project, including Avilas Canyon, Flying Fish, and Pague Well, and also the Berrenda Creek site. The eastern Mimbres is definitively part of the Mimbres tradition, although there is variability that patterns spatially. Analyses reveal differences between sites and subregions. Intersite differences include groundstone in walls, adobe collars on hearths, and square partitions in corners of rooms. In comparison to the Mimbres Valley, the eastern Mimbres has less intensive settlement, and less evidence of ritual, though clear continuity between the Classic and subsequent Postclassic. These different characteristics are attributed to different social practices, including land tenure systems which engender social inequality that were present in the Mimbres Valley but not the eastern Mimbres.

Understanding Past Climate-Related Migration for Our Warming World

As anthropogenic climate warming and associated climate extremes increase, insights from a century of effort in the US Southwest to understand climate-related migration should be shared to assist with modern drought planning efforts. Toward this end, we make two parallel contributions. First, we contribute a surprising finding from our work in the Mimbres area of the AD 1100s and the central Arizona area during the AD 1200–1450 period. We find people with access to the most water in this arid landscape were also the most likely to migrate when confronted with dry conditions. Second, we use these results to demonstrate how the past can be helpful to modern drought planners and others preparing for a warming climate. Millions of smallholder farmers today practice agricultural strategies similar to those in the past. We aim to stimulate archaeological efforts to address the challenges of a warming world.

Archaeogenomic evidence from the southwestern US points to a pre-Hispanic scarlet macaw breeding colony

Hundreds of scarlet macaw (Ara macao cyanoptera) skeletons have been recovered from archaeological contexts in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico (SW/NW). The location of these skeletons, >1,000 km outside their Neotropical endemic range, has suggested a far-reaching pre-Hispanic acquisition network. Clear evidence for scarlet macaw breeding within this network is only known from the settlement of Paquimé in NW dating between 1250 and 1450 CE. Although some scholars have speculated on the probable existence of earlier breeding centers in the SW/NW region, there has been no supporting evidence. In this study, we performed an ancient DNA analysis of scarlet macaws recovered from archaeological sites in Chaco Canyon and the contemporaneous Mimbres area of New Mexico. All samples were directly radiocarbon dated between 900 and 1200 CE. We reconstructed complete or near-complete mitochondrial genome sequences of 14 scarlet macaws from five different sites. We observed remarkably low genetic diversity in this sample, consistent with breeding of a small founder population translocated outside their natural range. Phylogeographic comparisons of our ancient DNA mitogenomes with mitochondrial sequences from macaws collected during the last 200 years from their endemic Neotropical range identified genetic affinity between the ancient macaws and a single rare haplogroup (Haplo6) observed only among wild macaws in Mexico and northern Guatemala. Our results suggest that people at an undiscovered pre-Hispanic settlement dating between 900 and 1200 CE managed a macaw breeding colony outside their endemic range and distributed these symbolically important birds through the SW.

Long-Term Interactions of People and Animals in the Mimbres Region, Southwest New Mexico AD 200–1450

Understanding how people maintain long-term access to animals for food and other uses is important in the context of archaeology and may also have implications for contemporary societies’ access to animal resources. This study gathers information from 70 sets derived from existing data and museum collections to examine the long-term record of human population and settlement patterns, land use, and animal remains at archaeological sites in the Mimbres area. In some periods, the increasing aggregation of the population and the increasing sedentism contributed to altered environments near the villages and for that reason, the access to certain resources became more difficult. The recovery of some animal populations is also evident during periods when many human residents left the area to live elsewhere. These long-term trends demonstrate the power of recovery of different animal species to human hunting and anthropogenic changes in the landscape.

Early Mimbres households: Exploring the Late Pithouse period (550–1000 AD) at the Florida Mountain Site

Many studies have explored the household to understand social organization, production, and other dynamics of societies throughout the world. In this work, the approach outlined by Richard Wilk and colleagues is used to investigate households at the Florida Mountain Site, an intermittently occupied Late Pithouse period (550–1000AD) residential site in the Mimbres Mogollon area of Southwestern New Mexico. Drawing on the similarities of this intermittent residential site to contemporaneous pitstructure sites in the Mimbres area, we suggest that one or more household units occupied the site. Our analysis also supports previous inferences that Mimbres households were integrated into more inclusive levels of social organization (e.g., extended kin groups, villages, communities), but also indicate that this integration maintained cohesion during seasonal residential movements from more permanently occupied pitstructure sites.

Ritual Construction, Use and Retirement of Mimbres Three Circle Phase Great Kivas

Three Circle phase great kivas in the Mimbres area of southwest New Mexico have been the subject of new field investigations and reanalysis of data from earlier excavations. The findings have led to an enhanced and more detailed understanding of physical changes in these special buildings during the Three Circle phase, particularly with regard to dating and ritual behaviors associated with construction, use, and formal retirement.

A tale of two sites: Functional site differentiation and lithic technology during the Late Pithouse period in the Mimbres area of Southwestern New Mexico

The raw materials from which stone tools are made can provide considerable information relevant to behavioral variation within a prehistoric population. By examining the stone used for tools from two different types of Late Pithouse period (A.D. 550–1000) residential sites from the Mimbres Mogollon area of Southwestern New Mexico, this paper illustrates how understanding the lithic landscape of a region provides a means to assess behavioral variation in stone procurement practices. The analysis indicates that the differences in mobility and economic pursuits between longer-term residential sites containing pit structures and a shorter-term seasonal residential site with ephemeral architecture structured the raw material procurement practices of site’s occupants. Pit structure sites were focused on agricultural pursuits and used a technology that centered on the production of informal tools fashioned from locally available raw materials. The seasonal residential site focused on wild resources and evidenced greater reliance on formal tool production using raw materials acquired from beyond the immediate vicinity of the site. Despite increasing sedentism and agricultural dependence of the region’s population, some portion of the population exercised seasonal mobility strategies and associated technological and behavioral practices more typical of hunting and gathering populations, suggesting a diverse socio-economic system within the region.

A REEVALUATION OF THE MOGOLLON-MIMBRES ARCHAEOLOGICAL SEQUENCE

A new series of radiocarbon and tree-ring dates from the Mimbres area of the Mogollon region has modified the accepted chronology in the area. Recent work in the Mogollon-Mimbres area has firmly established the existence of a plain ware pit house period dated about a.d. 200–550. The dates of phases between a.d. 550–1000 have been modified, and the termination of the Classic period is dated at a.d. 1150. The Mangas phase is dropped, and it is shown that black-on-white ceramics and puebloan architecture do not appear almost simultaneously as previously believed. These changes have implications for the investigation of past settlement subsistence and social interaction patterns in southwestern New Mexico.

Obsidian procurement, least cost path analysis, and social interaction in the Mimbres area of southwestern New Mexico

For over 15 years chemical compositional analyses of obsidian artifacts recovered from archaeological sites in the southwestern United States have been increasingly used to address many research agendas. Despite this increasing interest in obsidian studies, few have attempted to synthesize the ever-growing amount of data generated from the numerous projects being conducted in the southwest. Here, we synthesize and present data for 923 sourced obsidian samples recovered from over 80 archaeological sites in the Mimbres area of southwestern New Mexico. We then use least cost path analysis as a means of investigating procurement patterns as well as networks of social interaction within the region.

Prehistoric Macaws and Parrots in the Mimbres Area, New Mexico

Macaws and parrots were important birds in prehistoric Mimbres-area communities by A.D. 1000. Scarlet macaws (Ara macao) apparently were imported into the area from the tropical lowlands in Mexico, but one other species each of macaw (Ara militaris) and parrot (Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha) probably could have been obtained from much closer natural ranges. Macaws in particular evidently were of special, perhaps ceremonial, importance as indicated by consistent age at death, probably reflecting sacrifice in the spring, and by deliberate intramural burial, often in special rooms in the community. The sacrificing of macaws and the season in which it occurred were consistent in Mimbres and contemporaneous sites and began a pattern that continued in the Southwest perhaps until historic times.

Prehistoric agricultural terraces and soils in the Mimbres area, New Mexico

Abstract Soils at some prehistoric agricultural sites in New Mexico were investigated to study agricultural adaptation in a semi‐arid mountainous region, evaluate soil productivity, and determine long‐term effects of agriculture on the physical environment. The sites, farmed during the Mimbres Classic period (about AD 1000 to 1150), occur within certain geomorphic settings, implying a strategy to optimize climatic and hydrologic conditions for runoff agriculture. The landscape was modified by terracing, which probably served to reduce runoff velocity, increase soil moisture, and thicken the naturally thin A horizon. Comparisons of prehistoric agricultural soils with nearby, similarly developed, uncultivated soils indicate significant differences in soil properties over eight centuries after farming ceased. Soil changes resulting from the prehistoric agriculture were mostly degradative, including accelerated erosion, compaction, and reduced concentrations of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Despi...

A Primary Cremation at the NAN Ranch Ruin, with Comparative Data on Other Cremations in the Mimbres Area, New Mexico

A Primary Cremation at the NAN Ranch Ruin, with Comparative Data on Other Cremations in the Mimbres Area, New Mexico

A Primary Cremation at the NAN Ranch Ruin, with Comparative Data on Other Cremations in the Mimbres Area, New Mexico

AbstractIn 1980 a primary cremation was excavated at the NAN Ranch Ruin in Grant County, New Mexico. This cremation has been dated to the Three Circle Phase (A.C. 750–1000) of the Late Pithouse Period (A.C. 550–1000) on the basis of both stratigraphy and archaeomagnetic dating. Cremation was a rare form of mortuary treatment at the NAN Ranch Ruin and was equally rare in a review of other Three Circle Phase and Classic Period (A.C. 1000–1150) sites in the Mimbres region. During these periods, cremations were interred in special rooms and special areas within the community proportionally more often than were inhumations; and cremations were much more likely to have projectile points accompanying them. These fact and the rare occurrence of cremation during these phases are perhaps most easily attributed to unusual conditions of death, although some cremations may represent individuals with higher status.During the following Black Mountain Phase (A.C. 1150–1350), cremation became a more frequently–used method...

A Reevaluation of the Mogollon-Mimbres Archaeological Sequence

A new series of radiocarbon and tree-ring dates from the Mimbres area of the Mogollon region has modified the accepted chronology in the area. Recent work in the Mogollon-Mimbres area has firmly es...