Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/06/2015
All Day
Categories No Categories
By Deni J. Seymour, Ph.D.
Substantial advances have been made over the last couple of decades in understanding the protohistoric period in the southernmost Southwest as a result of targeted research. New insights are available for the Sobaipuri-O’odham, Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache, and the Jano, Jocome, Manso, and Suma—all groups who are known from historic documents to have occupied or traversed this area. One area research has focused is on projectile points. Yet, the small arrowheads recognized in southern Arizona for many of these culture groups are found throughout a much broader area, raising issues regarding cultural affiliation and diagnosticity, ways of measuring and classifying, and customary ways of perceiving cultural and material culture boundaries. Deeper understandings have arisen by recognizing the expansive and overlapping territories of these groups and the processes that result in the distribution of points found in the archaeological record. One result is that a new battlefield signature has been devised based on projectile point breakage patterns.
Arizona Archaeological Council’s Fall Conference in Sedona , November 6, 2015