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Despite the growing body of evidence demonstrating that proteins can survive for thousands to even millions of years in selected contexts, there are relatively few examples of the successful recovery and identification of archaeological protein residues from ceramic artifacts. Claims of positive results are sometimes contentious and frequently challenged. One source of confusion in the debate is a general lack of consideration for the taphonomic histories of ceramic-bound proteins. To gain insight into this issue, we conducted an integrated, mass spectrometry-based study examining ceramic-bound protein that was experimentally aged over the course of 12 months. Results demonstrate the rapid degradation of proteins, raise questions about the degree to which ceramic-bound proteins can be expected to survive over time, and reveal some of the limitations of non-targeted mass spectrometry-based analyses. Further, by comparing results from our experimentally-aged samples to the those we obtained from a multi-pronged study of archaeological ceramics from the American Southwest, we are able to draw more confident conclusions regarding our lack of meaningful matches in the archaeological samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turquoise has been used in the American Southwest since “time immemorial,” and remains an important material for contemporary indigenous groups of the region. Detailed studies of ancient turquoise mines are few, however, and inferences of turquoise procurement and provenance have been limited. Our intensive investigation of one mine, the Canyon Creek locale in Arizona, integrates archaeology and geochemistry to enhance understanding of the mine and its output. A detailed description of the mine's morphology and geologic setting lays foundations for interpreting an isotopic analysis of specimens from the mine's four localities. The analysis reveals extremely radiogenic Pb isotope ratios, which distinguish Canyon Creek turquoise from that of other known sources in the American Southwest. Its distinctive isotopic signature makes Canyon Creek turquoise readily identifiable in archaeological assemblages. The presence of turquoise from Canyon Creek at late prehispanic settlements in east-central Arizona helps clarify the mine's chronology of use and regional distribution. Our observations suggest the mine was larger than previously supposed, and that it provided an important source of turquoise for inhabitants of the region during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although aircraft-acquired lidar has proven to be a transformative technology for archaeology in forested regions around the world, drone-acquired lidar systems that could potentially offer higher-resolution imagery at much lower cost remain difficult to deploy in field settings, while the data they produce are prone to large errors and are challenging to process. This paper presents results of a study that employs a new ultra-compact drone-based lidar system, alongside aerial thermal and visible light imaging, to document ancient agricultural landscapes at Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico. We discuss the advantages of this new instrumentation, various approaches to field data collection, and as well as our novel data processing and filtering methods, which collectively offer key methodological advances for archaeological investigations using drone-based lidar. Results reveal extensive remains of a vast system of terraces and stone-built field systems, preserved below the modern piñon-juniper-ponderosa forests of the Picuris Reservation and surrounding areas. These findings offer new perspectives on the scale and intensity of past agricultural activities in this highland region of the American Southwest, while demonstrating the power of combining multiple drone-based remote sensing datasets with detailed surface surveys to aid in the discovery, mapping, and interpretation of archaeological landscapes in forested regions. • Drone-based lidar and thermal survey at Picuris Pueblo reveals vast archaeological landscape. • We detail novel approaches to drone lidar data collection, processing, and visualization. • We offer new perspectives on the extent of agricultural landscape features. • Results raise questions about past subsistence and environment in the Southwest. • Results demonstrate the power of multi-sensor drone surveys in archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most archaeological measures of population rely on material proxies uncovered through excavation (rooms, hearths, etc.), we identify a technique to estimate population at unexcavated sites (the majority of the archaeological record). Our case study focuses on ancestral Tewa Pueblo villages in northern New Mexico. Uninhabited aerial vehicle (UAV) and instrument mapping enables us to quantify the volume of adobe architectural rubble and to construct a decomposition model that estimates numbers of rooms and roofed over space. The resulting metric is applied at ten Pueblo villages in the region to ‘rebuild’ architecture, and calculate maximum architectural capacity and the maximum extent of population size. While our focus is on population histories for large Classic period (A.D. 1350–1598) pueblos in the American Southwest, the model and method may be applied to a variety of archaeological contexts worldwide and is not limited to building material, site size, or construction technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research presented here focuses on Santa Fe Black-on-white pottery produced during the Late Coalition/Early Classic Transition (AD 1250–1350) in the northern Rio Grande region, New Mexico. We combine design data with compositional analyses to gain a greater understanding of ceramic production and circulation in this region and to evaluate the communities of practice and communities of identity reflected in pottery. We combine mineralogical and INAA chemical compositional datasets to argue for at least three production provenances; we further argue that nine potential petrofacies represent different resource procurement zones within the production provenances. We argue that these data, combined, represent a minimum of three different communities of practice. Despite multiple communities of practice, similar designs were being used as decoration that reflects a single community of identity. We argue that during this transitional time period examined here, producers of Santa Fe Black-on-white were intentionally practicing a form of identity maintenance across all of the villages in which it was produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Thousands of turquoise artifacts have been recovered from archaeological sites in Chaco Canyon and other Ancestral Puebloan (formerly known as the Anasazi) sites across the San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico suggesting that turquoise was an important commodity in these ancient trade networks. Although the well documented group of turquoise deposits in the Cerrillos Hill have been the main contender for the geological source of Chacoan turquoise because they are the closest in proximity to the canyon, recent studies show that turquoise was obtained through long-distance trade networks that extended hundreds of kilometers to the west. To investigate Ancestral Puebloan turquoise procurement strategies and trade networks, we analyzed 74 turquoise artifacts from Puebloan sites in the San Juan Basin and the Virgin Puebloan area in southern Utah and the Moapa Valley in Nevada by a technique we developed that identifies the geological source of turquoise artifacts using the isotope ratios of hydrogen and copper and a comparative database that contains the isotope fingerprints of 22 turquoise resource areas. Here we present geochemical evidence of multiple turquoise trade routes into Chaco Canyon linking turquoise from the San Juan Basin with deposits along the Rio Grande Rift and resource areas in Nevada and the Mojave region of southeastern California. By linking Chacoan turquoise with the western turquoise resource areas, our data supports the proposal that the Virgin Puebloan may have played an important role in the movement of turquoise, shell, and salt to the San Juan Basin. Our turquoise sourcing technique establishes the foundation for future turquoise provenance studies in additional regions beyond the American Southwest including Mexico, South America, China, and Persia. The use of isotope ratios should be tested as unique discriminators for other complex minerals. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We present 12 accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C and five quartz single-grain optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages from three Early Agricultural period irrigation canals recently discovered in the floodplains of the Santa Cruz River and Rillito Creek in Tucson, Arizona. Significant discrepancies in the AMS 14C ages are associated with fluvial redeposition of charcoal, producing at times, age overestimates of ∼1000 years. Single-grain OSL ages on canal sediments and application of a minimum age model accurately date the final operation of the canals but have relatively large standard errors of several hundred years. Based on single-grain OSL, one canal dates 730–310 B.C. and the other two date 560–100 B.C. This corresponds with a period of predominant floodplain aggradation (∼500 B.C.–A.D. 1) conducive to water control and irrigation agriculture. Stratigraphic evidence of uncontrolled flooding and rapid sedimentation is present in all three canals and marks the abandonment of two canals. Determining the age of the earliest canals is important for understanding the origins of water management and the transition from foraging to intensive agriculture in the North American Southwest. Due to potential problems with reworked organic material for 14C dating and partial bleaching (resetting) of luminescence signals in fluvial settings, we recommend a combined AMS 14C and single-grain OSL approach for dating early canals. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Eight prehistoric wells dug to a depth of ∼2 m below the modern ground surface were found in the alluvial sediments of McClellan Wash on Gila River Indian Community in southern Arizona. Charcoal from the sediments filling the wells yielded radiocarbon ages of ∼1000 B.C. The time in which wells were dug coincides with a period of general regional aridity and high ENSO activity in the American Southwest. Digging to access water may have occurred in response to period(s) of resource uncertainty, or as a logistical activity that engaged increasingly resource-tethered Late Archaic/Early Agricultural populations. These activities laid the foundation for agricultural practices that eventually became the dominant mode of subsistence in the low-lying areas of the Sonoran Desert. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: X-ray fluorescence analysis of obsidian artifacts from sites located in Chaco Canyon and from three Chaco-era communities in New Mexico permits determination of their geological origin. These source data are used to describe patterning in obsidian procurement in sites located in Chaco Canyon dating from A.D. 500–1150, and in a three non-Canyon communities occupied during the period of Chaco Canyon''s regional prominence (ca. A.D. 875–1150). These data demonstrate that the most proximate sources generally dominate the sourced obsidian assemblages from sites of all periods, but also suggest differences in procurement patterning both over time and across space. Within Chaco Canyon, there is a notable shift from Mount Taylor obsidian to use of Jemez Mountains sources over time. These data also suggest that earlier analyses of obsidian from sites in Chaco Canyon misidentified some obsidian artifact sources; these new data indicate the central areas of disagreement and provide a revision of procurement patterning. In the Chaco-era communities located outside Chaco Canyon, procurement patterning diverges. The Blue J community shows an increase in use of the nearby Mount Taylor source over time. Two communities located toward the southern extent of the Chaco great house distribution reveal a markedly distinct procurement pattern, obtaining nearly all of their obsidian from southern sources largely unrepresented at Chaco Canyon. Combined, these data provide new insights into raw material procurement and artifact production at sites in Chaco Canyon, and in communities occupied during the Chaco Phenomenon, the period of the Canyon''s greatest regional influence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We propose the existence of extensive trade and interaction among the peoples of the American Southwest and Mesoamerica. We base this inference on our detection of the widespread presence of theobromine, the biomarker for cacao, in 50 of 75 vessels used by Ancestral Puebloans (previously referred to as Anasazi) elites and non-elites from the Four Corners area and Hohokam elites of the Gila and Salt river valleys in the prehistoric American Southwest. We used a non-invasive, non-destructive aqueous sampling procedure that provides conservation advantages over the current methods that require crushing and boiling sherds or removing residues from vessel surfaces. Analysis of these samples by sensitive LC-MS instrumentation capable of detecting nanogram quantities of material revealed theobromine in non-local vessel forms found in elite burials in great house and platform mound sites as well as in local vessel forms used by non-elites living in small unit-pueblos. After elimination of plants native to the Southwest as the source of theobromine, we conclude that either Theobroma cacao or Theobroma Bicolor was imported from its homeland in the Mesoamerican tropical coastal lowlands. Our results are at odds with the current consensus that there was little systematic commerce between Mesoamerican and Southwestern polities. We suggest that cacao was exchanged for high quality turquoise such as that mined in the Cerrillos, New Mexico mining district. We conclude that, far from being isolated developmentally, this trade integrally tied populations in the American Southwest to the socio-political and economic activities of Mesoamerican states. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The La Gila Encantada Site is located on an isolated ridge top north of Silver City, New Mexico in an area defined culturally as the Mimbres Mogollon region. The 180m×80m (14400m2) sized site was originally recorded as a dense scatter of ceramics, lithics, and ground stone along with a number of surface depressions that appear to represent pithouses. Cesium magnetometer surveys were conducted to identify hearths, pithouse boundaries, and activity areas outside of pithouses in support of archaeological investigations, and to test this instrument''s ability to image these features. This paper presents a characterization of the magnetic signature of a pithouse as a magnetic high in the center caused by the central hearth, low magnetic variability along the floor of the house, and then increased magnetic variability at the pithouse boundary. This characterization was successfully confirmed for three pithouses using cesium magnetometery and archaeological excavation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents the results of glaze-paint and slip analysis of 161 White Mountain Red Ware ceramic samples (AD 1275–1325) from east-central Arizona. Time of flight-laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (TOF-LA-ICP-MS) analysis is used (1) to establish viability of the technique for measuring chemical compositions of glazes and slips, and (2) to establish a methodology for inferring this structured variability, specifically delineating the presence of specific pigment mixtures or “recipes” used by prehistoric potters in the Greater Southwest. These data bear on archaeological questions about craft production, exchange, technology, and social organization. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Ancient DNA analysis was carried out on 20 archaeological rabbit remains from an early Pueblo II period site in Colorado (circa 1000 A.D.) to explore the possibility of obtaining accurate rabbit genus and species identifications. The presence of abundant rabbit remains at archaeological sites in the American Southwest indicates the importance of rabbit species in the subsistence economy and ritual activities of early aboriginal populations. The study of these remains is hindered by the difficulty of accurate identification due to the fragmentary nature of the bones and the lack of genus- and species-specific morphological features. A short cytochrome b gene fragment was amplified and sequenced to produce a genetic profile for each bone sample. At the genus level, the DNA identifications were consistent with those based on the analysis of mandible morphology for the majority of specimens. When compared to species-specific reference DNA sequences, Lepus americanus and Lepus californicus samples were easily identified. Identification of an unexpected L. americanus (snowshoe hare) from the remains provided new information concerning hunting ranges or exchange between groups in the region. Sylvilagus nuttallii and Sylvilagus audubonii, however, could not be confidently differentiated at this point due to the difficulty in obtaining accurate species-specific reference sequences. The inability to obtain such reference sequences can be a serious problem for DNA species identification of non-domestic animals that lack population-level genetic data and have few sequences available in GenBank. The lack of the DNA data increases the possibility that inappropriate reference sequences could be applied, resulting in false species identification even when authentic DNA is retrieved and amplified from ancient remains. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]