Nov 19Desert Archaeology shell specialist Chris Lange explores a fascinating bit of Sedentary period Hohokam craftwork. The Hohokam people were not only successful farmers and irrigation canal builders, but were also craftspeople, creating tools and ornaments out of bone, stone, and shell. The shell crafting tradition of the Hohokam sets them…
Apr 27Homer Thiel takes us on a road trip to Fairbank, Arizona, a ghost town just west of Tombstone, to explore not just the historic records of the town but the Hohokam settlement established in the same place a thousand years earlier. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Center…
Dec 9Desert Archaeology project director Homer Thiel documents a Tohono O’odham pottery firing session. Twice in the last year, Tohono O’odham potter Dr. Reuben Naranjo has held pottery firings in the backyard of Desert Archaeology project director Homer Thiel’s house. University of Arizona professor Lisa Molomot’s students filmed the first firing…
Aug 19Homer Thiel discusses ancient and historical cultural resources encountered on the grounds of the Historic Pima County Courthouse in Tucson during renovations and the construction of the January 8 Memorial. Pima County has recently completed the renovation of the 1929 Pima County Courthouse, now the home of the Southern Arizona…
Aug 9Homer Thiel talks about the Hardy Site and what the structures and artifacts recorded there teach us about Hohokam lifeways in the eastern Tucson Basin. The word Hohokam refers to the archaeological culture that existed in the Sonoran Desert from about AD 500 to 1450. The Hohokam are well known…
Aug 3Desert Archaeology project director Erina Gruner’s recent doctoral dissertation explored the exchange of ritual paraphernalia and exotic trade goods during the Chacoan and post-Chacoan periods (AD 875–1300) in the San Juan Basin, Here, she discusses the exchange of abalone shell by groups living in Arizona and New Mexico a thousand years…
Jun 7Homer Thiel explores how people living in the ancient Tucson Basin stored their food and goods before the advent of closets and SnapWare. The featured image above is from Rob Ciaccio’s reconstruction of lifeways at Honey Bee Village (see the link at end of this post). Recently a movement has…
Mar 23On the public opening of the Honey Bee Archaeological Preserve, we post R. J. Sliva's piece on the delicate balancing act of archaeological preservation and public outreach, written over the span of a few months last summer while monitoring the construction of the preserve’s access trail. “So... how is this…
Feb 9Desert Archaeology zooarchaeologist Jenny Waters teams with Homer Thiel this week to explore the go-to protein source for ancient inhabitants of the Sonoran Desert. Content advisory: this post contains a historic photograph of the aftermath of a jackrabbit hunt. Ten years ago Desert Archaeology conducted excavations at a portion of…
Nov 16Dr. Jenny Adams is Desert Archaeology's ground stone analyst, and is recognized both nationally and internationally as the authority in the field of ground stone technology. This week she talks about the basic tools of food grinding. When I first learned about manos and metates used in the U.S. Southwest…