Economic and Land-Use Implications of Prehistoric Fire-Cracked-Rock Piles, Northern Arizona

Abstract

Intensive archaeological survey of 14.5 sq km of the Upper Basin, an area located near the Grand Canyon's eastern South Rim in northern Arizona, has discovered 126 fire-cracked-rock piles that are surrounded by artifact scatters of varying size and assemblage composition. Because these phenomena are unprecedented in upland conifer ecosystems of the American Southwest, several hypotheses are explored regarding their formation histories. Analyses of artifact assemblages, botanical remains, pollen, and faunal remains recovered from four excavated sites indicate that they result from flaked-stone artifact production, ground-stone artifact reuse and recycling, ceramic-vessel-fragment recycling, and animal and plant processing. In addition, radiocarbon dates and temporally diagnostic projectile-points and ceramics imply that the sites differ in terms of frequency, intensity, and patterns of use, and with respect to the groups of people who formed them (Anasazi, Cohonina, Havasupai, or Hopi). Byproducts of a little-known, long-term land-use pattern in Southwestern prehistory (ca. A.D. 417–1650), these sites represent a key source of information for understanding how different sources of variability come to be expressed in archaeological landscapes.