Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-q6k6v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T20:41:07.559Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Summary Prehistory and History of the Sierra Pinacate, Sonora

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Julian D. Hayden*
Affiliation:
Arizona State Museum, Tucson, Arizona

Abstract

The 600-sq.-mi. volcanic area of the Sierra Pinacate, in the desert of far northwestern Sonora, Mexico, comprises a geologic and ecologic enclave in which archaeological remains have been undisturbed by erosion. Following a late pluvial occupation by people of the San Dieguito complex, Phase I, the area was abandoned during the Altithermal and later reoccupied by the Amargosans, whose culture pattern, diverging from that of adjacent regions, developed several unique traits through the Amargosa Phase I and Phase II periods. Ceramics were never made by the Amargosan Pinacateños, who traded for pottery almost exclusively with the Yumans of the Lower Colorado River, and later of the Gila River, from about A.D. 700 until early in the 20th century. In historic times, the occupants of the Pinacate spoke a Papago dialect but were hostile to other Papagos and associated almost exclusively with the Yumans. Survivors of the isolated Pinacate band, nearly wiped out in 1851 by yellow fever, joined their relatives and neighbors, the Areneños or Sand Papagos, who also used Yuman pottery. It is proposed that the Amargosan Pinacateños were Uto-Aztecan speakers, and that, therefore, the Papago proper are descendants of the early Amargosan occupants of Papagueria.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Bolton, Herbert Eugene 1936 The Rim of Christendom. The MacMillan Company, New York.Google Scholar
Childs, Thomas 1954 Sketch of the “Sand Indians.” The Kiva, Vol. 19, Nos. 2–4, pp. 2739. Tucson.Google Scholar
Damon, Paul E. and Long, Austin 1962 Arizona Radiocarbon Dates III. Radiocarbon, Vol. 4, p. 246. New Haven.Google Scholar
Ezell, Paul H. 1954 An Archaeological Survey of Northwestern Papagueria. The Kiva, Vol. 19, Nos. 2–4, pp. 126. Tucson.Google Scholar
Ezell, Paul H. 1955 The Archaeological Delineation of a Cultural Boundary in Papagueria. American Antiquity, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 36774. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Fontana, Bernard L., Robinson, W. J., Cormack, C. W., and Leavitt, E. E. Jr. 1962 Papago Indian Pottery. University of Washington Press, Seattle.Google Scholar
Gifford, Edward W. 1946 Archaeology in the Puerto Peñasco Region, Sonora. American Antiquity, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 21421. Menasha.Google Scholar
Gray, Andrew B. 1856 Survey of a Route for the Southern Pacific Railroad on the 32nd Parallel, for the Texas Western Railroad Company. Wrightson and Company, Cincinnati.Google Scholar
Haury, Emil W. 1950 The Stratigraphy and Archaeology of Ventana Cave, Arizona. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, and University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Hayden, Julian D. 1965 Fragile-Pattern Areas. American Antiquity, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 2726. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Hornaday, William T. 1908 Camp-Fires on Desert and Lava. Charles Scribners Sons, New York.Google Scholar
Ives, Ronald L. 1959 Hace Cinquenta Anos. Explorer’s Journal, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 1724. Explorer’s Club, New York.Google Scholar
Johnson, Alfred E. 1963 The Trincheras Culture of Northern Sonora. American Antiquity, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 17486. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Karns, Harry J. 1954 Luz de Tierra Incognita. Arizona Silhouettes, Tucson.Google Scholar
Lumholtz, Carl 1912 New Trails in Mexico. T. Fisher Unwin, London and Leipsic.Google Scholar
Moriarty, James Robert 1966 Culture Phase Divisions Suggested by Typological Change Coordinated with Stratigraphically Controlled Radiocarbon Dating at San Diego. Anthropological Journal of Canada, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 2030. Ottawa.Google Scholar
Rogers, Malcolm J. 1935 Early Lithic Industries of the Lower Basin of the Colorado River and Adjacent Desert Areas. San Diego Museum Papers, No. 3. San Diego.Google Scholar
Rogers, Malcolm J. 1945 An Outline of Yuman Prehistory. Southwest Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 16798. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Rogers, Malcolm J. 1958 San Dieguito Implements from the Terraces of the Rincon-Pantano and Rillito Drainage Systems. The Kiva, Vol. 24, No. 1. Tucson.Google Scholar
Rogers, Malcolm J. 1966 Ancient Hunters of the Far West. Union-Tribune Publishing Company, San Diego.Google Scholar
Sauer, Carl and Brand, Donald D. 1934 Prehistoric Settlements of Sonora with Specific Reference to Cerros de Trincheras. University of California Publications in Geography, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 67148. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Sayles, E. B. and Antevs, Ernst 1941 The Cochise Culture. Medallion Papers, No. 29. Gila Pueblo, Globe.Google Scholar
Thomas, Robert K. 1963 Papago Land Use West of the Papago Reservation, South of the Gila River, and the Problem of Sand Papago Identity. Interviews by Robert K. Thomas 1953. Privately mimeographed at Ithaca, N. Y., for use before the Indian Claims Commission, and now in the public records.Google Scholar