Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T17:18:24.243Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transformation by Fire: Changes in Funerary Customs from the Early Agricultural to Early Preclassic Period among Prehispanic Populations of Southern Arizona

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2019

Jessica I. Cerezo-Román  and
James T. Watson
Jessica I. Cerezo-Román*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma, 455 W. Lindsey St., Dale Hall Tower, Room 509, Norman, OK73019, USA
James T. Watson
Affiliation:
Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, 1013 E. University Blvd., PO Box 210026, Tucson, AZ85721-0026, USA (watsonjt@email.arizona.edu)
*
(jessica.cerezoroman@ou.edu, corresponding author)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We examine the changes in funerary rituals from the Early Agricultural period (2100 BC–AD 50) to the Early Preclassic period (AD 475–750) and how these changes concurrently reflect changes in social relationships between the dead, their families, and the community. The predominant mortuary ritual in the Early Agricultural period was inhumation, possibly emphasizing a variety of identity intersections of the dead and the mourners in the treatment of the body while creating collective memories and remembrances through shared ways of commemorating the dead. An innovation in funerary practices in the form of secondary cremation appeared in the Early Agricultural period and was slowly but broadly adopted, representing new social dynamics within the society. Thereafter, secondary cremation became the main funeral custom. During the Early Preclassic period, the variation in body position and the type and quantity of objects found with individuals decreased. It is possible that the vehicle for displaying different identity intersections changed and was not placed in the body, per se, as much as in previous periods. However, the transformation characteristics of these funeral rituals and the increase in community investment could have fostered the building or reinforcing of stronger social ties that highlighted a “collective identity.”

En este artículo se examinan cambios en los rituales funerarios del período Agrícola Temprano (2100 aC–dC 50) hasta el período Preclásico Temprano (dC 475–750) y cómo estos cambios modificaron las relaciones sociales entre los muertos, sus familias y la comunidad. Los rituales mortuorios predominantes en el período Agrícola Temprano fueron inhumaciones caracterizadas por variaciones en la posición y ubicación del cuerpo, posiblemente enfatizando la individualidad de los sujetos. Estos rituales cambiaron en el período Preclásico y la cremación se convirtió en la práctica dominante. Las cremaciones durante este período fueron principalmente depósitos secundarios con bajas cantidades de hueso ubicadas en cementerios adyacente a grupos de habitacionales. A través de estas cremaciones la membresía al grupo social se enfatizó. Los resultados sugieren que las razones de cambios en los rituales funerarios a través del tiempo fueron multicausales. Sin embargo, estos cambios reflejan identidades grupales emergentes con una fuerte cohesión social, consistente con los patrones observados en otras evidencias arqueológicas del área.

Keywords

HohokamcremationinhumationEarly Agricultural periodPreclassic periodfiremortuary practicesHohokamcremacionesinhumacionesperíodo Agrícola Tempranoperíodo Preclásico Tempranofuegoprácticas mortuorias
Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 132 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by the Society for American Archaeology

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

Arizona State Museum 2018 ASM Osteology Recording Packet. Cultural Resource Services Forms & Guidelines. Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. Electronic document, https://statemuseum.arizona.edu/file/712, accessed August 28, 2019.Google Scholar
Bayman, James M. 2001 The Hohokam of Southwest North America. Journal of World Prehistory 15:257–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, Lane A. 2005 Secondary Burial Practices in Hohokam Cremations. In Interacting with the Dead: Perspectives on Mortuary Archaeology for the New Millennium, edited by Rakita, Gordon F. M., Buikstra, Jane E., Beck, Lane A., and Williams, Sloan R., pp. 150–154. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Bernard-Shaw, Mary 1990 Archaeological Investigations at the Lonetree Site, AA:12:120(ASM), in the Northern Tucson Basin. Technical Report No. 90–1. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Bloch, Maurice, and Parry, Jonathan (editors) 1982 Death and the Regeneration of Life. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buikstra, Jane E., and Nystrom, Kenneth C. 2003 Embodied Traditions: The Chachapoya and Inka Ancestors. In Theory, Method and Practice in Modern Archaeology, edited by Jeske, Robert and Charles, Douglas K., pp. 29–48. Praeger Press, London.Google Scholar
Buikstra, Jane E., and Ubelaker, Douglas H. (editors) 1994 Standards for Data Collection from Human Skeletal Remains: Proceedings of a Seminar at the Field Museum of Natural History. Arkansas Archaeological Survey, Fayettevilla, Arkansas.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith 1993 Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex". Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Byrd, Rachael M., Watson, James T., Fish, Paul R., and Fish, Suzanne K. 2012 Architecture and the Afterlife: A Spatial Analysis of Mortuary Behavior at University Indian Ruin. Journal of Arizona Archaeology 2:101–111.Google Scholar
Cerezo-Román, Jessica I. 2014 Pathways to Personhood: Cremation as a Social Practice among the Tucson Basin Hohokam. In Transformation by Fire: The Archaeology of Cremation in Cultural Context, edited by Kuijt, Ian, Quinn, Colin P., and Cooney, Gabriel, pp. 148–167. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Cerezo-Román, Jessica I. 2015 Unpacking Personhood and Identity in the Hohokam Area of Southern Arizona. American Antiquity 80:353–375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cerezo-Román, Jessica I., Deforce, Koen, Henrotay, Denis, and van Neer, Wim 2017 From Life to Death: Dynamics of Personhood in Gallo-Roman Funerary Customs, Luxemburg Province, Belguim. In Cremation and the Archaeology of Death, edited by Cerezo-Román, Jessica I., Wessman, Anna, and Williams, Howard, pp. 148–176. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Cerezo-Román, Jessica I., and Fenn, Thomas R. 2016 Cremation and Pyro-technology among the Prehispanic Hohokam of Southern Arizona. Poster presented at the 15th Biennial Southwest Symposium, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Cerezo-Román, Jessica I., and McClelland, John A. 2009 Mortuary Practices at Yuma Wash and the Hohokam Classic World. In Archaeological Investigations at Five Sites West of the Santa Cruz River in Marana, Arizona, edited by MacWilliams, A. C. and Dart, Allen, pp. 6.1–6.22. Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Ciolek-Torrello, Richard (editor) 1998 Early Farmers of the Sonoran Desert: Archaeological Investigations at the Houghton Road Site, Tucson, Arizona. Technical Series No. 72. Statistical Research, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Conway, Steve, and Steward, Fred 2009 Managing and Shaping Innovation. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Copeland, Audrey, Quade, Jay, Watson, James T., McLaurin, Brett T., and Villalpando, Elisa 2012 Stratigraphy and Geochronology of La Playa Archaeological Site, Sonora, Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Science 39:2934–2944.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dart, Allen 1986 Archaeological Investigations at La Paloma: Archaic and Hohokam Occupations at the Three Sites in the Northeastern Tucson Basin, Arizona. Anthropological Papers 4. Institute for American Research, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Dongoske, Kurt E. 1990 Human Remains at Lonetree. In Archaeological Investigations at the Lonetree Site, AA:12:120 (ASM), in the Northern Tucson Basin, edited by Bernard-Shaw, Mary, pp. 193–195. Technical Report No. 90-1. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Dongoske, Kurt E. 1993 Burial Population and Mortuary Practices. In Archaic Occupation on the Santa Cruz Flats: The Tator Hills Archaeological Project, edited by Halbirt, Carl D. and Henderson, Kathleen T., pp. 173–182. Northland Research, Flagstaff, Arizona.Google Scholar
Downes, Jane 1999 Cremation: A Spectacle and a Journey. In The Loved Body's Corruption: Archaeological Contributions to the Study of Human Mortality, edited by Downes, Jane and Pollard, Tony, pp. 19–29. Cruithne Press, Glasgow, UK.Google Scholar
Doyel, David E. 1991 Hohokam Exchange and Interaction. In Chaco and Hohokam: Prehistoric Regional Systems in the American Southwest, edited by Crown, Patricia L. and James Judge, W., pp. 225–252. SAR Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Eddy, Frank W. 1958 A Sequence of Cultural and Alluvial Deposits in the Cienega Creek Basin, Southeastern Arizona. Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
Feinman, Gary M. 1991 Hohokam Archaeology in the Eighties: An Outside View. In Exploring the Hohokam: Prehistoric Desert Peoples of the American Southwest, edited by Gumerman, George J., pp. 461–483. Amerind Foundation New World Studies. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Freeman, Andrea K. (editor) 1998 Archaeological Investigations at the Wetlands Site, AZ AA:12:90 (ASM). Technical Report 97-5. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Gell, Alfred 1998 Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Clarendon Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Gladwin, Harold S., and Haury, Emil W. 1937 Excavations at Snaketown: Material Culture. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Gosden, Chris, and Marshall, Yvonne 1999 The Cultural Biography of Objects. World Archaeology 31:169–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregonis, Linda M. 1997 The Hardy Site at Fort Lowell Park, Tucson, Arizona. Archaeological Series No. 175. Arizona State Museum, Tucson.Google Scholar
Gregory, David A. (editor) 2001a Excavations in the Santa Cruz River Floodplain: The Early Agricultural Period Component at Los Pozos. Anthropological Papers No. 21. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Gregory, David A. 2001b Variation and Trend During the Early Agricultural period. In Excavations in the Santa Cruz River Floodplain: The Early Agricultural Period Component at Los Pozos, edited by Gregory, David A., pp. 255–280. Anthropological Papers No. 21. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Gumerman, George J. (editor) 1991 Exploring the Hohokam Prehistoric Peoples of the American Southwest. Amerind Foundation New World Studies. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Hallam, Elizabeth, and Hockey, Jennifer 2001 Death, Memory, and Material Culture. Berg, Oxford.Google Scholar
Hertz, Robert, Needham, Rodney, and Needham, Claudia 1960 Death and the Right Hand: A Contribution to the Study of the Collective Representation of Death, translated by Rodney Needham and Claudia Needham. Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois.Google Scholar
Huckell, Bruce B. 1995 Of Marshes and Maize: Preceramic Settlements in the Cienega Valley, Southeastern Arizona. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona No. 59. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Jones, Andrew 2001 Drawn from Memory: The Archaeology of Aesthetics and the Aesthetics of Archaeology in Earlier Bronze Age Britain and the Present. World Archaeology 33:334–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Andrew 2003 Technologies of Remembrance. In Archaeologies of Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies, edited by Williams, Howard, pp. 65–88. Springer, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joyce, Rosemary A., and Lopiparo, Jeanne 2005 PostScript: Doing Agency in Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12:365–374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kern, Anton, Kowarik, Kerstin, Rausch, Andreas W., and Reschreiter, Hans 2008 Salz-Reich: 7000 Jahre Hallstatt. Veröffentlichungen der Prähistorischen Abteilung 2. Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna.Google Scholar
Kuijt, Ian 2008 The Regeneration of Life: Neolithic Structures of Symbolic Remembering and Forgetting. Current Anthropology 49:171–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mabry, Jonathan B. 1997 The Santa Cruz Bend Site, AZ AA:12:746 (ASM). In Archaeological Investigations of Early Village Sites in the Middle Santa Cruz Valley, edited by Mabry, Jonathan B., Swartz, Deborah L., Wöcherl, Helga, Clark, Jeffery, Archer, Gavin H., and Lindeman, Michael W., pp. 229–280. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Mabry, Jonathan B. 1998 Conclusion. In Archaeological Investigations of Early Village Sites in the Middle Santa Cruz Valley: Analyses and Synthesis Part II, edited by Mabry, Jonathan B., pp. 757–791. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Mabry, Jonathan B. 2000 The Red Mountain Phase and the Origins of Hohokam Village. In The Hohokam Village Revisited, edited by Doyel, David E., Fish, Suzanne K., and Fish, Paul R., pp. 37–63. Southwestern and Rocky Mountain Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fort Collins, Colorado.Google Scholar
Mabry, Jonathan B. 2005 Changing Knowledge and Ideas about the First Farmers in Southeastern Arizona. In The Late Archaic across the Borderlands: From Foraging to Farming, edited by Vierra, Bradley J., pp. 41–83. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Mabry, Jonathan B. 2008 Las Capas: Early Irrigation and Sedentism in a Southwestern Floodplain. Anthropological Papers No. 28. Center for Desert Archaeology Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Mabry, Jonathan B., Swartz, Deborah L., Wöcherl, Helga, Clark, Jeffery J., Archer, Gavin H., and Lindeman, Michael W. (editors) 1997 Archaeological lnvestigations of Early Village Sites in the Middle Santa Cruz Valley: Descriptions of the Santa Cruz Bend, Square Hearth, Stone Pipe, and Canal Sites. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Madsen, John H., Fish, Paul R., and Fish, Suzanne K. (editors) 1993 The Northern Tucson Basin Survey: Research Directions and Background Studies. Archaeological Series 182. Arizona State Museum, Tucson.Google Scholar
McClelland, John A. 2005 Bioarchaeological Analysis of Early Agricultural Period Human Skeletal Remains from Southern Arizona. In Subsistence and Resources Use Strategies of Early Agricultural Communities in Southern Arizona, edited by Diehl, Michael W., pp. 153–168. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
McClelland, John A., Dayhoff, Robert, and Klimas, Thomas 2006 Human Burials. In Rio Nuevo Archaeology Program, 2000–2003: Investigations at the San Agustín Mission and Mission Gardens, Tucson Presidio, Tucson Pressed Brick Company, and Clearwater Site, edited by Homer Thiel, J. and Mabry, Jonathan B., pp. 18.11–18.15. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Meskell, Lynn, and Preucel, Robert W. 2004 Identities. In A Companion to Social Archaeology, edited by Meskell, Lynn and Preucel, Robert W., pp. 121–141. Wiley-Blackwell, New York.Google Scholar
Metcalf, Peter, and Huntington, Richard 1991 Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual. 2nd. ed.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minturn, Penny D., and Lincoln-Babb, Lori 1995 Bioarchaeology of the Donaldson Site and Los Ojitos. In Of Marshes and Maize: Preceramic Settlements in the Cienega Valley, Southeastern Arizona, by Huckell, Bruce B., pp. 106–116. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona No. 59. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Minturn, Penny D., and Lincoln-Babb, Lori 2001 Human Osteological Remains. In Excavations in the Santa Cruz River Floodplain: The Early Agricultural Period Component at Los Pozos, edited by Gregory, David A., pp. 303–304. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Mizoguchi, Koji 1993 Time in the Reproduction of Mortuary Practices. World Archaeology 25:223–235.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pauketat, Timothy R., and Alt, Susan M. 2005 Agency in a Postmold? Physicality and the Archaeology of Culture-Making. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12:213–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rakita, Gordon F. M., and Buikstra, Jane E. 2005 Corrupting Flesh: Reexamining Hertz's Perspective on Mummification and Cremation. In Interacting with the Dead: Perspectives on Mortuary Archaeology for the New Millennium, edited by Rakita, Gordon F. M., Buikstra, Jane E., Beck, Lane A., and Williams, Sloan R., pp. 97–106. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Rebay-Salisbury, Katharina 2017 Rediscovering the Body: Cremation and Inhumation in Early Iron Age Central Europe. In Cremation and the Archaeology of Death, edited by Cerezo-Román, Jessica I., Wessman, Anna, and Williams, Howard, pp. 52–71. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Rice, Glen E. 2016 Sending the Spirits Home: The Archaeology of Hohokam Mortuary Practices. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Roth, Barbara J., and Wellman, Kevin 2001 New Insights into the Early Agricultural Period in the Tucson Basin: Excavations at the Valley Farms Site (AZ AA:12: 736). Kiva 67:59–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spier, Leslie 1933 Yuman Tribes of the Gila River. Ethnological Series. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Swartz, Deborah L. 2008 Life in the Foothills: Archaeological Investigations in the Tortolita Mountains of Southern Arizona. Anthropological Papers No. 46. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Swartz, Deborah L., and Lindeman, Michael W. 1997 The Stone Pipe Site, AZ BB:13:425 (ASM). In Archaeological Investigations of Early Village Sites in the Middle Santa Cruz Valley, edited by Mabry, Jonathan B., Swartz, Deborah L., Archer, Gavin H., and Lindeman, Michael W., pp. 281–418. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, AZ.Google Scholar
Turner, Victor W. 1967 The Forest of Symbols. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York.Google Scholar
van Gennep, Arnold 1960 The Rites of Passage. Translated by Vizedom, Monika B. and Caffee, Gabrielle L.. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Wallace, Henry D. 2001 Time Seriation and Typological Refinement of the Middle Gila Buffware Sequence: Snaketown Through Soho Phase. In The Grewe Archaeological Research Project, Volume 2, Part I: Ceramic Studies, edited by Abbot, David R., pp. 177–262. Anthropological Paper No. 99-1. Northland Research, Tempe, Arizona.Google Scholar
Wallace, Henry D. 2004 Update to the Middle Gila Buff Ware Ceramic Sequence. In Hohokam Farming on the Salt River Floodplain: Refining Models and Analysis Methods, edited by Henderson, Kathleen T., pp. 45–124. Anthropological Paper No. 43. Center for Desert Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Wallace, Henry D. 2007 Hohokam Beginnings. In The Hohokam Millennium, edited by Fish, Paul R. and Fish, Suzanne K., pp. 13–21. SAR Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Wallace, Henry D. (editor) 2012 Life in the Valley of Gold: Archaeological Investigations at Honey Bee Village, a Prehistoric Hohokam Ballcourt Village, Part 1. Archaeology Southwest, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Wallace, Henry D., Heidke, James M., and Doelle, Wiliam H. 1995 Hohokam Origins. Kiva 60:575–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, Henry D., and Lindeman, Michael W. 2012 Hohokam Village Formation in the Phoenix and Tucson Basins. In Southwestern Pithouse Communities, AD 200–900, edited by Young, Lisa C. and Herr, Sarah A., pp. 34–44. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Waters, Michael R., and Haynes, C. Vance 2001 Late Quaternary Arroyo Formation and Climate Change in the American Southwest. Geology 29:399–402.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, James T., Fields, Misty, and Martin, Debra L. 2010 Introduction of Agriculture and Its Effects on Women's Oral Health. American Journal of Human Biology 22:92–102.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whittlesey, Stephanie 1995 Mogollon, Hohokam, and O'otam: Rethinking the Early Formative Period in Southern Arizona. Kiva 60:465–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilcox, David R. 1988 The Regional Context of the Brady Wash and Picacho Area Sites. In Hohokam Settlement along the Slopes of the Picacho Mountains: Synthesis and Conclusions, edited by Ciolek-Torrello, Richard and Wilcox, David R., pp. 244–267. Tucson Aqueduct Project Vol. 6. Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff.Google Scholar
Williams, Howard 2003 Remembering and Forgetting in Medieval Dead. In Archaeologies of Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies, edited by Williams, Howard, pp. 227–254. Springer, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Howard 2004 Death Warmed Up: The Agency of Bodies and Bones in Early Anglo-Saxon Cremation Rites. Journal of Material Culture 9:263–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Howard 2006 Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Howard 2011 Cremation & Present Pasts: A Contemporary Archaeology of Swedish Memory Grove. Mortality 16:113–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Howard 2013 Death, Memory, and Material Culture: Catalystic Commemoration and the Cremated Dead. In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial, edited by Tarlow, Sarah and Stutz, Liv Nilsson, pp. 195–208. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Wills, Wirt H. 1995 Archaic Foraging and the Beginning of Food Production in the American Southwest. In Last Hunters–First Farmers: New Perspectives on the Prehistoric Transition to Agriculture, edited by Price, T. Douglas and Gebauer, Anne Brigitte, pp. 215–242. SAR Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Google Scholar