Archaeological Investigations in the Rio Sahuaripa Region of Eastern
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Bulletin of Old Pueblo Archaeology Center Tucson, Arizona April 20151 Number 74, File 12 Archaeological Investigations in the Río Sahuaripa Region of Eastern Sonora, Mexico John Carpenter, Ph.D. Centro INAH Sonora View of northern Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental from Matarachi, looking east toward Chihuahua The Proyecto Arqueológico Río Sahuaripa y la Sierra Central (Sahuaripa River and Central Mountains Archaeological Project) of the Centro INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia) Sonora rep- resents the first systematic archaeological investigation of the Sahuaripa River basin, located in the ex- treme eastern margins of Sonora (Maps 1 and 2 in Old Pueblo Archaeology bulletin No. 74, File 2 – see Footnote 2 below). This project encompasses the region between approximately Guaguasari, in the muni- cipio of Yécora, and where the principal tributary arroyo arises in the Sierra Madre Occidental, northward to just beyond the Bato- Think about this: How does eastern Sonora archaeology comachi Ranch, situated at the confluence of the Río Sahuaripa and relate to that of the U.S. Southwest? Río Yaqui, in the municipio of Sahuaripa. The project area roughly comprises an area approximately 100 kilometers north to south by Also in this issue: some 50 kilometers east to west (ca. 62 x 31 miles), or a total of some 5000 square kilometers (1,022 square miles) and includes Castlehill Country Day School 4th Graders at portions of the municipios of Arivechi, Bacanora, Sahuaripa and the OPEN3 Simulated Excavation............. 10 Upcoming Activities ..................................... 13 Yécora. Maps to accompany Dr. Carpenter’s article in this file ........................................ File 2, p. 15 1 Issue no. 2 for the 2013 membership year. Due to production difficulties this issue was not actually published until 2015. 2 File 2 of this issue contains maps referred to in Dr. Carpenter’s lead article about the Proyecto Arqueológico Río Sahuaripa y la Sierra Central. Page 2 Old Pueblo Archaeology Number 74, File 1 A view of the Río Sahuaripa The primary research objectives include: 1) Reconstruct the cultural-historical occupation of this re- gion; 2) identify and define the cultural transitions manifest between the Río Sonora and Serrana archaeo- logical traditions previously defined by Richard Pailes; 3) define the southwestern limits of the Paquimé (Casas Grandes) interaction sphere; 4) examine the role this region played in regional and long distance exchange systems; 5) investigate the timing and nature of Opata-Pima interaction and/or intrusions; 6) document late Prehispanic sociopolitical organization; and 7) confirm the possible routes of the earliest Spaniards to traverse northwestern Mexico as well as document evidence for early seventeenth and eighteenth century Colonial/Historic period mining and ranching activities. Geographical and Environmental Setting The Sahuaripa River valley (see Map 2 in File 2, and photo on this page) is located approximately 300 kilometers (187 miles) south of the Arizona border and lies within what is among some of the most rug- ged terrain within the Sierra Madre Occidental physiographic province. The valley represents the eastern- most of the series of parallel basins and ranges that comprise a significant portion of Sonora, and lies at an average elevation of 650 meters (1,430 ft). In its natural state, the vegetation presents a dense and exuber- ant Sinaloan thornscrub dominated by various species of acacia and trees such as palo blanco (Ipomea ar- borescens), guayacan (Guaiacan coulter), and several species of torote (Bursera sp.) along with mesquite and palo verde, and punctuated by the columnar etcho cactus (Pachycereus pecten-aborignum), with oc- casional cholla, prickly pear, agave and barrel cactus intermixed. Ascending to the upper elevations of the Sierra Madre above 1,400 meters (4,593 ft) to the east are woodlands with numerous species of pine, fir, and oak. April 2015 Old Pueblo Archaeology Page 3 Arivechi looking west towards Cerro Cabez n and Los Pilares Previous Investigations Both Adolph and Carl Lumholtz offered general observations of the broader project area during the waning years of the nineteenth and nascent twentieth centuries. However, the first descriptions of archae- ological remains in the Sahuaripa Basin were provided by the self-described archaeogeographers, Carl Sauer and Donald Brand, in their pioneering monograph Prehistoric Settlements in Sonora, with Special Reference to Cerros de Trincheras, where they documented two habitation sites and indicated that this zone also denoted the southeastern limits of red-on-buff ceramics (the signature ware of southern Arizo- na’s Hohokam culture) and was located in what they perceived as part of the Río Sonora archaeological tradition, which had been described a few years earlier by Monroe Amsden. In the late 1930s, Gordon Ekholm conducted a brief reconnaissance in this region, documenting a total of nine sites within the valley and extending into the High Sierra to the east, including the two previously mentioned by Sauer and Brand. Ekholm also carried out limited testing and excavations of structures at his Site #55. Following a hiatus of 30 years, both Thomas Bowen and William Wasley of the Arizona State Museum recorded a few sites in the vicinity of Sahuaripa. A decade later, Victoria Dirst and Wil- liam Doolittle conducted brief visits to the area in association with Richard Pailes’ field project in the Río Sonora. Also, during this approximate period, Charles Di Peso noted the importance of Sahuaripa with respect to the long-distance exchange network between the West Mexico/Aztatlán tradition and Paquimé. Page 4 Old Pueblo Archaeology Number 74, File 1 According to his reconstruction (Map 3 in File 2), this same route served as the routes taken by de Vaca, de Niza, Coronado and Ibarra; this route enters the Río Sahuaripa basin from the headwa- ters of the Arroyo Cedros to the south. Di Peso also tried unsuc- cessfully to persuade Jane Kelley to undertake research in this re- gion, which he perceived to be critical with respect to regional developments (Jane Kelley, per- sonal communication, 2013). Subsequently, Carroll Riley, utilizing both ethnohistorical data and the archaeological data ema- nating from the Río Sonora pro- ject, proposed the existence of nine “statelets”; including one Mesa Colorada artifacts and archaeological features identified as Sahuaripa, although curiously situated much further to the north in the Bavispe Basin (see Map 4 in File 2). Additionally, some 40 archaeological sites located within and surrounding the project area are Regis- tered in the Centro INAH Sonora archives. These include a number of sites recorded during the 1990s as well as those sites previously recorded. Preliminary Project Results Regional reconnaissance (archaeological survey) projects offer the advantage of obtaining a great deal of information at relatively limited expense, and the first season was certainly successful in this regard. We were able to create a database that integrated the existing data with the new information documented in order to construct a preliminary regional culture history; cataloguing settlement types along with their associated artifact assemblages and the probable social, cultural, and chronological relationships evident between them. Although the information is as yet somewhat limited within each subregion, in the future we hope to continue additional regional reconnaissance, along with systematic full coverage pedestrian surveys with excavations among selected sites in order to explore the dynamics of the social networks present, community site hierarchies, and those sites pertaining to each archaeological or ethnographic tradition identified. Fifteen of the 39 archaeological sites we documented had been previously registered by INAH; how- ever, 10 of these, primarily in the vicinity of Sahuaripa, had been completely destroyed as a result of con- struction activities, field-leveling, or raw material extraction. The site inventory (Map 5 in File 2) includes 16 sites with evidence of architectural remains ranging from isolated masonry walls to residential sites with an identifiable plaza (Mesa Colorada) and a minimum of 20 visible structures (Mesa Colorada and Buenavista); four rockshelters; six sherd and stone artifact concentrations; two rock art localities; and one site with several roasting pits and possible pithouses. Mesa Colorada (site SON L:16:10) (Map 6 in File 2, and Mesa Colorada figure above), situated adja- cent to Sahuaripa, and Buenavista (SON P:4:2) (Map 7 in File 2 and Buenavista figure on page 5), located approximately 20 kilometers upriver (south) near the town of Arivechi (see photo on page 3), reflects the greatest degree of Prehispanic architectural complexity documented thus far, each with more than 20 visi- ble structures located on the second and third alluvial terraces overlooking the Río Sahuaripa. The Mesa Colorada site also appears to have a plaza defined on three sides by mounded room-blocks (possibly indi- April 2015 Old Pueblo Archaeology Page 5 cating two stories), with a dry-laid cobble wall enclosing the northern end, situated at the highest third terrace portion of the mesa. Two obsidian artifacts were also recov- ered from Mesa Colorada. At both sites, structures are indicated by both single and double cobble alignments, often with contiguous rooms evident, and both sites share the same ceramic types, pro- visionally designated as Sahuaripa