Research Issues in the Prehistory of Central Arizona: The Central Arizona Water Control Study, Volume 1
Creators: name: Roessel, Katelyn
Publisher: name: Office of Cultural Resource Management, Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University
Year: 1984
Subjects: subject: Tonto National Forest
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/geographic-keyword/223/tonto-national-forest
subject: Theodore Roosevelt Lake
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/geographic-keyword/77954/theodore-roosevelt-lake
subject: Verde Valley
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/geographic-keyword/98/verde-valley
subject: Roosevelt
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/geographic-keyword/21448/roosevelt
subject: Hohokam
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/culture-keyword/21/hohokam
subject: Salado
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/culture-keyword/70/salado
subject: Huhugam
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/culture-keyword/8166/huhugam
subject: Archaic
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/culture-keyword/8/archaic
subject: Ceramic
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/material-type/1/ceramic
subject: Periodization Schemes of the Archaic in the Southwest
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/other-keyword/171071/periodization-schemes-of-the-archaic-in-the-southwest
subject: Archaic Period Radiocarbon
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/other-keyword/171072/archaic-period-radiocarbon
subject: Site Density
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/other-keyword/70512/site-density
subject: Hohokam Ceramic Chronlogy
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/other-keyword/171073/hohokam-ceramic-chronlogy
subject: Main River Channel
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/other-keyword/171074/main-river-channel
subject: Archaeological Overview
valueUri: https://core.tdar.org/browse/investigation-type/1/archaeological-overview

description: The Central Arizona Water Control Study provided the occasion to reassess the current state of our knowledge of the prehistory of the greater Salt-Gila Basin. There are two reasons for conducting this review. The first is to provide a baseline review of the current research questions, problems, and unknowns in our understanding of the prehistory of the area. The second purpose is to stimulate, through the examination of old ideas, the development of new views on the prehistory of this area. In this way contract archaeology serves both as the crucible for new ideas as well as the means for providing the data bases by which these new ideas are examined.
This overview discusses a series of research topics that need to be addressed in the research of south-central Arizona. The review begins with a consideration of the Archaic (preceramic) period and reviews a series of important issues. These include (1) the role of environmental fluctuations in Archaic adaptive shifts, (2) the accurate identification of Archaic "structural poses" within and between time intervals, (3) problems with Archaic periodization schemes, (4) the role of population growth in Archaic adaptive shifts, and (5) evidence for social differentiation during the Archaic in the Southwest.
Such an approach is not without problems. Unlike many other sciences, where any one phenomenon has multiple indicators and may be indirectly measured in a number of ways, the present state of archaeology is such that relatively few indicators, or means of measuring, multiple phenomena are available. The cumulative effect is that a single indicator may simultaneously refer to more than one phenomena. Because of the topical organization of this presentation, with the attendant use of some of the same indicators to address different topics, there will be certain redundancies in the data that will be presented in each topical discussion.