Anasazi origins project (AOPI)/Archaic Oshara project (AOPII)
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Irwin-Williams, Cynthia
setName: label: See more items in
content: Cynthia Irwin-Williams papers
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content: Cynthia Irwin-Williams papers / Series 1: Research / 1.1: Archaeology
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1962-1989
label: Date
content: undated
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The Anasazi Origins project (AOPI) and Archaic Oshara project (AOPII) are two distinct phases of the same work. The first phase, or Anasazi Origins project (1964-1973), focused on discovering the evolution of the people of the Southwest from the archaic hunter-gatherer society to the Anasazi sedentary culture. Excavations were conducted in northwestern New Mexico, primarily in the Arroyo Cuervo region. The study of these excavations led to the publication of Oshara Tradition: Origins of Anasazi Culture, Eastern New Mexico University Contributions in Anthropology, vol. 5, no. 3 (Eastern New Mexico University, 1973). The second phase, or Archaic Oshara project (1981-1990), sought to gain a fuller understanding of the Oshara tradition by analyzing artifacts excavated during the first phase and excavating new sites, using new methods of excavation and analysis. Irwin-Williams died before the work on AOPII was completed and before the results were published. The project was reexamined in Kenneth Blake Vernon and Brian F. Codding, Oshara Revisited: The Archaic Period in Northern New Mexico (University of New Mexico Press, 2017).