Pithouses and Placemaking on the Southern Colorado Plateau

Pithouse period settlement on the southern Colorado Plateau was the subject of vibrant research in the mid-twentieth century as Southwest archaeologists explored the validity of the Mogollon and Anasazi archaeological culture areas. In subsequent years the region became a laboratory for anthropology, as the rich data lent itself to studies of population dynamics in the famously heady days of New Archaeology. Since the mid-1970s, research on these first millennium A.D. sites has been confined to cultural resource management projects. In this poster we revisit earlier research – particularly excavations by Rogge and the Southwest Expedition at the Connie Site (A.D. 400-600) and Webb Tank site (A.D. 600-850) -- and introduce new excavations by Desert Archaeology at the Beethoven site (A.D. 600-850) in the State Route 77 right-of-way to explore what pithouse settlements can tell us about settlement, mobility, and aggregation and placemaking in a region that challenges simple interpretations about the transition to village life.

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