Alliance and Landscape: Perry Mesa, Arizona in the Fourteenth Century: Surface Ceramic Collections for USFS Lands in the Cave Creek and Payson Ranger Districts of the Tonto National Forest

Archaeological ceramics were systematically collected from the surface of
five archaeological sites (Las Mujeres [aka Squaw Creek Ruin], Big Rosalie, Polles Pueblo, Mercer Ruin, Ister Flat Ruin) within the Tonto National Forest. The fieldwork was part of the National Science Foundation sponsored “Alliance and Landscape: Perry Mesa, Arizona in the Fourteenth Century” project (BCS-0613201), administered by Dr. David R. Abbott and Dr. Katherine Spielmann of the Arizona State University School of Human Evolution and Social Change (see Appendix A). The ceramics are being studied to assess the degree of interaction
among Late Classic period pueblos on Perry Mesa, in the Bloody Basin, and along the Middle Verde River Valley to the east (the so-called proposed Verde Confederacy of central Arizona). In particular, the provenance-related information derived from the pottery assemblages are being utilized to assess the Verde Confederacy model proposed by Dr. David Wilcox (Wilcox et al. 2001; Wilcox and Holmlund 2007), which posits that some 14th Century pueblos in central
Arizona allied themselves in a multi-community confederacy, presumably in opposition to a Hohokam polity in the Phoenix Basin. The ceramics have been sorted into ware categories based on paste color and surface treatment. Detailed analysis of the plain ware ceramics are ongoing.