One of the more fascinating archaeobotanical stories from the central Colorado Plateau and the San Juan Basin is the rare evidence of cotton textiles and spinning tools, but the absence of botanical remains, that could prove people were farming cotton. Fragments of cotton cloth and worked fiber are especially visible in the well-documented records from Chaco Canyon Great Houses and north of Chaco at the large San Juan River communities of Salmon and Aztec. Yet, no cotton seeds, boll fragments, pollen, or other microfossils have been recovered from decades of research and thousands of samples analyzed. No botanical cotton remains have been recovered from the Great Houses and farming communities around Chaco Canyon, as well as from the extensive Salmon Ruin archaeobotanical studies. There is also no botanical evidence (with two exceptions) of cotton from decades of archaeological excavations across the Four Corners region including Crow Canyon Archaeological Center project excavations at several large pueblos, the Basketmaker Communities Project, and other sites. Why weren’t the Four Corners farming cultures growing cotton? The climate was challenging for this tropical crop, but over millennia, cotton agriculture moved north from the southern deserts and the cotton plant adapted from its native perennial biology to an annual life cycle. Recent pollen research from the western portion of the Haynie site (5MT1905) was completed as part of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center’s Northern Chaco Outliers Project. Two samples produced cotton pollen from early Pueblo period room blocks which, in addition to being a first for the region, is one of the oldest dates for cotton botanical remains from the central Colorado Plateau. In this presentation, Susie reviews the archaeobotanical record of cotton, introduces cotton biology, and discusses some of the questions and issues surrounding the absence of cotton from the San Juan Basin.
At Hovenweep National Monument, 285 pollen samples were analyzed from suspected field areas near Hackberry, Square Tower, and Horseshoe House with zero cotton recovered (Woolsey 1976); however, maize pollen was identified in 64 percent of the Hovenweep field samples and squash was present in a few samples.
No botanical remains of cotton bolls, seeds, or pollen that would have been recovered from decades of research and thousands of flotation, vegetal, and pollen samples analyzed from sites throughout the San Juan Basin including the large settlements at Chaco Canyon Great Houses and the San Juan River communities of Salmon and Aztec Ruins.
Analysis results are presented here from 50 pollen samples collected in the western portion of the Haynie site (5MT1905) during the 2017 through 2022 Crow Canyon Archaeological Center excavations as part of the Northern Chaco Outliers Project. The Haynie site contains two of four Great Houses within a one km radius that form the Lakeview Community (Throgmorton et al. 2022).
The pollen samples consist of five controls and 45 samples from 13 Pueblo period structures and an extramural surface.
There is a long history preserved in the site sediments in the Pueblo I-II archaeology and deeper cultural deposits. Structures were constructed on top of middens and material from earlier structures or in some cases within and over structures. Beginning in the 1970s, the Haynie family added another layer of disturbance to the site from heavy equipment excavations, earth moving, and construction. It is surprising given the prehistoric and historic impacts to the site that the recovered pollen spectra reported here has preserved a rich archive of Pueblo plant use.
The recovery of cotton pollen in two samples is an archaeological first for Crow Canyon as well as archaeobotanical studies across the Four Corners region and the San Juan Basin.
This webinar is part of the Discover Archaeology Webinar Series, hosted every Thursday at 4pm MT by Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. These webinars are offered free of charge thanks to the support of generous donors. See what’s coming up at crowcanyon.org.... Stream past webinars from our RU-vid channel at / crowcanyonconnects .
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center is a nonprofit organization located near Mesa Verde in southwest Colorado. Our mission is to empower present and future generations by making the human past accessible and relevant through archaeological research, experiential education, and American Indian knowledge.
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8 сен 2024
