The development of prehistoric grinding technology in the Point of Pines area, east-central Arizona.

Abstract

The development of grinding technology is a topic that has not received much attention from archaeologists in the American Southwest. Presented here is a technological approach to ground stone analysis capitalizing on the methods of ethnoarchaeology, experimentation, and use-wear analysis. These methods are applied to an existing collection of ground stone artifacts amassed by the University of Arizona field school's excavation of the Point of Pines sites in east-central Arizona. The heart of the technological approach is the recognition that technological behavior is social behavior and as such is culturally distinct. Both puebloan and nonpuebloan ethnographies provide models for understanding how ground stone tools were used by different cultural groups in daily activities and for making inferences about gender-specific behaviors. Culturally distinct behaviors are sustained through technological traditions, defined as the transmitted knowledge and behaviors with which people learn how to do things. A technological approach is applied to the ground stone assemblages from nine Point of Pines sites that date within eight phases, from A.D. 400 to A.D. 1425-1450. The assemblages are compared and assessed in terms of variation that might reflect developments in grinding technology. Developments may have derived from local innovations or from introduced technological traditions. Assemblage variation is evaluated in light of major events in Point of Pines prehistory, particularly the change from pit house villages to pueblo villages and the immigration of Tusayan Anasazi. Point of Pines grinding technology continued relatively unchanged until late in the occupation. Around the mid-1200s, an Anasazi group immigrated to the Point of Pines area and took up residence in the largest Point of Pines pueblo. Foreign technology was introduced but not immediately adopted by the resident Mogollon. Food grinding equipment of two different designs coexisted for about 100 years, until around A.D. 1400 when there is evidence of a change in the social organization of food grinding. It is this change that signals the blending of Mogollon and Anasazi into Western Pueblo.