Silver Creek Archaeological Project--Faunal Analysis

Fauna
SCARP faunal data is available for Cothrun's Kiva, Hough's Kiva, Pottery Hill, Bailey Ruin, and Bryant Ranch. The fauna were analyzed by Jennifer Zack-Horner (Cothrun's Kiva, Hough's Kiva, Pottery Hill, and Bailey Ruin prior to 1999) and by Rebecca Dean (Bailey Ruin and Bryant Ranch).

Number of Identified Specimens (NISP) for artiodactyls and lagomorphs at Bailey Ruin, Bryant Ranch, and Pottery Hill (after Dean 2001: 276).

Site	Dates of Occupation (A.D.)	Artiodactyl NISP	Lagomorph NISP
Bailey Ruin	1275-1325	1165	909
Bryant Ranch	1250-1300	142	49
Pottery Hill	1200-1275	119	983

Most analysis has focused on the differences between the Pueblo III site of Pottery Hill and the Pueblo IV sites Bailey Ruin and Bryant Ranch. Both Zack-Horner (1996, 1999) and Dean (2001) indentified an increase in the relative abundance of large mammal hunting across the Pueblo III to Pueblo IV transition (A.D. 1100 - 1400). Dean's work suggests that this increase, at SCARP evident in the Bailey Ruin and Bryant Ranch faunas, derives from a change in social organization in the Pueblo IV period. In particular, Dean argues that an increase in communal hunting and feasting during Pueblo IV best explains the changing patterns of large mammal abundance seen at Bailey Ruin and Bryant Ranch.

Bibliography:

Dean, Rebecca
2001 Social Change and Hunting in the Pueblo III to Pueblo IV Transition in East-Central Arizona. Journal of Field Archaeology 28: 271-285.

Zack-Horner, Jennifer
1999 Aggregation and the Silver Creek Faunal Record. In Living on the Edge of the Rim: Excavations and Analysis of the Silver Creek Archaeological Project, 1993-1998, edited by Barbara J. Mills et al., pp. 433-457. Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series 192. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

1996 Aggregation and the Faunal Record: A Comparative Analysis of Two Sites in the Silver Creek Area of the Mogollon Plateau. Master's Thesis, Department of Anthropology, The University of Arizona.