CAMP VERDE, ARIZONA—Western Digs reports that archaeologist Matt Guebard of the U.S. National Park Service thinks that violent conflict may have led the Southern Sinagua people to abandon two dwellings built some 900 years ago in a rock shelter in central Arizona’s Verde Valley. In the 1930s, archaeologists found evidence that there had been fires in both structures, and it was later suggested that the buildings were ceremonially burned by the Sinagua. Guebard and his team reexamined the site, and consulted tribal groups whose ancestors lived in the region. New dates for charred wall plaster coincide with the styles of pottery found in one of the buildings, suggesting that it was in use up until the time of the fire, sometime between 1375 and 1395. A reexamination of the remains of four people found in a single grave revealed injuries and burns. And several oral histories describe a sudden, violent attack, perhaps by the ancestral Apache and Yavapai people, who may have been living in central Arizona much earlier than had been previously thought. “In this case, the oral histories and the archaeological data fit together really well,” Guebard said. To read more about archaeology in the Southwest, go to "Searching for the Comanche Empire."
