David Howard Abbott - US grants

The goal of this Small Grant for Exploratory Research is to develop a reliable and sensitive push-pull perfusion technique to examine the physiological mechanisms of naturally-induced infertility in female Callitrichid Monkeys. Many species of these primates are highly endangered. In their specialized social system, subordinate females in groups in the wild and in the laboratory are kept infertile. Ovulation in subordinate females is suppressed while these females remain in the presence of a dominant female and help raise their offspring. Dr. Abbott has demonstrated that the physiological mechanism maintaining the infertile state of these subordinate females resides within the hypothalamic region of the brain. He will now develop a sophisticated technical procedure to measure neurotransmitters and hypothalamic hormones in the hypothalamus. The results will lead to a better understanding of how the social environment engages specific neural mechanisms to regulate female fertility. This could provide a better foundation for the development of reproductive techniques to accelerate the breeding of these rare monkeys in captivity and to improve the planning and management of re-introduction programs as well as improve the management of the remaining small number of monkeys living in the wilds of South American.

With National Science Foundation support Dr. David Abbott will conduct an analysis of ceramics collected from Hohokam sites located in Arizona's Phoenix Basin. He will focus on the early Sedentary period of Hohokam development and analyze potsherds carefully excavated from a number of sites. The geological region in which these are located is extremely diverse and the composition of sands and clays which potters employed varied significantly from subarea to subarea. Abbott's prior work has demonstrated that it is possible to examine sherd matrix and determine the source of the raw material. Through such microscopic and electron probe analysis he will determine the points of origin for thousands of sampled sherds. On this basis it is then possible to reconstruct sedentary period ceramic exchange systems and thus gain insight into social organization. Hohocam peoples were agriculturists who lived in a harsh semi-arid environment and who depended on large and complex irrigation systems to produce crops. Dr. Abbott has completed a similar analysis of ceramic exchange during the following Classic period and the results indicated that exchange occurred primarily within individual irrigation subsystems. This indicates that social organization and the control and management of irrigation were tied closely together. The Sedentary period work will shed light on how this system developed. Although canals were present during the Sedentary period, preliminary results indicate that exchange may not have followed the Classic pattern and were not closely tied to irrigation canals. It correct, this conclusion would contradict widely held archaeological assumptions. Archaeologists wish to understand how complex societies arose. This process often occurred in semi-arid environments and researchers have postulated that the need to develop and maintain irrigation systems played a central role. Dr. Abbott's research speaks directly to this question. It also sheds light on how people at a simple level of technology were able to subsist in harsh environmental conditions. It will provide data of interest to many archaeologists and shed new light on America's past.

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. David R. Abbott and his colleagues will conduct 21 months of archaeological research focused on the unusually complex economy and the regional ceremonial network of the ancient Hohokam people. The Hohokam were desert farmers and craftsmen who inhabited hundreds of villages with populations of 200 residents or more through out southern and central Arizona from ca. A.D. 300 until A.D. 1450. During previous NSF-funded research, it was shown that nearly all ceramic containers used during the Sedentary period (ca. A.D. 900-1100) were made by few hands and were widely distributed to households across a large territory. An efficient and dependable mechanism for supply was clearly extant at that time, but by the succeeding Classic period (ca. A.D. 1100-1375) ceramic production had reverted to local manufacturing for local consumption. Those results evoke questions about how far back into Hohokam prehistory large-scale pottery production was practiced and how so many pots were so widely distributed. One hypothesis explains the Sedentary period ceramic distributions with possible periodic marketplaces associated ritual ball games played in more than 225 ballcourts spread throughout the region. These ball games drew crowds from surrounding and probably distant villages and may have served as venues where specialist-made pots and other domestic necessities were regularly bartered beyond the limits of kinship networks. This idea implies far more sophisticated economic arrangements than any previously supposed for the Hohokam. To further investigate this idea, the vessel forms and production sources of ceramic assemblages from the Colonial (ca. A.D. 775-900), late Pioneer (ca. A.D. 700-775), and early Pioneer (pre-A.D. 700) periods will be analyzed to determine how ceramic production and distribution were organized during each time period and determine for how long the sophisticated division of labor for ceramic production was extant among the Hohokam. Did it precede, parallel, or succeed the development of the ballcourt network, which began during the late Pioneer period and greatly expanded during the Colonial and Sedentary periods? The new research will also use recent chronological refinements to determine if the shift to localized ceramic production was coeval with the collapse of the ballcourt ceremonialism near the end of the Sedentary period.

This research is important because it contributes to building cultural evolutionary theory and highlights the remarkable accomplishments of ancient Native American peoples in the Southwest. Sophisticated economics without centrally controlled and hierarchical political institutions make the Hohokam a fascinating exception to evolutionary suppositions that link organizational complexity with hierarchical structures. As such, reconstructing how their large and intricate networks developed and worked may be pivotal for improving synthetic theories of culture change.

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. David Abbott and Dr. Katherine Spielmann will lead a multi-disciplinary team from Arizona State University, to conduct a two-year archaeological research project in central Arizona. Compelling evidence for endemic warfare during the late prehistoric times has been documented in many areas of the American Southwest, and some models postulate hostilities at a macro-regional level. Among them is the Verde Confederacy, which has been described as a highly coordinated alliance that encompassed 10,000-13,000 people at 135 settlements in the middle Verde River valley, Bloody Basin, and Perry Mesa during the 14th century. This confederacy is believed to have been aligned for conflict against a larger, irrigation-based Hohokam polity in the Phoenix basin to the south. Did marco-regional warfare perpetrated by large-scale alliances truly exist during the 1300s in central Arizona? If it did, how was the Verde Confederacy organized and what was the web of relations within it? If it did not, at what scale(s) did alliances develop in the increasing hostile landscape of the late prehistoric period?

To address these questions, a three-component strategy has been formulated, using ceramic, architectural, and paleoclimatic data. By tracing ceramic transactions, this project investigates the local, regional, and macro-regional networks of social interaction among members of the proposed Verde Confederacy, and between them and their postulated Hohokam enemies. The Verde Confederacy model predicts numerous social and economic ties and the transfer of goods among the confederacy members. A ceramic compositional study, aided by petrographic thin section analysis and chemical assays with an electron microprobe, categorizes the pottery from different portions of the confederacy according to provenance, providing the means to trace the movement of pots across central Arizona.

In addition, architectural and paleoclimatic evidence is used to evaluate the extent to which the local and regional settlement patterns were dictated by a defensive strategy implemented by a large-scale confederacy. According to the Verde Confederacy model, numerous settlements were newly established in the late 1200s on Perry Mesa to guard the alliance's western flank. This project determines if settlements were constructed as a unit to accommodate a population moving en masse to take up defensive positions. It also considers an alternative model for the Perry Mesa occupation by examining paleoclimatic indicators to determine if Perry Mesa was more conducive to farming at that time, as compared to deteriorating conditions in an abandoned foothills zone immediately to the south.

The intellectual merit rests on addressing a key question in Southwest archaeology: What was the maximum scale at which polities organized themselves, and what were the forces and constraints that drove those developments? The broader impacts come from: 1) enhanced interaction with the Hopi and Yavapai peoples, whose ancestral territories included Perry Mesa and its immediate surroundings; 2) the integration of education and research that includes both undergraduate and graduate students; and 3) knowledge exchange with BLM and Tonto National Forest land managers who manage and interpret for the public the history and nature of the prehistoric occupation on Perry Mesa.

Under the supervision of Dr. David R. Abbott, Sophia Kelly will analyze pottery provenance data gathered in her study of Hohokam ceramics in the Phoenix Basin, Arizona. The data will be used to examine the social and economic factors that contributed to widespread demand for specialized pottery production in this region during prehistory. The research has significance for several reasons. It provides insight into the mechanisms which facilitate effective societal functioning at a traditional level of development. It also provides insight into an important achievement in prehistoric America.

The prehistoric Hohokam economy provides an ideal case to evaluate the conditions associated with intensive pottery manufacture, because it was characterized by the widespread distribution of ceramic vessels fashioned by a relatively small number of people. For over 600 years, Hohokam households relied almost entirely on specialists to supply them with the pottery that they used to cook, serve, and store food. By the mid eleventh century AD, pottery producers in one geographic area manufactured almost all of the decorated containers used by more than 20,000 people across this vast region. This type of large and complex economy, which is typically associated with state-level societies, developed in the absence of clear political hierarchies.

Ms. Kelly's study builds a model that evaluates the role of four factors in the development of demand for specialist produced red-on-buff pottery in Hohokam settlements. The factors include 1) agricultural intensification in the form of irrigation agriculture, 2) increases in population density, 3) ritual or social obligations that require the production of particular craft items, and 4) improved efficiency of regional distribution systems. Demand for pottery produced by specialists is estimated through a ceramic sourcing analysis that determines the volume and concentration of non-local pottery at 14 Phoenix Basin settlements. The data generated from this project allow for a detailed reconstruction of the conditions that affect the organization of craft production over time and provide the basis to model these changes with unprecedented precision.

This dissertation project is of value to researchers studying ancient economies, as well as to the contemporary ancestors of the Hohokam, the Akimel and Tohono O'odham. In order to extend the broader impact of her study, Kelly collaborated with the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) to incorporate the tribes research interests in her project design. Mounting archaeological evidence that prehistoric Hohokam ceramic production and exchange were part of a complex, specialist economy is a source of interest and pride for present-day O'odham communities. This study is a timely complement to recent investment in tribal museums, educational programs on cultural resources on the reservation, and the establishment of a local Tribal Historic Preservation Office. In addition, the project involves the training of several GRIC staff members during the data collection process and a portion of the results will be co-authored with GRIC archaeologists. The data collected in this study will be made available through GRIC research databases, and interpretation of the results will be disseminated to the community through reports, presentations, and contributions to the local tribal museum (Huhugam Heritage Center). The databases from this project will be filed with the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR). The research results will also be disseminated through presentations at national meetings and through publication in peer-reviewed journals.