Publisher's Synopsis
The archaeological sites of Pueblo La Plata and Fort Silver lie in west-central Arizona at the north end of the fourteenth- century Perry Mesa Settlement System. The Agua Fria National Monument initiated a study, conducted by the Western Mapping Company and the Museum of Northern Arizona, to map the sites and collect a representative sample of artifacts for permanent curation. This study includes a history of the research on Perry Mesa and a review of the recent competing theories about how it was organized for war or was ecologically degrading its landscape. The study also provides an analysis of the relevance of these data to understanding the larger interaction spheres of the Central Arizona Tradition, the Verde Confederacy, and the Hopi macroeconomy. Findings from recent surveys in the Camp Verde-Fossil Creek- Payson area are summarized to show how they shed new light on the historical processes that structured the macroregional interactions from Hopi to Perry Mesa. Fieldwork methodologies and findings are provided in detail, and the results are interpreted to test several competing hypotheses. Extensive data tables on diagnostic ceramic and obsidian artifacts from the Perry Mesa-Verde Confederacy sites, and other selected sites, are provided in appendices.
