Terraced Lives: Cerros de Trincheras in the Northwest/Southwest. The Oxford handbook of North American Archaeology

Terraced Lives: Cerros de Trincheras in the Northwest/Southwest

Page 1 of 12

PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

Subscriber: SUNY Binghamton University; date: 31 October 2020

Print Publication Date: Feb 2012 Subject: Archaeology, Archaeology of North AmericaOnline Publication Date: Sep 2012 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195380118.013.0048

Terraced Lives: Cerros de Trincheras in the Northwest/ Southwest Bridget M. ZavalaThe Oxford Handbook of North American ArchaeologyEdited by Timothy R. Pauketat

Abstract and Keywords

Archaeologists and explorers alike have applied the term cerro de trincheras to pre-Hispanic sites built on hills, characterized by the presence of terraces or stone walls. Recent investigations reveal that these enigmatic sites represent one of the most long-lived architectural traditions in northwest Mexico and the Southwest United States (NW/SW). On hundreds of hills from Durango, Mexico, to southern Arizona, pre-Hispanic inhabitants built their homes on the slopes and summits of elevated landforms (generally isolated volcanic hills). This article proposes that better understanding of “hills with entrenchments” can be had by applying an embodied-landscape perspective focusing on the everyday experiences of the folks who made these elevated spaces home.

Keywords: cerro de trincheras, Southwest United States, pre-Hispanic inhabitants, everyday experiences, elevated spaces, terraces

Archaeologists and explorers alike have applied the term cerro de trincheras to pre-Hispanic sites built on hills, characterized by the presence of terraces or stone walls. Recent investigations reveal that these enigmatic sites represent one of the most long-lived architectural traditions in northwest Mexico and the Southwest United States (NW/SW). On hundreds of hills from Durango, Mexico, to southern Arizona, pre-Hispanic inhabitants built their homes on the slopes and summits of elevated landforms (generally isolated volcanic hills). In this chapter, I propose that better understanding of what I will call “hills with entrenchments” can be had by applying an embodied-landscape perspective focusing on the everyday experiences of the folks who made these elevated spaces home.

Until a decade ago, these sites were believed to be a relatively restricted phenomenon, both in time and space; archaeologists proffered simplistic functional explanations that revolved mainly around defense as well as agricultural and ritual or ceremonial interpretations. Notwithstanding, with the breath of cultural resource management (CRM) research on the U.S. side of the border and the growth of studies focused on northern Mexico, we now know that the site type includes a great deal of variation (temporal, spatial,

https://global.oup.com/privacy

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/page/legal-notice

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195380118.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195380118

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=cerro de trincheras

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=Southwest United States

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=pre-Hispanic inhabitants

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=everyday experiences

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=elevated spaces

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=elevated spaces

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/search?f_0=keyword&q_0=terraces


Page 2 of 12



Figure 48.1 Distribution of cerros de trincheras in northwest Mexico and the U.S. Southwest.

cultural, internal, regional, etc.) that needs to be addressed by an approach that can account for the wide rage of contrasts within site type.

In general, these theoretical frameworks posit that the social landscape shapes and molds social practices (Giddens 1979). Furthermore, “space is not an empty (p. 586) dimension along which social groupings become structured, but has to be considered in terms of its involvement in the constitution of systems of interaction” (1986:368). Thus we can consider how living on cerros de trincheras both structures and is structured by the daily practices of the people who lived on these hills. Architecture and spatial distribution provide an entry point that, if used at varying scales, can help archaeologists comprehend the day-to-day lives of the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of these terraced village sites.

Overview

Before we go any further, we must consider what is meant by cerro de trincheras. The term has been applied to hills with stone walls or terraces without mortar (Sauer and Brand 1932:67). Archaeologists have recorded more than 300 cerros to date in the modern-day states of Arizona, New Mexico, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Durango (Figure 48.1), generally in the Basin and Range province. This type of site, also called fortified hills and fortresses by the archaeologists who have recorded them, cross-cuts eight archaeological traditions: San Pedro Cochise, Hohokam, Trincheras, Rio Sonora, Mogollon, Casas Grandes, Loma San Gabriel, and Chalchihuites. The earliest hills with entrenchments were built more than 3,000 years ago as some of the first agricultural villages of the SW/ NW (Roney and Hard 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004; (p. 587) Hard and Roney 1998), while others were late pre-Hispanic sites dating from 500 years ago and spanning a total of 2,500 years.

At cerros de trincheras, builders erected terraces by placing walls or berms on the sides of the generally isolated volcanic hills, filling the void with rubble and trash, and covering this with a layer of sediment, thus creating a flat living space on the slope of the hill. Although terraces are generally thought to be the defining feature, some cerros have only



https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/oxford/fullsizeimage?imageUri=/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195380118.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195380118-graphic156-full.jpg&uriChapter=/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195380118.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195380118-e-48


Page 3 of 12



dry-masonry walls that define circular and quadrangular stone foundations, as well as larger communal features. The inhabitants of these places constructed walls to subdivide terraces, circumscribe certain areas of the site, or bisect the living areas of the hill. Movement from one terrace or area of the hill to another is often aided by stairs, ramps, and paths (Zavala 1998; Hartman and Hartman 1979). Archaeologists have frequently recorded rock art (Ferg 1979) and bedrock mortars at these sites, as well. The presence of abundant domestic material, including ceramic sherds, chipped stone, groundstone, worked marine shell, botanical material, and bone, makes it clear that these places served as habitation sites. It is important to note that though these components are often found at cerros de trincheras, they are not all necessarily present at all of these sites.

Interpretations of cerros de trincheras offered to date can generally be classified into three functional categories: defensive, agricultural, and religious or ceremonial. Most investigators dealing with them have explained these sites as defensible villages or refuge sites (McGee 1895; Downum et al. 1985; Sauer and Brand 1932; Hoover 1941; Bowen

1976; Stacy 1971). As Hoover (1941:231) said, “the hill sites … are so indicative of the defense motive that any other explanation seems absurd.” Recent resurgence of interest in the role of warfare in the NW/SW has led several researchers to revisit the discussion of cerros de trincheras in this respect (Le Blanc 1999).

The strategic locations, interpretation of terraces and walls as fortifications (Fontana et al. 1959; Larson 1972; Wilcox 1979; Le Blanc 1999), and records of battles during historic times (Fish et al. 1992) have been used as evidence for the defensive hypothesis. Though it is true that the uphill location of the sites gives an edge for defense, it hardly explains an architectural pattern that cross-cuts eight archaeological traditions and 2,500 years.

As more and more data become available and investigators continue to document individual cerro particularities, as well as their role in specific regions, valleys, and time periods, some researchers have moved beyond functional interpretation to allow for a more dynamic view of these elevated sites that considers symbolic aspects of hill life (Amador Bech and Medina 2007, 2008; Zavala 2006; Wallace et al. 2007), the role of monumentality (O’Donovan 2000, 2004) and use of particular sectors by ritual specialists (Deleonardo

2005). For example, Paul and Suzanne Fish have been looking at the ritual nature of enclosures commonly found at the summit of these sites as places that “celebrate the spiritual qualities of these landforms, reify elevated spiritual status vis-à-vis lower basin settlements, ensure locational exclusivity in ritual practice, and enhance dramatic communication of calendrics or momentous ceremonial events” (Fish and Fish 2007:194).

(p. 588) Landscape Approaches in ArchaeologyArchaeologists seeking to repopulate our versions of the past have turned to approaches like those forwarded by landscape studies. These supply an alternative conceptualization of the world that does not succumb to the strict dichotomy between the environment and the site but seeks to involve the surrounding landscape in the overall picture of the past, considering these realms as inexorably intertwined (Cosgrove 1995). Specifically, land




Page 4 of 12



scape studies consider space, according to Tilley, “as social productions, are always centered in relation to human agency and are amenable to reproduction or change because their constitution takes place as part of the day-to-day praxis or practical activity of individuals and groups in the world” (1994:10). Power and position represent integral aspects of all landscape studies; landscape signifies and often contains various meanings whose claims to truth are dealt with contextually (Cosgrove 1995). Meaning is linked to material culture through embodied experience: “Our bodily being-in-the-world provides the fundamental ground, or starting point, for our description of it” (Tilley 2004, 2). As Basso states: “Geographical landscapes are never culturally vacant … [but rather are] filled to brimming with past and present significance” (1996:143). Furthermore, “[p]lace … is a sensual experience, with the body, social identity, and shifting perceptions of society intersecting through daily, lived spatial experiences” (Van Dyke and Alcock 2003:6).

So how can we use this “way of seeing the world” (Cosgrove 1998:13) to better understand cerros de trincheras? The study of cerros de trincheras clearly demonstrates that sites and their inhabitants are never separate from the environment and vice versa. Tilley’s words apply here: “The architecture of the stones resides in a fusion of their physical form and location or placement in the landscape, the sensual experience of these stones and the ideas and memories, histories and mythologies that became associated with them” (2004:35). This “fusion” is made visible through architecture and other material culture at cerros where builders chose to appropriate hills and make them the stage of their everyday lives; this demonstrates that the hills themselves are meaningful and serve, as landscape studies would hold, as “the medium for action that can not be divorced from the action itself” (Tilley 1994:10). Furthermore, these settings are integral in the process of social reproduction:

Relations are always material and social at once, so that material culture is not an added extra in social life, but right at its heart. Once we start to look at the creation of social relations through the medium of material things, then objects become social agents in their own right and their formal properties and their combination into assemblages both become important. The durable nature of material things, especially once landscape is included, makes it difficult to ignore questions of history. People are socialized within material settings, so that the world is an important part of social reproduction, as one generation succeeds the next [Gosden 1999:120].

(p. 589) Thus landscape approaches can allow us to explore how “prehistoric social identities were created or sustained, reproduced or transformed through the agency of stones” (Tilley

2004:217).




Page 5 of 12



Figure 48.2 The site of Cerro de Trincheras in Sonora, Mexico.

Experiencing Cerros De Trincheras: The Public, the Private, and the MonumentalTurning from ideas to concrete examples, in the balance of this chapter I apply a landscape approach that explores different aspects of everyday life on cerros de trincheras. Methodologically speaking, accessing everyday lived experience of archaeological sites needs to involve analysis using multiple scales, incorporation of sensorial observations, and consideration of surroundings as an integral part of the activities and meanings the spaces hosted. In this section, I briefly present five examples—from Cerro de Trincheras in Sonora, Cerro Juanaqueña, hill sites in the Magdalena Valley during the Early Ceramic and El Cerro periods, and Cerro Buchunamichi—that bring to light aspects of privacy and monumentality, the interrelatedness of cerros as experienced through vision, and the significance of living on a hill itself.

The diverse inhabitants who dwelled on hilltops and hill sides in the NW/SW designed and experienced their space in their own way, in some cases building spaces for activities meant to include a wide audience while others were set apart from the public gaze. Some designs make it hard to find secluded areas, while others are quite private. One

trincheras site where privacy is especially hard to come by is Cerro de Trincheras (Figure

48.2) in Trincheras, Sonora (occupied from AD 1250 to 1450), the largest terraced hill recorded in the region (Villalpando and McGuire 2009). Its 900 terraces or living platforms were largely sculpted into the northern face of the hill, covering an area of 1 square kilometer where rock foundations and jacales were erected with perishable superstructures. The layout made activities on the terraces accessible to the view of folks living on terraces above them, while these could see levels below, and so forth. In keeping with this pattern, the most public of their public spaces, La Cancha, is a rectangular structure measuring 51 meters by 13 meters. It is highly on display, at the very base of the hill, where folks from most of (p. 590) the terraced surface could witness the ritual activities held there. Yet not all areas of the hill were easily accessed or seen. At the crest of the hill, there are a series of structures, including low terraces and circular and rectangular rock foundations surrounding a spiral shaped structure like that of a bisected gastropod. In this area, activities were set apart from the prying gaze of everyday glances.





Page 6 of 12



Figure 48.3 The view from a terrace at Cerro Juanaqueña in Chihuahua, Mexico.

It would be easy to attribute the paucity of private space to the large number of terraces at Cerro de Trincheras, but there is something about the design of the layout in combination with the amphitheater-shaped northern face of the hill that creates the sense of varying degrees of visibility. Furthermore, this hill stands out from surrounding hills in the valley for its sheer size, making it the only hill in the neighborhood that could accommodate 900 terraces in the first place. We can appreciate the choices the builders made if we consider the contrast with another of the larger terraced hills in the NW/SW, such as Cerro Juanaqueña (Figure 48.3), located in northwestern Chihuahua. It is a terraced hill built during the late archaic (3,000 years before present) where pre-Hispanic builders placed more than 300 terraces on the slopes of this volcanic hill. Here terraces are set apart by groups, and the curvature of the hill is such that activities are generally visible only on the same terrace level. As on Cerro de Trincheras, the (p. 591) summit features are set apart from the rest of the site here by a perimeter wall fashioned by adjoining a series of terraces on the crest of the hill.

Here, what is important is that the hill is inexorably implicated in life at these locations. Furthermore, the visual links and the visual ruptures help to imbue the space with meanings that are lived. As Van Dyke and Alcock (2003:6) state, “Place, above all, is a sensual experience, with the body, social identity, and shifting perceptions of society intersecting through daily, lived spatial experiences.” These experiences are highly variable from hill to hill, and among built and unbuilt areas at each location. The degree of privacy or lack thereof is crafted into the layout of the lived space, the experience of the place, and the surrounding landscape.

Now we redirect our gaze from a place on the valley floor to the hill itself. From this vantage point, several researchers have pointed out the monumental nature of cerros de trincheras emanating from appropriation of imposing landforms combined with the visual





Page 7 of 12



Figure 48.4 Visibility of and from cerros de trincheras in the Magdalena Valley, Sonora, during the early ceramic period.

impact of the terraced slopes (McGuire and Elisa Villalpando C. 1998; Nelson 2002:230–

233; O’Donovan 2002, 2004). As McGuire and Villalpando (1998:5) state in reference to the site of Cerro de Trincheras in Sonora: “By terracing the hill, the Trincheras folk transformed a prominent natural feature into a human creation that expresses their social organization and religious beliefs. They achieved a degree of monumentality and distinction for their town that never could have been achieved by stacking the same rock into a pueblo, or mound.” Monumentality in this perspective serves as a “visible point of reference for memory on the landscape” (Joyce 2003:111). To be monumental, a place need not be large; “artefacts can be places and places may be artefacts, monuments can be landscapes and landscapes may be monuments” (Tilley 2004:217). Furthermore, cerros de trincheras builders were able to “make statements of relatedness among people, land and power” (Nelson 2007:234). Thus when the people chose to craft home or village or temple on an elevated location, they fused the “relationship between the place and its broader landscape, making the experience of each more vivid” (Thomas 2006:355).

That said, how does monumentality actually play out at these terraced hills? First, given the heterogeneity of the site type, the experience of monumentality differs from one hill to another. To illustrate this point, I present two examples from the Magdalena Valley, in Sonora during two contrasting periods, and one from the Rio Sonora Valley. These examples take into account the sight line up to the hill and then from the hill out to the surrounding valley as previously described (the examples presented here were modeled using digital elevation models or DEMs, at a scale of 1:50,000 meters from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI).

In the Magdalena Valley people lived on the valley floor as well as on the slopes of more than a dozen hills. Folks living above were looking down onto the sites on the valley floor, onto the slopes of other hills, and beyond. Despite the visual advantage that uphill life gives a settlement, it varies greatly. Fish and Fish (2007:170–171) identify six cerros de trincheras in the valley with Early Ceramic Period occupation (prior to 1300 AD) of the Trincheras Archaeological Tradition.





Page 8 of 12



Figure 48.5 Visibility of and from cerros de trincheras in the Magdalena Valley, Sonora, during the El Cerro period.

Figure 48.6 Location of Cerro Buchunamichi in the Rio Sonora Valley, Sonora; the terrain impedes the visibility to and from Cerro Buchunamichi.

Figure 48.4 shows the topography and the areas that were visible from the cerros

occupied during the Early Ceramic Period if an observer were placed on the summit (p. 592) of each of these sites. Here we can appreciate how places were built within visual

range of one another, thus articulating and reinforcing social relationships in a way that cannot be duplicated on the valley floor. Yet if we compare this model with the illustration (Figure 48.5) of the areas visible during the subsequent El Cerro Period (1300–1450 AD), we realize the occupants of the 11 cerros in that valley not only saw each other but were able to exert visual control over almost all of the landscape surrounding the regional center of Cerro de Trincheras. This reflects a change in the priorities of the occupants of these terraced hill sites, in keeping with the unique hegemonic role this special place had in the region.

By contrast, the site Cerro Buchunamichi is a small terraced hill (120 meters by 120 meters, 0.2 hectare) located along the Río Sonora valley. Here the occupants built fewer than 10 narrow terraces and two summit structures (10 by 20 meters) accompanied by petroglyphs of geometric forms (three spirals and one figure eight). This low hill was orig






Page 9 of 12



inally reported by Sauer and Brand (1932:102) and reminds us that you “don’t have to be a big imposing landform to be important” (Thomas 2006:357). As illustrated in Figure

48.6, this site is nestled in a narrow valley that impedes the view to and from the hill, and of it from other positions on the valley floor (in marked contrast to the previous examples). Furthermore, this is the only terraced hill in the area. The visual impact is minimal, but the importance of this place emerges from the highest point of this site, which has been crafted as an exceptional place (as are many of the summits of cerros de trincheras). When we consider these extraordinary summit places, we must remember that “from an

(p. 593) (p. 594) embodied perspective we relate to place and landscape through … relational coordinates of our body” (Tilley 2004:5). The result is that elevated places are usually “associated with light and air” and because they “lie up and above always tend to be privileged culturally and emotionally while places situated down below tend to be associated with darkness and death” (Tilley 2004:5).

ConclusionCerros de trincheras were places made by more than the movement of stones. The large number of cerros in the SW/NW and the longevity of the site type show that for folks in the past verticality was important. That is the quality that binds these elevated sites together. Otherwise, all sorts of aspects also make cerros unlike one another, differentiate sectors of the hills, and result in varied sensual experiences of the space. Our task now is to contextualize these similarities and differences in the past that were once brimming with significance, of which today only rock and hill remain.

References

Amador Bech, J., and A. Medina. 2007. Construcción Simbólica del Paisaje en los Cerros de Trincheras del Noroeste de Sonora. Paper presented at the 28th Mesa Redonda de la Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología a 70 años de su fundación, en homenaje para Alfonso Caso Derechos Humanos: Pueblos Indígenas, Cultura y Nación, Mexico City, Mexico.

Amador Bech, J., and A. Medina. 2008. Los Cerros de Trincheras en el Noroeste de Sonora, Una Mirada Desde la Arqueología de Paisaje. Paper presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Basso, K. 1996. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

Bowen, T. 1976. The Archaeology of the Central Coast of Sonora, Mexico. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona 27. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Cosgrove, D. E. 1995. Landscape and Myths, Gods, and Humans. In Landscape: Politics and Perspectives, edited by B. Bender, pp. 281–305. Berg, Providence, RI.

Cosgrove, D. E. 1998. Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.




Page 10 of 12



Deleonardo, S. M. 2005. A Voice Intended for the Spirits Themselves: Analysis of Excavations at El Mirador (The Lookout) of Cerro de Trincheras and Nearby Residential Area B7. Master’s thesis, State University of New York, Binghamton.

Downum, C. E., J. E. Douglas, and B. C. Douglas. 1985. Community Structure and Agricultural Strategies at Cerro Prieto (AZ AA:7:11). In Proceedings of the 1983 Hohokam Symposium, pt. 2, edited by A. E. Dittert and D. E. Dove, pp. 545–556. Arizona Archaeological Society, Phoenix.

Ferg, A. 1979. The Petroglyphs of Tumamoc Hill. Kiva 45(1–2):95–118.

(p. 595) Fish, S. K., and P. R. Fish. 2007. Regional Heartlands and Transregional Trends. In Amerind Studies in Archaeology, Trincheras Sites in Time, Space, and Society, edited by P. R. Fish, S. K. Fish, and M. E. Villalpando, pp. 165–194. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Fish, S. K., and P. R. Fish, and J. H. Madsen. 1992. An Introduction to Time, Place and Research. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona 56. The Marana Community in the Hohokam World, edited by S. K. Fish, P. R. Fish, J. J. Field, and J. H. Madsen, pp. 1–

10. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Fontana, B. I., J. C. Greenleaf, and D. D. Cassidy. 1959. A Fortified Arizona Mountain. Kiva

25(4):213–282.

Giddens, A. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradiction in Social Analysis. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Giddens, A. 1986. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Gosden, C. 1999. Anthropology and Archaeology: A Changing Relationship. Routledge, London.

Hard, R. J., and J. R. Roney. 1998. A Massive Terraced Village Complex in Chihuahua, Mexico, 3000 Years Before Present. Science 279:1661–1664.

Hartman, G. H., and W. K. Hartman. 1979. Prehistoric Trail Systems and Related Features on the Slopes of Tumamoc Hill. Kiva 45(1–2):39–69.

Hoover, J. W. 1941. Cerros de Trincheras of the Arizona Papagueria. Geographical Review

31:228–239.

Joyce, R. A. 2003. Fragments of the Classic Maya Past. In Archaeologies of Memory, edited by R. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock, pp. 104–125. Blackwell, Malden, MA.

Larson, S. M. 1972. The Tumamoc Hill Site Near Tucson, Arizona. Kiva 38(2):95–101.

Le Blanc, S. 1999. Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.




Page 11 of 12



McGee, W. J. 1895. The Beginning of Agriculture. American Anthropologist 8(4):350–375.

McGuire, R. H., and M. E. Villalpando. 1998. Cerro de Trincheras: A Prehispanic Terraced Town in Sonora, Mexico. Archaeology in Tucson 12(1):1–5.

Nelson, B. A. 2007. Crafting of Places: Mesoamerican Monumentality in Hilltop Sites. In

Trincheras Sites in Time, Space, and Society, edited by P. R. Fish, S. K. Fish, and M. E. Villalpando C., pp. 229–246. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

O’Donovan, M. 2000. Cerros de Trincheras and the Landscape. Paper presented at the 65th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, April, Philadelphia.

O’Donovan, M. 2002. New Perspectives on Site Function and Scale of Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora, Mexico: The 1991 Surface Survey. University of Arizona, Arizona State Museum, Tucson.

O’Donovan, M. 2004. The Role of Cerro de Trincheras Sites in the Northwest Mexican and American Southwest Landscape. In Surveying the Archaeology of Northwest Mexico, pp. 27–45. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Roney, J. R., and R. J. Hard. 1998. A Note on the Temporal and Geographic Distribution of Cerros de Trincheras. Paper presented at the Arizona Archaeological Council, Fall Meeting and Symposium, October 23–24, Flagstaff.

Roney, J. R., and R. J. Hard. 2001. Una Investigación Arqueológica de los Sitios con Trincheras del Arcaico Tardío en Chihuahua México. Las Investigaciones de Campo 1999. Report submitted to the Consejo de Arqueología INAH, Archivo Técnico, Mexico City, Mexico. Center for Archaeological Research, University of Texas, San Antonio.

Roney, J. R., and R. J. Hard. 2002. Early Agriculture in Northwestern Chihuahua. In Traditions, Transitions, and Technologies: Themes in Southwestern Archaeology, edited by S. Schlanger, pp. 160–177. University of Colorado Press, Boulder.

(p. 596) Roney, J. R., and R. J. Hard. 2004. A Review of Cerros de Trincheras in Northwestern Chihuahua. In Surveying the Archaeology of Northwest Mexico, edited by G. Newell and E. Gallaga, pp.127–147. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Sauer, C., and D. D. Brand. 1932. Prehistoric Settlements of Sonora with Special Reference to Cerros de Trincheras. In University of California Publications in Geography 5, pp. 67–149. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Stacy, V. K. P. 1971. The Trincheras Problem: Prehistoric Utilization of Vertical Space in South Central Arizona. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson.

Thomas, J. 2006. From Dwelling to Building. Journal of Iberian Archaeology 8: 349–359.

Tilley, C. 1994. A Phenomenology of Landscape. Berg, Oxford.




Page 12 of 12



Tilley, C. 2004. The Materiality of Stone: Explorations in Landscape Phenomenology. Berg, Oxford.

Van Dyke, R., and S. E. Alcock. 2003. Archaeologies of Memory: An Introduction. In Archaeologies of Memory, edited by R. Van Dyke and S. E. Alcock, pp.1–13. Blackwell, Malden, MA.

Villalpando C. E., and R. H. McGuire. 2009. Entre Muros de Piedra: La Arqueología del Cerro de Trincheras. Centro INAH Sonora, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico.

Wallace, H. D., P. R. Fish, and S. K. Fish. 2007. Tumamoc Hill and the Early Pioneer Period. In Trincheras Sites in Time, Space, and Society, edited by P. R. Fish, S. K. Fish, and M. E. Villalpando, pp. 53–95. Amerind Studies in Archaeology. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Wilcox, D. R. 1979. Warfare Implications of Dry-Laid Masonry Walls on Tumamoc Hill. Kiva 45(1–2):15–38.

Zavala, B. M. 1998. Building Trincheras: An Analysis of Architectural Features at Cerro de Trincheras. Master’s thesis, State University of New York, Binghamton.

Zavala, B. M. 2006. Exploring the Symbolic at Cerros de Trincheras. In Religion in the Prehispanic Southwest, edited by C. S. VanPool, T. L. VanPool, and D. A. Phillips, pp. 135–

146. Rowman-Altamira, Lanham, MD.

Bridget M. Zavala

Bridget M. Zavala is Researcher at the Institute of Historical Research, University Juarez, Durango, Mexico.



Terraced Lives: Cerros de Trincheras in the Northwest/Southwest. The Oxford handbook of North American Archaeology

Documents