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We provide an updated reanalysis of the morphological data underlying Harold S. Colton's seminal study of prehistoric dogs in the U.S. Southwest, supplemented with subsequently published data. This analysis confirms Colton's identification of two dog types in the Southwest and suggests that the larger dog type identified by Colton is primarily correlated with the Pueblo III (ca. 1150–1300 CE) and IV (ca. 1300–1600 CE) periods in the region. Notably, comparison with other published data suggests the larger, Puebloan, dogs do not originate from the Plains as suggested by Colton, though their origin remains unknown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current article examines the apparent lunar iconography engraved on a rhyolite pendant recovered from a 13th century AD, Fremont Indian pithouse village known as "Five Finger Ridge". Symbols etched into the pendant resemble the waxing crescent, full, and waning crescent moon, thirteen circles equating with the thirteen lunations that are commenced during the solar year, and nineteen grooves etched along the outer edge of the disk-shaped pendant. The paper cites archaeological, ethnographic, rock art, and mitochondrial DNA data certifying that the Fremont people were of Ancestral Puebloan ethnicity and are therefore culturally and genetically related to the occupants of the modern pueblos located in the states of New Mexico and Arizona, USA. Ethnographic data from the late 19th and early 20th centuries demonstrates that all Puebloan villages were agriculturally dependent, utilized a solar-lunar calendar, and several conceptualized the year as having thirteen lunar months. The authors utilize the ethnographic data to interpret the two crescents and centrally drilled hole as the waxing crescent, full, and waning crescent moon, and the thirteen etched circles as full moons representing the thirteen-month lunar calendar reckoned at several historic pueblos. Finally, the paper proffers excavated exotic trade goods (olivella shells, turquoise) to demonstrate that the Fremont people of Five Finger Ridge were involved in long-distance trading relationships with Ancestral Puebloan communities that possessed unequivocal knowledge of the 18.61-year Major Lunar Standstill. From this the authors conclude that the pendant’s nineteen grooves represent the nineteen solar years needed for the completion of a Major Lunar Standstill cycle, wisdom they learned from long-distance trade relationships with Ancestral Puebloan people that were cognizant of this lunar circuit.

We use pipe forms at Scott County Pueblo (14SC1), a seventeenth-century multiethnic community in western Kansas with Ndee (Dismal River) and Puebloan residents, to consider the community's position within multiple regional interaction spheres. We first present a broad regional overview of Central/Northern Great Plains and Midwest, Northern Rio Grande, and Ndee pipe forms in the AD 1500–1700 period, tabulating the presence and absence of specific forms at 14 archaeological sites, before classifying two complete pipes and 49 identifiable pipe fragments recovered from 14SC1. Our pipe form comparisons better distinguish Ndee pipes from other forms than previous literature and confirm that 14SC1 pipes are fully consistent with the documented Ndee and Puebloan occupations at the site. Ceremonial beliefs and practices around smoking at 14SC1 were shared with other Ndee communities and the Northern Rio Grande region, presumably cementing regional relationships that facilitated the movement of other material culture and people. Although Dismal River territory extended into the Central Plains, we find almost no material evidence of diplomatic, social, or ceremonial engagement with Caddoan-speaking groups such as the Sahnish (Arikara), Čariks i Čariks (Pawnee), and kirikir?i:s (Wichita) peoples and Siouan-speaking groups to the northeast. We suggest that these differences in external relationships along the eastern and western Dismal River frontiers are linked to the history of Ndee migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although aircraft-acquired lidar has proven to be a transformative technology for archaeology in forested regions around the world, drone-acquired lidar systems that could potentially offer higher-resolution imagery at much lower cost remain difficult to deploy in field settings, while the data they produce are prone to large errors and are challenging to process. This paper presents results of a study that employs a new ultra-compact drone-based lidar system, alongside aerial thermal and visible light imaging, to document ancient agricultural landscapes at Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico. We discuss the advantages of this new instrumentation, various approaches to field data collection, and as well as our novel data processing and filtering methods, which collectively offer key methodological advances for archaeological investigations using drone-based lidar. Results reveal extensive remains of a vast system of terraces and stone-built field systems, preserved below the modern piñon-juniper-ponderosa forests of the Picuris Reservation and surrounding areas. These findings offer new perspectives on the scale and intensity of past agricultural activities in this highland region of the American Southwest, while demonstrating the power of combining multiple drone-based remote sensing datasets with detailed surface surveys to aid in the discovery, mapping, and interpretation of archaeological landscapes in forested regions. • Drone-based lidar and thermal survey at Picuris Pueblo reveals vast archaeological landscape. • We detail novel approaches to drone lidar data collection, processing, and visualization. • We offer new perspectives on the extent of agricultural landscape features. • Results raise questions about past subsistence and environment in the Southwest. • Results demonstrate the power of multi-sensor drone surveys in archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]