The Rio Grande Developmental Period (AD 500-1200) is generally defined as the period in which populations in the Rio Grande Valley transitioned from a seasonally mobile to a sedentary residential pattern, and from a hunter-gatherer based to an agriculturally based subsistence economy. Unlike their counterparts in the San Juan Basin, where residents lived in aboveground structures that often included ceremonial structures and storage rooms, Developmental Period residential sites have generally been defined as groupings of one to three pithouses with associated exterior storage pits, roasting pits, and hearths, and lacking ceremonial structures. Above ground structures are not seen until the Late Developmental Period (ca. AD 900-1200), and these are generally more common in the Northern Rio Grande (north of La Bajada Mesa) than in the Middle Rio Grande.
Recent and past excavations by the Office of Contract Archeology, University of New Mexico, in the Lower Jemez River Valley have resulted in significant changes to our interpretations of the Developmental Period in the Middle Rio Grande area. These excavations have revealed the presence of a complex site structure that includes palisade walls, ceremonial structures, and a formalized site layout surrounding a plaza-like area. This talk will present the Office of Contract Archeology’s recent research on these Developmental Period sites, and discuss some of the broader implications for interpretations of early Puebloan settlement in the Middle Rio Grande Valley.

Robin M. Cordero (BA, MA Anthropology, PhD candidate UNM) has 11 years experience in excavation, survey, analysis and reporting throughout northern California, and northern and central New Mexico. Mr. Cordero has been a Senior Archeologist with the Office of Contract Archeology, University of New Mexico since 2006, and has served as a Project Director, Field Director or Crew Chief on more than 25 survey and excavation projects throughout New Mexico. Mr. Cordero also is the resident zooarchaeologist and bioarchaeologist for OCA. His primary research interests are in bioarchaeology and zooarchaeology with emphases on the transition to agriculture and agricultural intensification, garden hunting and small game procurement, mortuary analysis and age status structure, and changes in habitual activity patterns. He is presently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology, UNM where he is conducting his dissertation research on the impacts of population aggregation on labor organization during the Rio Grande Classic Period.
7pm
Sandia Ranger Station, Tijeras