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A re-assessment of Basketmaker II cave 7: massacre site or cemetery context

Our ongoing investigation of early maize farming in the American Southwest has entailed stable isotope analysis and accelerator radiocarbon dating of Basketmaker II remains from sites in the Four Corners region. Here we report radiocarbon dates on a large mortuary assemblage excavated by Richard Wet...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of archaeological science 2012-07, Vol.39 (7), p.2220-2230
Main Authors: Coltrain, Joan Brenner, Janetski, Joel C., Lewis, Michael D.
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Our ongoing investigation of early maize farming in the American Southwest has entailed stable isotope analysis and accelerator radiocarbon dating of Basketmaker II remains from sites in the Four Corners region. Here we report radiocarbon dates on a large mortuary assemblage excavated by Richard Wetherill in 1893 from a burial cave in southeastern Utah. It has long been thought that all individuals interred in Cave 7 were massacred in a single violent attack given embedded projectiles and evidence for blunt force trauma. However, accelerator radiocarbon dates on purified bone collagen (n = 96) do not lend strong support to this argument, even among the subset of individuals with clear evidence for violent injuries. Moreover, nearly 80% of Cave 7 burials examined in the study show no evidence of perimortem trauma and no adult females or subadults under the age of 12 appear to have suffered violent deaths. Rather than an anomalous single-event massacre, the Cave 7 radiocarbon dataset suggests that raiding and intra-group, male/male violence was episodic among Basketmaker groups in southeastern Utah. Population densities were relatively high and individuals interred in Cave 7 and elsewhere in the region were heavily dependent on maize agriculture, a prehistoric economic strategy typically characterized by high amplitude fluctuations in productivity. Variability in the array of grave goods accompanying Cave 7 male burials and elsewhere suggests competitive social differentiation likely heightened during periods of resource shortfall leading to intra-group conflict, raiding and perhaps ritualized acts of violence. ► 96 Basketmaker II burials from Cave 7, SE Utah, were AMS dated. ► The dates indicate that burials did not result from a single-event massacre as previously thought. ► Nearly 80% of Cave 7 burials show no evidence for perimortem trauma. ► Rather that a single violent event, male/male violence was episodic among Basketmaker II groups likely initiated by competitive interaction and resource stress.
ISSN:0305-4403
1095-9238
DOI:10.1016/j.jas.2012.02.018