Sandal Types and Archaic Prehistory on the Colorado Plateau

Abstract

Perishable artifacts provide an alternative to projectile points for examining spatial patterns in Archaic material culture between northern and southern portions of the Colorado Plateau of the North American Southwest. This is so because they possess a potential great variety of specific construction and design attributes and can be directly dated to establish independent chronologies of development. The analysis and dating of a collection of warp-faced plain weave sandals from Chevelon Canyon, Arizona demonstrates the potential utility of perishable artifacts to our understanding of prehistory. The collection provides an important first sample of early Archaic footwear for the southern Colorado Plateau. AMS dating reveals that the oldest Chevelon Canyon sandal (8300 ± 60 B.P.) is 1,500 years earlier than the oldest directly dated sandal of this style on the northern Colorado Plateau. Most of the Chevelon Canyon sandals date from 7500 to 6000 cal. B.C., contemporaneous with open-twined sandals on the northern Colorado Plateau. This study provides another contrast in forager material culture between southern and northern portions of the plateau during the early Archaic, prior to ca. 5700 cal. B.C. After this time, the plain weave sandal style was adopted on the northern Colorado Plateau but not because of population replacement.