SAS Webinar
“All bones great, small, and unidentifiable: analysis of faunal remains from Wallace Great House, Colorado”
by
Lucy Maun
Saturday, March 11, 2023
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM PT
As an outlier from Chaco Great House, Wallace Great House (5MT6970) in Cortez, Colorado has been excavated intermittently by the Wallace Ruin Project since 1969, and consistently since 2008. Dr. Bruce Bradley is the primary investigator. Recent excavations have uncovered a deposit of faunal remains and pottery in Room 62. These remains include large mammal bones, cervids, lagomorphs, and exotic species such as raptors and canines. Preliminary examination suggests that a large proportion of the bones were intentionally fractured. The unusual representation of species and butchery evidence may imply the deposit had a ritual use. This also coincides with site’s reuse for ritual purposes from AD 1180, after a period of disuse AD 1140-1180. Activity from this period, including Kiva 56 and Room 62, centered around a large Chaco kiva. Establishing a connection between the faunal deposit and the kivas could illuminate cultural aspects of Puebloan ritual life, such as feasting practices.

Lucy Maun is a graduate student at London’s Global University, UCL. She received her undergraduate degree at University of Exeter, UK. After graduation she worked with Exeter’s archaeology department as a research assistant and worked on assemblage material. She led a research project on the changing role of goats in the UK since their introduction in the Neolithic period. As part of this project she evaluated goat isotope data to test a hypothesis about whether carbon and nitrogen isotopes could show a geographical partition between populations. Lucy engaged in a research project to analyze the faunal remains from the Wallace Great House. SAS supported her research through a scholarship.