AAHS Grants and Travel Awards for 2017 – Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society

back All Grants

In 2017 AAHS awarded a total of $8,500 to 15 applicants from 11 institutions. This included 3 research grants in the amount of $1000 each, 5 partial research grants for $500, 5 travel grants for $500, and 2 travel grants for $250. As they become available Research Reports resulting from these grants will be added under the grantee’s name.

Research Grants

John Carpenter (Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia-Sonora), $1000 to fund provenance data analysis on specific ceramic petrography of the Chihuahuan Polychromes sherds collected in the Sahuaripa region, Sonora, Mexico. The goal is to determine whether the Chihuahuan polychromes at Sahuaripa were produced locally or were obtained directly from the Paquimé nuclear area.

Elizabeth Eklund (graduate student, University of Arizona), $500 for an ethnohistoric study to examine canal irrigation in Banámichi, Sonora. The project focuses on insights from on-the-ground knowledge of how water flows through the community. The main techniques to be used to collect data combine the analysis of historical documents, oral histories, and ethnographic engagement with farmers and ranchers.

Samantha Fladd (graduate student, University of Arizona), $500 for her research project entitled “Assessing Social Relationships in Late Prehispanic Villages: The Digital Homol’ovi Project.” The research focuses on better understanding the various ways people modify their spatial setting and how these modifications express social identity and delineate social interactions during the late prehispanic period of the northern Southwest.

Michael Mathiowetz (Riverside Community College), $500 for his project entitled “Connecting the U.S. Southwest/Northern Mexico to West Mexico through Collaboration: UAV Remote Sensing and Mapping at Aztatlán Civic-Ceremonial Centers”. This project will perform UAV remote sensing and mapping of three Aztatlán civic-ceremonial centers in Nayarit, Mexico. This project will address the subject of prehispanic Mesoamerican and U.S. Southwestern interaction through generating detailed maps of major sites that will significantly advance our understanding of the role of west Mexico in Southwestern social dynamics.

Doug Mitchell (Archaeological Consulting Services, Phoenix), $1000 for excavations in the Puerto Penasco, Sonora, Mexico area and for two AMS 14C dates to be run by the University of Arizona radiocarbon laboratory. The Puerto Penasco Archaeology and Paleoenvironment Project is a continuation of research begun in the Puerto Penasco area in the late 1990s.

David Purcell (Museum of Northern Arizona), $500 for the remote photographic documentation of potential prehistoric astronomical markers in Wupatki National Monument. This project involves the use of time-lapse photography to document the movement of the sun across petrogyph panels throughout the year in order to determine differences in the way the sun illuminates the petroglyphs.

Claire Ralston (graduate student, University of Nevada, Las Vegas), $500 for her research project titled “The Belén Plaza Vieja Preservation Project: Excavation, Preservation, and Conservation of a Historic Genízaro Community.” This project consists of exploratory excavations at the site of Belén, New Mexico’s founding colonial mission church, plaza, and associated cemetery.

Laurie Webster (University of Arizona), $1000 to complete the survey and photo-documentation of 1700 archaeological textiles, baskets, wooden implements, hides, and other perishable artifacts at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. Dating to the Basketmaker (100 B.C.-700 A.D.) and Ancestral Pueblo (700-1300 A.D.) periods, the artifacts were collected recovered from dry caves in southeastern Utah between 1892 and 1897 by amateur archaeologists Richard Wetherill, Charles McLoyd, and Charles Cary Graham.

Travel Grants

Benjamin Bellorado (graduate student, University of Arizona), $500 for travel to the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver. He is presenting a paper titled: Sandals from the Center Place, Footprints on the Pots: Continuity and Change in Twined Sandal Tread Designs from Chaco, Aztec, and Beyond. To view report on this research Bellorado 2017 SAA Paper

Stefani Crabtree (Penn State University), $500 for travel to the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver. She is presenting a paper titled: Modeling Polity Growth among Ancestral Pueblo People in Mesa Verde. She is also a discussant in the session Modeling Agro-pastoralism in Eurasia.

Andrew Gilreath-Brown (graduate student, Washington State University), $250 for travel to the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver. He is presenting a paper titled: Looking Outward from the Village: The Effects of Soil Moisture on Prehistoric Cropland in the Central Mesa Verde Region.

Nicholas Kessler (graduate student, University of Arizona), $500 for travel to the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver. He is presenting a poster titled: Remotely Sensed Seasonal and Interannual Variability of Vegetation and Temperature Indices from Ancestral Pueblo fields in the lower Rio Chama basin, New Mexico, USA.

Jakob Sedig (Harvard University), $500 for travel to assess archaeological collections held by Patricia (Pat) Brunett. During the late 1960s-1970s, Pat’s deceased husband, Felice (Fel) Brunett, assisted James Fitting of Case Western University in archaeological explorations and excavations of sites in the upper Gila Valley of southwest New Mexico. Extensive field notes, maps, artifacts, and other materials from these research projects ended up in Fel’s possession; Fel passed away in December 2014. Pat now posses these materials, most of which are presently stored in an abandoned school near Fife Lake, Michigan owned by Pat Brunett. To view report on this research Fife Lake Archaeological Collections Report.

Danielle Soza (graduate student, University of Arizona), $250 for travel to the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver. She is presenting a poster titled: Clovis to San Pedro: Projectile Points and Land Use in the Southern Colorado Plateau

Michelle Turner (graduate student, Binghamton University), $500 for travel to the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver. She is presenting a paper titled: The Archaeology of Aztec North, coauthored with Ruth Van Dyke.