Trincheras tradition Sonora

Dark, isolated, volcanic hills dot the landscape of the Sonoran

desert. The prehistoric Trincheras Tradition inhabitants of

this arid region constructed villages and towns on terraces up

the slopes of many of these hills, and built ceremonial

structures on their summits. Today, archaeologists call these

sites cerros de trincheras. Since 1985, Elisa Villalpando of the

Instituto Nacional de Antroplogía e Historia and I have

collaborated to archaeological investigate these sites and the

people who built them. Our collaborative effort crosses the

border to involve Mexican and U.S. archaeologists as equal

partners in research. We have trained a cohort of U.S. and

Mexican students in this collaborative method and it has

become the standard for archaeology in Sonora. The project

has focused on cerros de trincheras, and between 1994 and

1996, we did a major excavation at Cerro de Trincheras, the

largest site of this type. In 2011, México made Cerro de

Trincheras a public Zona Arqueologica with a museum, staff

and interpretive trails. More recently we have worked at cerros

de trincheras in the Río Magdalena and in the Río Altar. We

have asked and answered questions concerning long range

interactions between Mesoamerica and the

Southwest/Northwest, how people lived in the Trincheras

landscape, the activity structure of cerros de trincheras, and the

role of warfare in prehistory.

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