THE PATAYAN CULTURE

Chapters 5, "The Patayan", The Archaeology of Ancient Arizona.

Unfortunately, relatively little is known about the Patayan compared with the other major cultures of the Southwest. The Patayan occupied a huge area of Arizona west of the Agua Fria River, past the Colorado River into eastern Nevada and California. There are several reasons why the archaeological record of the Patayan is so poorly understood. One of the main problems is that the environment is so harsh that archaeologists do not want to do fieldwork there. Most Southwestern archaeologists favor the Central Mountains and Colorado Plateau, which stay relatively cool during the summer. Another reason is that there are not many remains to find. Most Patayan people were highly mobile and did not build large structures or accumulate numerous possessions. Many Patayan sites have also probably been destroyed by floods in the river valleys where some of them raised crops.

Two archaeologists are really responsible for most of what we know about the Patayan: Malcolm Rogers and Julian Hayden. Rogers is the archaeologist credited with first "discovering" the Patayan. He surveyed huge areas of the desert by foot, recording hundreds of sites. Rogers published a definition and chronology of the Patayan in 1945. A friend of Rogers, Hayden surveyed the Sierra Pinacate extensively and proposed that the Patayan were descended from an ancient people he called the "Amargosans." Unfortunately, his ideas have been largely dissmissed by mainstream archaeologists.

Given the lack of good archaeological evidence, the historically known Yuman Indians have been used as a model for the lifestyle of the Patayan. Using modern or historically known peoples in archaeology to understand prehistoric groups is called "ethnographic analogy." This can be misleading if not used carefully, but there is good reason to believe that the Yumans are the descendents of the Patayan. The ways that the Yumans have adapted to the same environment used by the Patayan can provide valuable clues about Patayan subsistence. The Yumans are divided into upland and lowland groups, based on the ecological zones they inhabit. People in the lowlands relied on farming along the Colorado and Gila Rivers, as well as fish, waterfowl, and mesquite. In the uplands, people did some farming, but relied more on wild plants such as agave and pinyon, and abundant game such as deer and antelope. Both the upland and the lowland Yumans remained highly mobile, and moved regularly to take advantage of seasonal resources. The ancient Patayan probably practiced similar upland and lowland subsistence strategies.

The material culture of the Patayan reflects their mobile lifestyle. Baskets were the main containers, but they also made pottery. The lowland Patayan made buff pottery from fine riverine clays, while the upland Patayan made course brown pottery. Ceramics were apparently not adopted until A.D. 700. In many ways, the Patayan represnt the survival of a lifestyle characteristic of the Archaic Period.

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