Patayan presence along the lower Gila River persisted until the 1830s, and even intensified over time. Regular and extensive social and economic connections are apparent in pottery distributions and in stunning similarities in petroglyph iconography around Patayan and Hohokam settlements. This placed them in close proximity to contemporaneous Colonial period (AD 750–950) Hohokam communities around present-day Gila Bend. For instance, Patayan communities settled along the lower Gila River, as far upstream as the Painted Rock Mountains, as early as Patayan I. Recent research is beginning to revise our understanding of the nature of Pataya and the timing of significant cultural changes. Patayan III (1500–1900) saw the coalescence of large populations near the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers and the continued movement of people up the lower Gila River. During Patayan II (1050–1500), this material culture spread outward to southern Nevada, western Arizona, and to the Salton Sea. Patayan I (AD 700–1050) witnessed the arrival of pottery-using agricultural communities along the Colorado River. The Patayan tradition is often divided into three phases. This has left surviving Patayan village sites overlooked and underappreciated. Moreover, at least as far as we know, and unlike most other late pre-contact Southwestern cultural traditions, these lowland Patayan farming communities did not create enduring works of public architecture. With residences tied so close to the floodplain, however, many of these ancestral villages have been eradicated by massive floods. Floodwater farming supported permanent villages of dozens to hundreds of people, as was witnessed among the Delta-Californian and River-Yuman speaking Kohuana, Halyikwamai, Xalychidom, Cocopah, Quechan, Mojave, and Piipaash at the time of contact with Europeans. Encampments were small and impermanent, and people did not accumulate much nonperishable material, on account of their mobile lifestyle.įor Patayan communities along major waterways such as the Gila and Colorado Rivers, settlements were quite stable and long-lived. In upland settings, Patayan communities were highly mobile and probably followed seasonal rounds, much like historical Pai groups. Another is the ephemeral nature of many remaining Patayan archaeological sites. One reason for this is the lack of research carried out in this rather remote frontier of western Arizona and southeastern California. Pataya remains one of the least-studied late pre-contact (contact with Europeans) cultural traditions in the American Southwest. This has led to considerable debate and confusion-what archaeologist Harold Colton called “the Patayan problem” 75 years ago. Nevertheless, archaeologists have long recognized regional variation, or “branches,” within the Patayan tradition based on differences in settlement patterns, ways of making a living (subsistence practices), and nuances in material culture (what people made and built). Interestingly, the spatial extent of Patayan material culture does map onto the historic distribution of the Yuman languages, which is why many believe this archaeological tradition is ancestral to historic and contemporary Yuman-speaking tribes. What makes Patayan material culture a unique archaeological pattern is a series of distinctive pottery forms and wares, specific motifs and embellishments in petroglyphs and pictographs, the creation and use of intaglios and geoglyphs, and a geographic focus on the lower Colorado River. Pataya (pah-tah-yáh) is a word of the Pai branch (Hualapai, Havasupai, Yavapai, and Paipai) of the Yuman-Cochimí language family that translates loosely as “old people.”Īs used by archaeologists, Pataya refers to a specific material culture spread throughout western Arizona, southern California, southern Nevada, and Baja California.
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