Many cultures have relied on driftwood as a resource, for building homes and fires, especially where other wood resources are scarce. But archaeologists have not investigated the possible extent of driftwood use by ancient cultures of the southwestern United States, until now. In a recent article in the journal Kiva, researchers report on the use of driftwood at Homol’ovi, a cluster of 14th-century Hopi villages along the Little Colorado River, near present-day Winslow, Arizona. Their findings not only document the first known reliance on driftwood by peoples of the Southwest, but point to many other implications for the archaeological record of the villages.From the Earthwatch Institute:Ancient Hopi Villages Built with Driftwood
Many cultures have relied on driftwood as a resource, for building homes and fires, especially where other wood resources are scarce. But archaeologists have not investigated the possible extent of driftwood use by ancient cultures of the southwestern United States, until now.
In a recent article in the journal Kiva, Dr. Charles Adams and Charla Hedberg (both of The University of Arizona) report on the use of driftwood at Homol’ovi, a cluster of 14th-century Hopi villages along the Little Colorado River, near present-day Winslow, Arizona. Their findings not only document the first known reliance on driftwood by peoples of the Southwest, but point to many other implications for the archaeological record of the villages.
“Homol’ovi people were using driftwood to construct their homes, rather than traveling 20 miles to get the wood,” said Adams, principal investigator of the Earthwatch-supported Hopi Ancestors project. Adams recognized the potential significance of driftwood when he found large driftwood piles near Homol’ovi I after a flood event in 1993. “I then realized that really large floods could introduce enormous quantities of wood to this part of the floodplain, far more than I had ever imagined.”
A total of 754 samples of wood were collected by Earthwatch teams from 134 structures at Homol’ovi sites. Adams and Hedberg found that the distribution of tree species used at Homol’ovi I parallels that of driftwood samples from the 1993 flood event, suggesting that driftwood was a major source of wood for village construction. For instance, 21 percent of the wood sampled from Homol’ovi I was ponderosa pine, which had to have been transported more than 60 kilometers from South.
Even more intriguing, Adams and Hedberg found that a valuable record of ancient flood events is preserved in the driftwood sampled from Homol’ovi sites. Tree-ring dating is often used to date the construction of ancient buildings, but data from the 1993 driftwood pile show that apparent dates may be skewed by 180 years or more. Instead, tree-ring dating of driftwood from Homol’ovi buildings resulted in date clusters representing historic flood events, a significant window into the ancient environment that shaped these Hopi villages.
“The establishment of the Homol’ovi villages may have been dependent on the presence of enough driftwood to construct their homes,” said Adams. “The timing of their occupation of the villages may correlate with a large driftwood-bearing flood.”
Earthwatch teams this year will continue to collect wood samples at the Homol’ovi site of Chevelon, providing more details of the ancient history of flood events and its impact on settlements along the Little Colorado River. The samples from Chevelon stand to be particularly instructive because part of the settlement burned, preserving many more wood samples as long-lasting charcoal.
“Chevelon is also closer to natural wood sources in Chevelon canyon, unlike the other Homol’ovi villages,” said Adams. “It will be interesting to see if the inhabitants used some of those living wood resources, especially early in the occupation, in addition to driftwood.”
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For more information, see E. Charles Adams and Charla Hedberg, “Driftwood Use at Homol’ovi and implications for interpreting the archaeological record.” Kiva 67:4 (2002)
For details on Homol’ovi, see Charles Adams’ recent book on this ancient Hopi site at http://www.earthwatch.org/pubaffairs/books.html.
For information on volunteering on the Hopi Ancestors project, click here