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Zooarchaeology of Mission Nuestra Señora del Pilar y Santiago de Cocóspera

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Abstract

Zooarchaeological research at Spanish colonial missions in the U.S.-Mexico border region indicates that cattle ranching formed the basis for economic colonialism in the region. Animal remains from Mission Nuestra Señora del Pilar y Santiago de Cocóspera add to this expanding body of research and demonstrate heterogeneity in mission economic strategies, particularly influenced by local ecology, and sociopolitical history. Located at a higher elevation, subjected to many years of livestock raiding, and rarely hosting a resident priest, the O’odham community at Mission Cocóspera continued to rely a great deal on the exploitation of wild game, even as they adopted cattle ranching.

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Acknowledgments

Gracias to the students of the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia who carried out the excavations at Missión Cocóspera under the supervision of Ana María Alvarez, César Villalobos, and Georgina Ibarra. The authors are grateful to the Arizona State Museum for providing access to collections, space, and other material support of this project. Dale Brenneman (Office of Ethnohistorical Research, Arizona State Museum), and Jordan Sly (McKeldin Library, University of Maryland) provided documentary research assistance. Our thanks to the late Bernard (Bunny) Fontana for his recollections regarding his research at Pimería Alta missions. His encouragement and good humor are greatly missed. Many thanks to Betsy Reitz for her feedback on an earlier draft of the manuscript. We are also very grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and kind comments on the manuscript—your time and advice are much appreciated. Thanks also to Alex Ruff for his gracious assistance in drafting Fig. 1. Finally, thank you to Nicole Mathwich, Deanna Grimstead, Ashley Blythe-Haverstock, Felicia (Coppola-Pavão) Murphy, and Marilyn Malone for their various contributions to this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Barnet Pavão-Zuckerman

  2. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico

    Júpiter Martínez-Ramírez

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  1. Barnet Pavão-Zuckerman
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  2. Júpiter Martínez-Ramírez
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Correspondence to Barnet Pavão-Zuckerman.

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Pavão-Zuckerman, B., Martínez-Ramírez, J. Zooarchaeology of Mission Nuestra Señora del Pilar y Santiago de Cocóspera. Int J Histor Archaeol 24, 456–482 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-019-00514-x

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