Patayan Tradition

The Patayan Tradition (AD875 to modern times). The name Patayan comes from the Yuman, "old people," used to describe ancient cultures that once flourished west of the Hohokam region and north to the vicinity of the Grand Canyon.

Patayan is a still an inadequately defined entity. Various alternative terms have been proposed, together with several much discussed cultural stages. This very broad-brushed, general developmental scheme masks a great deal of cultural variation, and is inadequate to describe such variation accurately, or to plot or evaluate the complex paths of culture change throughout the ancient Southwestern United States.

It was put together long before the advent of radiocarbon dating, and much of it developed while dendrochronology was still in its infancy. Nevertheless, the scheme is useful as a basic frame of reference. Generations of scholars have developed local chronological and cultural sequences under its umbrella.

Tree-ring and radiocarbon chronologies these frameworks have provided the basis for the much more sophisticated ecological, regional, and settlement studies that have been characteristic of Southwestern United States archeology in recent years. A combination of all of these approaches forms the portrait of the Southwestern United States past that follows.