Macayo

"Located near the present-day town of Nogales, Arizona, El Macayo is one of the few prehistoric village sites in the upper Santa Cruz River valley of Arizona that has been systematically excavated. The site, which takes its name from an unusual military macaw burial, possessed pit structures, human burials, a wide variety of extramural pits, and a rich material culture. From these remnants, the authors have woven the tale of El Macayo as it evolved from a hamlet into a village around A.D. 750 and remained a major focus of settlement for this stretch of the Santa Cruz valley until 1150. Foragers and farmers sandwiched between the better-known Hohokam of the Salt-Gila and Tucson Basins to the north and Tricheras groups to the south, the inhabitants of El Macayo reflected a distinctive local adaptation. The authors have compiled information on the surrounding region to flesh out the lifeways of the inhabitants of El Macayo. The result is an important synthesis of the archaeology of the borderlands."--BOOK JACKET.